creating and masking particles via adjustment layers

Adobe After Effects

creating and masking particles via adjustment layers

Posted by Chris Chamberlain on January 11, 2015 at 12:43 am

three layers, this is the layer order (top to bottom):

Adj Layer 2 – contains one mask, used to define extent of particles emitted in Adj Layer 1 – mask is clearly seen, but has no effect on lower layers. Setting to any mode and using inverted/non-inverted checkbox has abs no effect.

Adj Layer 1 – emits particles – working fine
plate – not in render, used only to position origin of particle emitter – working fine

Plate

as you can see in the attached pic, the rocket exhaust must appear to be behind the child’s head, therefore Im trying to simply mask out any particles which appear to be in front of the head.

Ive tried many settings, to no avail, using AE CS5.5 on my Mac.

Walter Soyka replied 11 years, 6 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
3 Replies

Walter Soyka
January 11, 2015 at 11:45 pm

Don’t do this with adjustment layers [link].

I’d just duplicate the footage above the particle layer and use a mask to reveal only the foreground objects.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
Chris Chamberlain
January 12, 2015 at 1:50 am

thank you Walter for your insight, much appreciated.

I didn’t adopt your solution, but would consider it for next time.

For anyone browsing this thread, I was able to render the particles as a separate animation, then bring that back in, and then used a mask effect then worked.

I believe the real reason why particles and its attendant mask, both sourcing within the same layer, cannot be done – may be done to technical insufficiency of the app itself. Perhaps a later version of AE can do this, but I can’t (yet) confirm this.

Warm regards,

Chris
Walter Soyka
January 12, 2015 at 5:09 am

[Chris Chamberlain] “I believe the real reason why particles and its attendant mask, both sourcing within the same layer, cannot be done – may be done to technical insufficiency of the app itself. Perhaps a later version of AE can do this, but I can’t (yet) confirm this.”

You’re right that you can’t do this all on a single layer, because the After Effects render pipeline processes masks before effects. In cases like this, you need to precompose.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]

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