Frustration trying to create a grid of glowing coloured squares. Agh!!!

[Jamie Hancock]

I am using AE 6.5 alongside Premiere Pro 1.5 and Photoshop CS/Illustrator CS. I have looked long and hard for an easier way to do this without pestering people on the Internet, but to no avail, which is why I have had to resort to this.

Apologies for the bump, if that is what this may be seen as, but any input would be appreciated.

Thanks again,

Jamie…..

[Jsloman]

Well, I’ll answer this in such a way that assumes you have a moderate knowledge of After Effects…If not, perhaps others will add to this or if not, you can just let me know what you have trouble with.

The only way I can really think of to achieve this effect would be to create a bunch of black solids the size you want your blocks to be.
Make all of the boxes 3D layers, create a camera, and zoom out. This will assist you in arranging them in the shape of a lip depending on the size of your blocks.
For the color alterations, apply a Hue/Saturation effect with the colorize box checked.
Bring the saturation up to 100 and the lightness to about 25 (depending on what shade of colors you are going for).
Then key the Hue to the desired speed you wish the colors to change.
Now key the camera fit the footage of the lips you have. Hope this helps. Let me know if you still have trouble.

Jared Loman – jtechproductions.com

[Jamie Hancock]

Cool, thanks for that.

I am kind of au fait with AE, but would like to clarify a couple of things, if that’s ok.

Firstly, this is being presented in a widescreen (PAL) format, as it is to be shown in several cinema’s aroud the UK, so what kind of size and arrangement would you suggest for the composition i.e a 10×10 square grid, or would this be something that would be a matter of seeing what looks best?

The lips will be appearing in the centre of the square of other blocks, so it’ll just be these blocks that I’d like to have settle into red, rather than just create the boxes in the shape of a lip, if you get what I mean. Would I be right in thinking that each 3d box should be a layer of it’s own over a background? Is there a quick way ot create 100 that you know of? Copy and paste, perhaps?

Finally, I have never created a camera in AE before. Is this a simple process?

Sorry for the bombardment of questions, but I’d like to be more sure of what I’m doing before I start messing about and getting it all wrong!

thanks again,

Jamie . . .

[Jsloman]

I really wouldn’t know what to tell you as far as the size and arrangment. I would imagine some thing rectangular would fit the widescreen proportions better. This is really up to you though. If nothing else, try both.

Each box would be it’s own layer if you wanted to have the colors appear in the most random way possible. However, if you aren’t all that concerned. do about 10 – 20 of them and precompose the selection of layers. Then duplicate the precomposed composition and arrange it to fit your needs. Also, precompose the selection of boxes that create the lip, do the same Hue/Sat effect, except stop the Hue loop on red.

Creating a camera is just as easy as creating a solid, go through the same process except choose camera. The camera will control all of the layers that have the 3D box active. This way, you don’t have to animate each box individually.

This could also be achieved by using photoshop to create the boxes if you thought that would be faster. You could then plug the still into the timeline few times and mask off areas to colorize.

I’m probably going to fall asleep soon, but I’d be happy to help through e-mail or IM, just send me your info if you’d like.

Jared Loman – jtechproductions.com

[Jamie Hancock]

That’s great, thanks again for your help.

I’m taking this info over to a colleagues house soon and we’ll have a go over there. Should I need more help, I’ll contact you again, if that’s still OK. I can’t find an email address here for you, but my yahoo and msn id’s can be found in my profile. Just send me a message with yours or whatever you want to do. I don’t use my hotmail account for e-mail, but I can send you my usual e-mail addy by messenger, or whatever.

cheers again, your input has been much appreciated

Jamie . . .

[Dwaynne]

From my limited knowledge of the workflow, I’d suggest doing the boxes in Photoshop and bringing the layers into AE as a comp and working on them there. It’ll offer a lot more flexibility, and I suspect, ease of processing/rendering.

There are a number of tutorials and how-tos with respect to formatting for diff resolutions on the Cow, which you can search for. Alternatively, there is a good tutorial on toolfarm that explains formatting stuff for NTSC TV, and I think the same woul dapply for this format as well.

I am an AE newbie, and apologise if I couldnt give you a more substantial answer, but i wasnt 100% clear about what you were trying to achieve so I could point you in a more precise direction.

DVV