How to make teardrops run down an image

[Justin Productions]

[Chris Smith] “white brush onto black to create the map.”

Oh, I get it! My paint brush mov was with an Alpha. I just added a black Solid, precomped it, assigned it and it worked out perfectly. Didn’t know Displacement Map didn’t worked with Alpha channels.

Thx Chris.

Justin Productions
Tangerin01@hotmail.com
Adobe After Effects 6.0 Professional

[Mike Clasby]

OK, this is a little round-about, but it looks OK on the photo I’m using.
We’re going to make a stroke for the path of the tear and animate it, use Fractal Noise to give a nice pattern via Vector Blur to the stroke, then use these to make a Luma Matte and CC Glass for the reflections. There’s some precomping along the way.

First we make a path of the Trail of the Tear:

New Black Solid named “Stroke”(above face photo for reference)
Make path with Pen Tool (adjust to fit the Trail of Tears)
Stroke
White
Size- 3 to 5 or so
Paint Style- On Transparent
On the Same Solid Layer,

New Solid Right Below named “Fractal Noise”,
Add:
Fractal Noise
Fractal Type – Swirly
Noise Type – Spline
all to taste of course
Precomp this layer (so the fractal noise is rendered and available)
Turn off the Eyeball for the Fractal Noise Layer

Now To the “Stroke” Layer (1st one above):
Effect > Blur and Sharpen > Vector Blur
Vector Blur –
Natural at about 10
Map Softness 6
and the most important –
Vector Map – 1. Fractal Noise (that Fractal Noise layer we precomped)

You should have a white streak on a Black Background

Adjust the Stroke
End – Keyframe for 0% at beginning, then keyframe for 100% at end of tear movement. You might need to set keyframes as the tear moves to keep the leading stroke edge below it.

Precomp Those two layers: Stroke and the Fractal Noise Precomp.

We’re going to do like we did with the tear (sorta) so Dup your face layer.
and place it just below the Pre-comp (Stroke and fractal Precomp), then set the Face Layer as a Luma Matte.

That should give us the bit of face for the Trail of Tears.
To that Face layer apply CC Glass:
CC Glass
Bump Map- 1. PreComp 1
Property – Alpha
Softness1.5 (can use small negative numbers too)
Height – 1
Adjust until you get the reflections you want.

Tweak all to taste, and it all depends a lot on the Image, but I get a thin semi-shiny Tear Trail.
The Stroke Brush Size, The Vector Blur Type and Size and Softness, and the Glass choice all contribute, tweak away.
You might try lowering the opacity of the Face layer that used for the trail in case it’s too noticeable.

Hope that works for you.