More control over Freeform?

Adobe After Effects

More control over Freeform?

Posted by Robert Hoisan on May 5, 2011 at 5:26 pm

Hey!

I have a surface (solid) with digieffects freeform applied and I’m trying to create a sort of boiling bubbles popping out in z space and back in. The mesh distortion controller doesn’t give me too many options except keyframing by hand but the fact is that i can’t figure it out how to make the bubbles to pop out and return randomly

Basically, if i distort a point of the grid how can i make it return to it’s original position , and then other and another one so on…

Does anyone know how i can have more control over this effect? Here is a pic of a rough example, i made a few distortions wrapping the grid in z space but I’m stuck at animating them.

Some advice will be more then welcome.

Thanks!

Robert Hoisan
Motion Graphics Artist

Chris Bobotis replied 15 years ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
3 Replies

Angie Taylor
May 7, 2011 at 12:40 pm

My advice would be to create a Displace Layer map to control the distortion rather then animating the mesh itself. You can do this using Fractal Noise filter. It’s not a straightforward process so easiest for you to study a tutorial on the subject if You’ve never done it before. There’s an excellent tutorial on this technique by the brilliant Mark Christiansen on Lynda.com;

https://www.lynda.com/After-Effects-CS5-tutorials/new-features/59958-2.html

Hope this helps 🙂

cheers,

Angie

Angie Taylor animation & illustration for television, film, web and devices

https://www.angietaylor.co.uk
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Robert Hoisan
May 7, 2011 at 5:38 pm

Great! Thanks a lot!

Robert Hoisan
Motion Graphics Artist
Chris Bobotis
May 19, 2011 at 8:30 pm

Thanks for chiming in Angie. And you are right… displacement maps are the way to go with the bundled version of FreeForm BUT “FreeForm Pro” offers a lot more control. We expose control points and tangents for use with expressions and trackers (amongst other things) one of the project files that ships with it was created by Dan Ebberts – in that project he manipulates controls points via expressions (very cool). Another project is the floating dice sample. This one is a flat plane that is folded into a dice shape then we use the built in “Generator” to replicate and animate with. Mylenium masterminded that one – very cool. Free project files (over a dozen now and counting) are available at: https://www.mettle.com/Products/FreeForm-Pro.php

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com

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