Need advice doing this effect, what am i doing wrong?

[Reynolds Strother]

Two things you could try.

1. If the prob is depth of field, set your focal distance to line up with your point of interest. This way you know what the camera is looking at and focused on. Apply this expression to the point of interest property for the camera…

length(camera,pointOfInterest)

Then create a new null object to control the cameras point of interest. Name it “POI Control”. Put this expression on the point of interest property for your camera…

thisComp.layer(“POI Control”).position

Now you can easily control where the camera looks and focuses. This is when you can adjust the aperture and blur level to what looks best.

2. If is and issue with using the particular effect and your comp settings, render elements separately and merge them later. Build the comp with all the elements together, text, cameras, the particular and so on. When you like your animations, camera moves, and particular elements, render them without the text. Then create a duplicate comp so you can alter how the text is looking with the depth of field. This is when I like to make slight changes to how the camera sees the text. (blur level, aperture, color, effects, kerning and spelling). When your text is looking good, render it out with alpha transparency to be merged with your other render. I do this because the text needs some T.L.C. so it can look nice and legible.

I’ve played around with this tutorial in the past, but only to get that look with Particular, so no specific advice for text in your situation.

[Eric Mcleery]

Ya see i’ve tried adjusting the focus point, but by tme the text is actually in focus the desired effect from particular is no longer showing.. I cant figure this out

[Reynolds Strother]

I’m sorry, up above in my first example of what to do. I told you the wrong place to put the expression. I said place it on the cameras point of interest and that is wrong. Place it on the cameras focal distance.

Again this forces the camera to focus on what it’s looking at, the POI (point of interest). Put the POI on the text not the particle emitter. Remember that Particular is a 3D plug-in. That means it is just a 2D layer with the “3D looking” particle displayed on it. This means that the 3D text cannot interact with it as it appears in 3D space. (Even though the particle seems like it behind the text, the “stringy particle arms” could be closer to the camera that the text is. Therefore the particle and text interaction can be misleading when arranging them in the comp. The real spatial relationship between the particle and the text is depending on where the EMITTER is placed in relation to the text. This could be your depth of field problem.

Remember that AE is not true 3D. It is 2D planes distributed in 3D space. Volumetric shapes are only illusions in AE. Plug-ins like Particular help project 3D renderings into AE but how they look is not how they are. Think of Particular as being a movie projector shooting the image of a 3D object onto a flat plane.

I love AE and it’s pseudo 3D abilities. I love that people create incredible plug-ins to help AE users get their 3D fix. People judge AE too hard when it comes to 3D, those guys need to look at what they’ve got. AE is one of the most crucial and powerful tools in the world of graphics. It’s always blowing my mind what people can do with it. Using AE to it’s full potential comes from thinking around and beyond what AE (as well as its plugins) can do on the surface.

All I’m saying is keep an open mind to what is happening in your AE projects. AE doesn’t think like humans in unique situations, and it never will. Especially in 3D situations. It’s the users who can think alongside the program who know what they can manipulate and exploit to get AE to pump out incredible motion gfx.

I write too much in the mornings.