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Radio transmitter waves effect
Hello – I have tried searching for this one on the forum so my apologies if it has been covered previously and I’ve missed it. I was wondering how to create a radio waves effect in ‘Motion 3’. I’m using a simple vector graphic of a radio transmitter mast and I want add radio waves pulsing out from it.
I’ve tried a few things but I’m new to ‘Motion 3’ having moved to it from ‘After Effects CS3’ and I think I’m too unfamiliar with the naming, terms and procedures used in ‘Motion’. I’m posting out of desperation as I thought I would crack this but I’ve failed and I’m now close to the deadline for delivering the animation to my client and have realised I am totally lost. I am hoping someone will take pity upon me and enlighten me and if they do so I will be very grateful and owe them a wee dram.
Thanks – Ged Yeates, Isle of Lewis, Scotland.
Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman
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5 Replies
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What style are you looking for? I can think of two.
First would be three to six concentric arcs appear from the pulsing top of a tower and move in a direction and fade out as they get larger.
Second would be a series of concentric circles, again centered on the top of the tower that appear to grow outwards and then have a pulsing light or swelling of some sort to make it look like they are still in motion.
Provided I’ve covered your vision, here’s what I would do.
1 draw tower
2 draw an arc that fades on both ends
3 place arc next to tower on canvas
4 using the timeline below, pick a frame where I want this animation to start and move the arc to that frame
5 change the arc to a particle emitter
6 give the particle emitter the effect called “Throw”
7 set the HUD controls for Throw so that it’s just one arrow in the direction I want, and make it big enough to move the arc particles off the screen.
8 add the effect “fade in and out” to the arc particle emitter, move the HUD controls so it has only 3 frames to fade in and 35 frame to fade out.Now the only thing to do is adjust the particle emitter parameters in the Inspector panel (on the left) and make sure you’re getting a consistent number of particles emitted in a constant direction with a visually pleasing pulse to them.
If you were going to do the full circle bit, I would use the emitter, but just have the circles scale over life to something ridiculously big and do the rest basically the same. Although, if you have the tower on land you may want to duplicate just the land and put it above the circles in your layer order to mask out the circles as they hit the ground.
Hope this helps.
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Hello Kevin
A big thank you and I owe you that dram! Thanks for taking the time to give me the answer to my dilemma and for not scoffing at my lack of knowledge with ‘Motion 3’.
Very much appreciated – Ged Yeates – Isle of Lewis, Scotland.
Ged Yeates – Lighting Cameraman
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You’re very welcome!
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Great how to! I may do this just for fun… 😀
Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC“If God could do the tricks we can do, He’d be a happy Man.” – Peter O’Toole – “The Stuntman”
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Sweet and succinct.
I’d still rather use Radio Waves in AE but this is very cool.
bogiesan
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