-
Random layer overlay for old film effect
Hi there,
I am currently working on a project re-creating an old silent film. A large part of this is creating the dialogue cards.I know there’s a bunch of filters for this purpose (I’m using parts of Magic Bullet for grain etc) but unfortunately there is a surviving titles for this film that client was insistent on the new dialogue cards matching – including the gunk and bits of fluff from the originals.
The existing stuff has very particular type of damage, which I’ve been able to re-create to an extent using illustrator and Photoshop but there’s now over 100+ dialogue cards in the script, and I reeeeeeally don’t want to place these individually throughout each title card.
Here’s the question: Any ideas/scripts/plugins on how I could do this randomly? I’m thinking throw all the grit layers into one comp, then drop that comp into each dialogue comp and have some sort of script that selects a random layer from the ‘grit’ comp and displays it for a couple of frames. It would be great to be able to specify interval too.
I know this is a bit of a stretch… so appreciate any ideas people have.
Cheers,
Will -
4 Replies
-
Sounds like a particle system on a separate layer would be the way to go. Basically do what you were saying and put the grit into a comp, but instead of doing full frames just do say… 20 frames of a 100×100 comp with a different individual grit element on each frame. Then use that as the source for your particles.
Particular would probably be the easiest to do, but I think CC Particle World can do this too. In Particular, for a 1920×1080 frame, I’d use a box emitter that’s 1920x1080x0, velocity 0, and a particle life of 1 frame (the life of the particles is usually measured in seconds, so you’ll have to do some math to figure out what it would be – at 30fps it’s .0333). Put your 100×100 comp into your title card comp, make it invisible, and set Particular to use that comp as the texture for the particles. Set the sampling to “Random – Still Frame” and you will get a bunch of grit and junk appearing on your title card, and it should be different every frame. Then just change the rate of emission to get more or less grit on each frame.
Good luck!
Steve————
Steve Renard
Media Director, Cicada Design Inc.
and Freelance Know-it-all
647-406-7991
srenard@cicadadesign.ca
http://www.cicadadesign.ca -
Hi Steve, that’s a great idea! Thanks, I just gave it a quick test and it work a treat!
I will rest well tonight in the knowledge that I won’t be manually positioning frames over all these dialogue comps.
One question – Particular gives you a warning if the source comp is over 500px wide, then it doesn’t seem to work – does that mean it just won’t support a comp over 100px? No big deal, I can work around it but I have some particularly wide scratches that I was going to use. -
[Will Barry] “One question – Particular gives you a warning if the source comp is over 500px wide, then it doesn’t seem to work – does that mean it just won’t support a comp over 100px?”
Particular can certainly use large layer sizes. It throws that warning because a lot large particles needs a ton of RAM and affects performance. If you need the large layer, use it — just be aware of the performance penalty.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
OK thanks for the info Walter, I will keep that in mind. I might have one variation that uses the larger stuff as a seperate effect to use only now and then, to save on render time.
Cheers,
Will
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up