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Shatter Parameters
Hello, everyone.
So, I’m trying to use the Shatter effect and – in short – it doesn’t work; it doesn’t shatter. I’ve tried fiddling around with almost every single parameter and I can’t get it to work. I see the wireframe map and I set keyframes at the initial unshattered settings. Then, I went ahead in the timeline and started messing around with all the parameters and cannot get the effect to work. Every tutorial I’ve found has the effect working perfectly as soon as they drop it onto the layer, so they all gloss right over the parameters you need to adjust to make it work. I don’t know why it doesn’t work that way for me. Maybe because they’re all using earlier version of the software; I don’t know.
PLEASE tell me what I’m doing wrong, because this doesn’t work at all for me. Thank you.
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21 Replies
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Shatter should just work with the default settings, no tweaking required. Can you post some screenshots of your entire UI so we can see what you see?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Update:
I still have no idea why it wouldn’t work at all before, but I got it to work by deleting the Shatter effect from the layer and trying again. Now, I’m struggling with the incomprehensible parameters. I want the head to shatter and come back together. I’ve kind of figured out what the Depth, Radius, and Strength do, but they don’t behave in any way that makes sense. Case in point:
Notice the Strength setting. That’s the only one I’m going to adjust through this whole thing. In this shot, I’ve set the Strength to 0.1 and it’s starting to shatter. Good. Now, without touching the Strength setting again, I’m gonna move my play head down to a second later.
At this point in the timeline, I’ve set the Strength to 0.0, but notice that the head is still in mid-shatter. Why? The Strength setting is only thing that’s different. At 0.0, the head should be unshattered, as it is here.
See how I’m on the same frame as the last picture, with the same 0.0 Strength setting? But in THIS picture, the head is unshattered. Why? It only stays shattered if I go to the earlier point in the first picture, turn the Strength up to 0.1, and then go back to the 00:57:00 mark. Again, I just want to animate the head shattering and coming back together, but when I set keyframes where it’s shattered, then keyframes where it’s UNshattered, and then go back to the shattered keyframes, it doesn’t work. The settings just stay stuck where they are. Any ideas what’s going on?Thank you VERY much.
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Some things to point out.
There are TWO forces on the plugin that you can control plus gravity. If you zero all out. It wont animate, though it will still be shattered. But in place.
Shatter is time dependant, the “shatter” happens at the layers in point. animating the strength parameter won’t make it unshatter. Its somehow counter intuitive at first, I know.
To do that you’ll have to precompose and reverse its time. Since you’ve got a take you probably will need to reverse the footage’s time, shatter, Precompose and reverse it back.
Cassius Marques
http://www.zapfilmes.com -
What is the second force for? I see it there to the right, but when I mess with the parameters, it doesn’t do anything.
“the “shatter happens at the layers in point”
Try that again? Layers in point?So if Strength isn’t the one I need to adjust, what IS? I’ll try your precomp suggestion, if I can get this thing to animate one way or the other. Thank you. ^_^
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Shatter is a simulation, built to go forward in time. The values of the forces matter at the moment of impact, then physics takes over. There is no explicit time control in Shatter; it uses the time of the layer. That’s why you must precomp and time-remap to affect Shatter’s time.
At the first frame of Shatter, you have the original, un-shattered image, split into pieces according to the shatter shape. Starting at the second frame, both of Shatter’s forces begin affecting the shattered pieces, from their position/depth, across their radius, according to their strength.
Think about each force as a wrecking ball smashing into brick wall. If you change the size of the wrecking ball after it hits the bricks, it will have no impact on the section it has already smashed. If you swing it back around into the wall after changing its size, the damage to the next section it hits will be less.
There’s a lot more information here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/simulation-effects.html#shatter_effectWalter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Aha. Thank you for clearing that up. I think it’s silly that you can’t just reverse the effect by switching the placement of the keyframes, but at least now I understand it better.
Having said that, I still can’t get the effect to animate at all. I can make it shatter at 0:00:56:03, but no amount of adjustments made to the same settings will make it shatter at 0:00:57:00. It won’t even do anything at 0:00:56:04. 0:00:56:03 is literally the only frame where I can get it to work. If this effect only works FORWARD in time (for whatever silly reason) why does it work at the first frame of the layer, but not in the middle?
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If you’re trying to delay the start of the Shatter effect on something, split the layer [link] where you want Shatter to start (and make sure to remove the Shatter effect from the first layer).
If that’s not it… screenshots, please. It’s a little hard to visualize exactly what you’re trying to do.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Yes, you can. Just keyframe the Depth parameter of whichever Force you’re using. That controls the position of the Force that is breaking the wall.
This may help you: Add a 3D camera to your comp (but don’t change the shatter layer to 3D). Switch the effect’s Camera System to Comp Camera, and the View of the effect to Wireframe+Forces. In the dropdowns below your canvas, select 2 Views Horizontal, and set one pane to Active Camera and the other to Left. You should now be able to see both a front and side view of the Shatter effect in 3D space.
Now, as you move the Depth parameter, notice that the blimp-shaped object moves through the wall. The moment of impact will be determined by the time that the Force object hits the wall. Because the default setting of the effect is to have the Force object already partway through the wall, the default setting results in an instant shatter. But if you keyframe the Force’s virtual position, you can control when the shatter happens.
I spent so, so much time with Brian Maffit’s Total Training videos back in the day, I don’t even want to think about it. But it paid off–it’s still relevant!
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True! Doesn’t have to be depth — it can be position, too. Swing it like a wrecking ball, as I described above.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
In the Shatter plugin, Position keyframes only affect X/Y position, while Depth is the Z direction. It dates back to before AE had real 2.5D capabilities 🙂
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