when would you use dancing dissolve mode

[Navarro Parker]

It was made back in the day when Macromedia Director had a similar transition. It was a 8-bit graphics cheat that was like a dissolve.

Maybe if you wanted to replicate a cheesy 90’s videogame with full motion video? An Animated GIF? Something purposely bad and PowerPointy? Or you are doing special effects for Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

[Walter Soyka]

Mark Christiansen explains [link]:

“After Effects includes 34 blending modes, each created with a specific purpose — although no one is quite sure in what context Dancing Dissolve was ever useful (and I’m only half joking).”

Personally, I rely on the Dissolve blend mode as a visual indicator that I’ve accidentally pressed Shift-+ (the keystroke to change to the next blend mode) on what was supposed to be a normal-blending layer. Insert rimshot here.

In all seriousness, I suppose that Dissolve/Dancing Dissolve could have been useful for faking blends with extremely shallow color depths or limited palettes (think Nintendo or old-school CGA/EGA/VGA PC graphics). I don’t think I’ve ever used them myself.

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Walter Soyka] “In all seriousness, I suppose that Dissolve/Dancing Dissolve could have been useful for faking blends with extremely shallow color depths or limited palettes”

Replying to myself, the reason I say this is because the result color for each pixel of a layer with Dissolve/Dancing Dissolve will be either its own color or the underlying color. It will never generate a new color, so you can be assured that the result color must fall in bounds with the sources.

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

[Tom Daigon]

Walters talking to himself again. 😀

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Walter Soyka]

[Tom Daigon] “Walters talking to himself again. :D”

You would have thought some time off for the holidays would have helped sort that out, right?

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

[Tom Daigon]

😀

Hey, you going to NAB this year?

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Walter Soyka]

[Tom Daigon] “Hey, you going to NAB this year?”

I’m planning to attend, but I haven’t booked anything yet.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

If anyone can tell us how they’ve used Dancing Dissolve, we’d love to know about it. (In other words, we don’t know, either.)

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[John Cuevas]

Does it count if I used it in a tutorial(on the different blending modes)?

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[Tylor Larson]

I’m so glad i started this thread… i always thought it was the a pointless color mode. with that said i would love to challenge the AE pros on this forum to find a use for it… it might even lead to something really cool… who knows.

TY