[Chaz Chester]

• It would be somewhat tedious, but you could achieve this by putting your text and some colored shapes or solids in a pre-comp, adding a small circular mask to the pre-comp itself, duplicating the layer and moving the mask to reveal different parts of the pre-comp’s contents, using a script to center the anchor points on all of the layers at once, converting them all to 3D layers, and then manually animating the position and rotations.
• I’ve seen people use scripts to create particle simulations, so there might be someone out there who could write one for this.
• It wouldn’t look the same, but you could achieve something similar to this by using the Shatter effect and reversing the result.
• Most 3D software, like Cinema 4D, would allow you to easily simulate falling circles like this.

[Chaz Chester]

Oh, and this site has some stock footage you can get just by creating a free account: https://vfx.productioncrate.com/

[Chaz Chester]

Another good one is Motion Array; you get access to unlimited downloads of footage, music, sfx, and After Effects projects for only $30 a month. Not all of the content is amazing, but for the price, it’s worth it.

[Chaz Chester]

Thank you, Tomas! I really appreciate it. I’ve been having success with some of the modifications I’ve been doing, but you’re right, I’m not up to speed on programming logic. Is there a good resource you would recommend for learning ExtendScript/Java?

[Chaz Chester]

Can anyone help me with this? I’m sorry if I’m being a pain, I just can’t seem to get this script to do what I need on my own.

[Chaz Chester]

I’m not sure if there’s a way to do that specifically, but separating your view of the main comp and pre-comps might be a solution.

In the composition window, click the lock on your tab to keep it from showing you other comps, then double-click on a pre-comp and it should open a second composition window. If it open as a tab in the same window, just drag it to the right trapezoid of the window. This makes it so your main comp stays open on the left, even when you’re viewing other comps. Then, in the timeline panel, open all of your pre-comps, navigate back to the tab for your main comp, and drag it to the left trapezoid of your timeline window to create a new panel group. This should make it so you always see you main comp on the left and all of your pre-comps on the right. Does that help?

[Chaz Chester]

You could create luma mattes for each shape by duplicating the comp and making the part you want to affect white while everything else is black. Then if you apply the luma mattes to some 2D solids with light sweeps on them, you should be able to control each sweep individually. If I’m understanding correctly, you’d need two duplicates and two 2D layers with light sweeps, one for the core and one for the extrusion.

[Chaz Chester]

Sorry, Tomas, I’m still a little lost. This is what I currently have. Could you show me where I’m messing up, please?

for (var i = 1; i <= app.project.numItems; i++)
var curItem = app.project.item(i);
if(curItem.typeName == “Composition”){
}
function ColoriseByType(comp){
app.beginUndoGroup(“Colorize By Type”); // Begin undo group
var layers = comp.selectedLayers; // Get selected layers
var colors = {‘none’: 0, ‘red’: 1, ‘yellow’: 2, ‘offwhite’: 3, ‘pink’: 4, ‘lavender’: 5, ‘peach’: 6, ‘audition’: 7, ‘blue’: 8,
‘green’: 9, ‘purple’: 10, ‘orange’: 11, ‘brown’: 12, ‘fuchsia’: 13, ‘cyan’: 14, ‘sandstone’: 15, ‘darkgreen’: 16}; // Label colors
var adjustmentlayer = colors[‘fuchsia’];
var avlayer = colors[‘cyan’];
var audiolayer = colors[‘audition’];
var cameralayer = colors[‘purple’];
var complayer = colors[‘sandstone’];
var guidelayer = colors[‘darkgreen’];
var lightlayer = colors[‘yellow’];
var nulllayer = colors[‘green’];
var shapelayer = colors[‘orange’];
var solidlayer = colors[‘blue’];
var textlayer = colors[‘red’];
if (layers != 0) { // If there is layer selection
for (var i = 0; i < layers.length; i++) { // Loop through layers
if (layers[i] instanceof AVLayer) { layers[i].label = avlayer; // If avlayer
if (!layers[i].hasVideo) { layers[i].label = audiolayer; } // If audio layer
if (layers[i].source.mainSource instanceof SolidSource) { layers[i].label = solidlayer; } // If solid layer
if (layers[i].nullLayer == true) { layers[i].label = nulllayer; } // If null layer
if (layers[i].adjustmentLayer == true) { layers[i].label = adjustmentlayer; } // If adjustment layer
if (layers[i].source instanceof CompItem) { layers[i].label = complayer; } // If composition layer
}
if (layers[i] instanceof ShapeLayer) { layers[i].label = shapelayer; } // If shape layer
if (layers[i] instanceof TextLayer) { layers[i].label = textlayer; } // If text layer
if (layers[i] instanceof CameraLayer) { layers[i].label = cameralayer; } // If camera layer
if (layers[i] instanceof LightLayer) { layers[i].label = lightlayer; } // If light layer
if (layers[i].guideLayer) { layers[i].label = guidelayer; } // If guide layer
}
} else { // If there is no layer selection
for (var i = 1; i <= comp.layers.length; i++) { // Iterate through layers
if (comp.layer(i) instanceof AVLayer) { comp.layer(i).label = avlayer; // If AVLayer
if (!comp.layer(i).hasVideo) { comp.layer(i).label = audiolayer; } // If audio layer
if (comp.layer(i).source.mainSource instanceof SolidSource) { comp.layer(i).label = solidlayer; } // If solid layer
if (comp.layer(i).nullLayer == true) { comp.layer(i).label = nulllayer; } // If null layer
if (comp.layer(i).adjustmentLayer == true) { comp.layer(i).label = adjustmentlayer; } // If adjustment layer
if (comp.layer(i).source instanceof CompItem) { comp.layer(i).label = complayer; } // If composition layer
}
if (comp.layer(i) instanceof ShapeLayer) { comp.layer(i).label = shapelayer; } // If shape layer
if (comp.layer(i) instanceof TextLayer) { comp.layer(i).label = textlayer; } // If text layer
if (comp.layer(i) instanceof CameraLayer) { comp.layer(i).label = cameralayer; } // If camera layer
if (comp.layer(i) instanceof LightLayer) { comp.layer(i).label = lightlayer; } // If light layer
if (comp.layer(i).guideLayer) { comp.layer(i).label = guidelayer; } // If guide layer
}
}
app.endUndoGroup(); // End undo group
}
ColoriseByType(); // Run the function

[Chaz Chester]

Hi, Thomas. Thank you for helping me with this. I’m getting an error that says “comp is undefined”. I’ve tried a few different ways and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. Could you show me how to add these lines to the script, please?

[Chaz Chester]

The thin stroke of green is probably aliasing from Change to Color. It’s the one big downside of the effect. You could try adding additional Change to Color effects, but the simplest solution might be an Inner Glow layer style; setting it to white with a normal blend mode should cover the edges of your object, hiding the green.