Darby Edelen
Forum Replies Created
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Sorry I was away for the weekend… Okay, so I’m not really sorry, but I didn’t get a chance to update my .AEP this weekend, I’ll work on it this week when I’m not busy with work (fat chance) and hopefully have something to send you by the end of the week.
I have some ideas for refining the effect that I’ll include.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
I helped one of my colleagues achieve an effect very similar to this for a DVD menu he was working on.
As long as the liquid stands out from the background in one color channel it shouldn’t be too tough to matte it.
In our case we were working with blood on a face, so we ended up pulling a matte from the green color channel by shifting the channels, applying levels to darken the blood and lighten the face (there was more green in the face than in the blood) and inverting the result. When the footage isn’t shot with this technique in mind it requires some garbage matting in order to get rid of some of the noise in the background. The result was quite stunning.
I’m guessing that they did something similar for the Gatorade commercials, only since they knew that this was how they would accomplish it they could’ve used a liquid that was intense in a particular color channel (maybe green or blue) while shooting.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[corillo181] ”
is there any way to animate z-position?”Yes, keyframe the position of a 3D layer, move forward some in the timeline and keyframe a new position with a different Z value.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Here’s something I put together with some spare time today:
It’s not very polished but it gives you a good sense of what you can accomplish with a particle system following the bullets. If I have a little more time at work next week maybe I’ll add some secondary distortion, I can send you the AEP as well if you like (which might take some time as I should write up some notes to explain what I did).
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Trapcode’s Particular would be a great way to accomplish this. If your bullets are freezing then the hardest part would be making sure that the perspective on them looks correct, other than that you can create a particle system using Particular that emits pulses of rings, animate the emitter (you could use a light) and then use that as the basis for an adjustment layer with a displacement map.
There are a lot of details that you’d have to figure out for yourself, I may look at doing this myself in a bit but until then this should be a decent foundation to begin from.
Other options include using Wave World to create the distortion, but having this line up properly with the bullet will be somewhat difficult.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[QueJet] “I can’t simply tell where I’m getting my media from to export in a different format.”
So I’m guessing you’re not working with an external program that’s dumping PNGs but that you’re actually getting them from a source entirely removed from yourself?
If you’re forced to work with PNGs then I’d first look to see if what you want to accomplish is feasible in AE. I don’t know the specifics of what you’re trying to do, but there are definitely ways to get at the alpha and modify it in AE. Ranging from the simple (Channels > Alpha Levels) to the complex.
Otherwise you could export your PNG (or PNG sequence) out of AE to a different format with an alpha that Photoshop can edit. Try adding the sequence or image (use save frame as) to the render queue and setting it to Photoshop Sequence, or TIFF sequence, or Targa Sequence. Then in format options make it Straight (Unmatted) and export RGB+Alpha.
These files will look strange in Photoshop as the alpha won’t be interpreted as transparency, but you’ll have your editable alpha channel in the channels tab. If you want to preview the transparency as it will appear in another program (AE for example) you can make a selection based on the alpha (ctrl/cmd click) duplicate your background and use Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection.
These are workarounds, ideally you wouldn’t be limited to PNG-24. Remember your adjustments to the alpha will be limited by the amount of information in the RGB channels.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[Anti_M] ”
This is the correct syntax:thisComp.layer(index-1).transform.rotation.value_at_time(time-thisComp.layer(“Dragon Control”).effect(“Rotation Control”)(“Slider”))
Thanks for getting me on the right track.”
That’s correct if you’re referencing a 2D layer, I thought it was 3D based on your first post… Sorry for misleading you into the right answer (;
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
This is a 3D layer you’re referencing right? Make sure that the layer above the layer with the expression is a 3D layer.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[draken182] “i would also add some blur , glow then drop opacity”
Good suggestions, depending on the look you’re going for you could also add some large blurry plasma/dust particles to emit from the layer.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
I would say that RAM will give you the biggest immediately recognizable performance boost as AE will have to go to your Hard Drive (the weakest link in this chain) less often. I like to think of RAM as the limit to your highest achievable performance. Even if you have a fast processor, if you don’t have the RAM its performance is wasted with paging files/virtual memory on your hard drive.
This, of course, depends on how RAM intensive your application/project is, but AE tends to be a memory hog.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA