[Darby Edelen]

[Zach Youngblood] “Straight instead of Premultiplied in the Color settings?”

Yes, either render it with Straight Alpha or interpret the imported footage as Premultiplied.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Try increasing the Air Resistance value some and perhaps adding a little bit of Gravity. You can also make the particles increase in size over their life so that they are larger at the top of the plume.

Adding a second particle system would probably improve the look as well.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Can you share the Illustrator file in question or post some pictures to illustrate the problem?

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

I’d recommend using the Pathfinder to combine (Unite) the paths in Illustrator. You’ll want to make a copy of them first.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

The Sculpting features are not included in the Broadcast version of R15. They are only available in the Studio version.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

You can use the Lighten and Darken blend modes on your layers for Maximum and Minimum.

Averaging frames (Mean) would be a little more complicated. You’d first have to figure out how many layers you’re going to average together, then use an effect to reduce the intensity of the layers appropriately. For example, with 10 layers you’d need each layer to have 1/10th its original value. You could do this with a Levels effect by lowering the Output White to 1/10th its default value or with a Channel > Solid Composite effect with ‘Color’ set to Black, ‘Opacity’ set to 90% and ‘Blending Mode’ set to Multiply. Then you’d set all 10 layers to the ‘Add’ blend mode. So you’ve essentially added all 10 layers together and divided the result by 10 (averaging the colors).

If you’re working at 32bpc it’d be a little easier as you could ‘Add’ all the layers together and put a layer at the top of the stack set to the ‘Divide’ blend mode with a color value of 10 in R, G and B (for 10 layers).

There is no way to find the Median value of several layers in After Effects without a 3rd party plug-in. I believe Re:Vision Effects’ De:Noise plug-in allows you to perform a temporal Median operation but I think only across 3 frames from the same layer.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Is there a reason you’re set on using Hex values and the Fill effect?

I’d recommend using the Change To Color effect instead. I think it’ll accomplish exactly what you’re after. Set the ‘From’ color to Red and the ‘To’ color to whatever value you want.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

In addition to Walter’s suggestions I’d also add that the Out of Focus effect from Frischluft’s Lenscare plug-in (https://frischluft.com/lenscare/index.php) will allow you to use a custom blur kernel to great effect. Essentially you feed a simple lens element with chromatic aberration into the custom alternative iris and can get some great results.

There are even some real world kernels available here: https://www.nukepedia.com/gizmos/filter/lenskernelfft_v01

The closest you can get to real world chromatic aberration 🙂

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

You can cross multiply the two vectors to find the normal. Something like this given the 3 points that make up the vectors:


a = effect("A")("Layer");
b = effect("B")("Layer");
c = effect("C")("Layer");
v1 = a.toWorld(a.anchorPoint) - b.toWorld(b.anchorPoint);
v2 = a.toWorld(a.anchorPoint) - c.toWorld(c.anchorPoint);
lookAt(toWorld(anchorPoint), fromWorld(cross(v1, v2)));

A, B and C are Nulls in my example and this is applied to the Orientation property of another Null representing the normal. If you want the Null to always be centered between the vectors you could also use something like this on the position property:


a = effect("A")("Layer");
b = effect("B")("Layer");
c = effect("C")("Layer");
(a.toWorld(a.anchorPoint) + b.toWorld(b.anchorPoint) + c.toWorld(c.anchorPoint)) / 3;

All of the returned vectors are in world space, so if you want the Null to be parented you’d have to modify these to be in the layer space of the parent.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

[Brett Morris] “POI = target.position.valueAtTime(t);”

The first thing that jumps out at me is that “target” is an array (not a layer) so it shouldn’t have a “position” member.

POI = L.toWorld(L.anchorPoint, t);

I believe that should get you closer, but you’ll need to make sure that “L” indeed exists (as it resides in a try{} statement it may not). I’d recommend re-ordering your expression so that the try{} statement is after the variable declarations of tarActive, tOffset and t.

Then I’d replace this line in the try{} statement:

target = L.toWorld(L.anchorPoint);

With the above line:

POI = L.toWorld(L.anchorPoint, t);

Darby Edelen