[Darby Edelen]

Are you using Stroke on a non-continuously rasterized copy of the arrow layer or a solid? I’d recommend using it on a solid, that should help avoid the ragged edge look.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

[Daniel Futerman] “#1 still isn’t exactly what I’m trying to achieve, it’s a little to ‘wobbly’ if you understand what I mean? I need it to be more steady, but to always have a subtle ‘jumpy’ look. It’s hard to explain, but have a look at the first scene in the example (seconds 12-16~) – you see how the lines are never still and always have a slight motion to them? That’s more what I want to create.”

Part of this is a result of me giving you a messed up expression 🙂 The posterizeTime() call has to be first and I missed that in my rush to respond early in the morning, this should be better:

posterizeTime(12);
repeat = 1;
seed = time % repeat;
seedRandom(seed, true);
random(0,360);

Also you’ll probably want to use 2 instances of Turbulent Displace on the assets, one with a very large size and low amount and the other with a low size and slightly larger amount.

As for #2 my suggestion would be to add a white solid at the top in the Screen mode and apply a similar expression to its opacity, something like:

posterizeTime(12);
random(-10,5);

This is probably better not repeating every second so I removed that code. I’m setting the random value between -10 and 5 so that approximately 2/3 of the time the white solid’s opacity will be below 0% and it will not contribute any color. You could play with those values.

Then add some film damage scratches/fuzz using blend modes, a similar opacity expression and perhaps an expression to move the image to a new random location/orientation as well.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Color Difference and Keylight both work along similar principles and they both require that the screen color (the color to key) has large differences in the R, G and B components (hence a Green or Blue screen). White has almost no difference between the RGB components and doesn’t work well for color difference keyers.

I’d recommend using Extract (allows you to key based on brightness). Color Range should also work if you use it similarly to Extract (work from the brightness first).

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Effect > Channel > Shift Channels. Set Alpha to Full and Red, Green and Blue each to Alpha.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

You could try using the Transform effect after the Motion Tile. Link the Anchor Point and Position of the Transform effect to the Tile Center via expressions then use the Rotation of the Transform effect.

The problem with this as far as I can tell is that you’ll need a much larger texture than you would otherwise as if the texture rotates around a point near the edge of the texture you’ll end up rotating the texture out of view.

What kind of texture are you using?

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

[wyclef chron] “hmmm… that didn’t seem to work.”

Sorry, it seems I didn’t quite understand the problem. I’m still not quite sure the behavior you’d like to see but this should be closer:

seedRandom(index, true);
offset = random(0, 1);
holdTime = 2;
minVal = [0.2*thisComp.width, 0.2*thisComp.height];
maxVal = [0.4*thisComp.width, 0.8*thisComp.height];
seed = Math.floor((time + offset)/holdTime);
seedRandom(seed,true);
random(minVal,maxVal)

Each layer will still hold for 2 seconds but the updates of the random values will be offset by up to 1 second from one another.

Alternatively you can just generate a random number for the holdTime per layer:

seedRandom(index, true);
holdTime = random(1, 3);
minVal = [0.2*thisComp.width, 0.2*thisComp.height];
maxVal = [0.4*thisComp.width, 0.8*thisComp.height];
seed = Math.floor(time/holdTime);
seedRandom(seed,true);
random(minVal,maxVal)

Some layers will update more frequently than others with this method.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

When you apply the Stroke effect to a continuously rasterized layer the radius of the stroke is no longer relative to the layer’s transforms. That is to say that a radius of 50 pixels is now 50 pixels large in the composition no matter how much you scale or move the layer.

Try applying the stroke effect to a non-continuously rasterized solid layer above the continuously rasterized layer and using that as a track matte. You may need to do some work to align the stroke properly.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

[Sean Cramer] “Here’s one idea… if you can’t add vertices to a parametric shape on a Shape Layer, gray out the pen tool.”

But you can still add new free form paths to the shape layer so it would be inaccurate to gray out the pen tool.

I agree that there should be an easier method to go to a freeform path from a parametric one. Cinema 4D allows you to simple “Convert to Editable” which I think is the cleanest option.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

You have to paste it onto a new Path object. Don’t skip steps! 🙂

“add a new ‘path’ object to your shape layer and paste the path there”

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

What kind of asset is the arrow? Is the arrow head following the stroke all the way around or does it only appear at the end? Is it being continuously rasterized?

Darby Edelen