Darby Edelen
Forum Replies Created
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Is that Photoshop v4.0 or Photoshop CS4? If it’s v4.0 then some of the suggestions I would make may not apply or may be named/located differently.
For placing your friend in front of your legs you have a couple of options. The best one would probably be to duplicate the image you’re placing yourself into and then mask it so that the friend(s) that would be in front of you are the only things visible on the duplicate layer. Then place the image of yourself in between this top masked duplicate and the bottom source image. This route gives you the flexibility of being able to re-position the image of yourself without having to change any masks.
Here’s some more information on masks:
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/masking-layers.html
For the color correction the CS versions of Photoshop include a Match Color function:
https://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-765aa.html
If you are running an older version then the Levels adjustment can be used to match colors manually but the process is more involved.
Darby Edelen
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Dan’s solution is, of course, more elegant 🙂
Darby Edelen
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After Effects does not have persistent memory for expressions. The entire expression is evaluated on each frame without regard for previous or next frames.
You can do this but it requires that you not only check the current frame but every previous frame as well. Also I believe you need to force the string objects into numbers:
t = timeToFrames(time);
max = 0;
for(x = 0; x <= t; x++){
crSpeed = thisComp.layer("speed").text.sourceText.valueAtTime(framesToTime(x)) * 1;
if (crSpeed > max) max = crSpeed;
}
max;
Darby Edelen
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[Kevin Camin] “I think there is a bug in C4D. You need to align your planes to a +Z orientation in the parameter settings. Then you can rotate them into whatever orientation you need. This should fix everything.”
It’s been a while since I’ve used the External Compositing tag, but I believe Kevin is right.
Essentially AE will only see the Axis data of the object that you’ve applied the External Compositing tag to. Since solids in After Effects always face down their Z-axis Kevin’s suggestion for using a Z+ orientation will work for primitive planes.
If you’re working with a polygon object you’ll want to rotate the Axis (Enable Axis modification, then use the rotate tool) to match the orientation that After Effects will force on the imported solid/null.
As a fix for your current setup in After Effecs you can duplicate the solids that AE imported, parent the duplicates to the original imports, remove all keyframes from the duplicates and then rotate them 90° on either the X or Y axis (the axis you need to rotate on may vary). Hopefully that will work 🙂
Darby Edelen
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There is a field labeled “Side” in the Texture tag. This defaults to Both. If you set it to Front then the material will only render on the side that the normal is pointing from, if you set it to Back it will only render on the side the normal is pointing away from.
Darby Edelen
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Are you using any effects that expand the boundaries of the layer? Examples would be CC RepeTile or Motion Tile.
If not you might want to double check the resolution of the layers you’re using.
Darby Edelen
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I came up with a work around.
If I render my multi-pass image with Caustics enabled and then render again with only the Atmopshere component and Caustics disabled I can use the ‘Subtract’ blend mode in either Photoshop or After Effects to remove the regular volumetric lighting effect and end up with only the volume caustics.
I’ve tested this and it works really well. I just wish a second render wasn’t necessary.
Darby Edelen
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Sure, there’s a file upload function on the COW. Click the button that looks like a floppy disk above the new message text. After uploading you’ll get a link that you can paste into the message body.
Darby Edelen
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[Brian Jones] “In that case I think it should go in Atmosphere because it’s a continuation of the volumetric light not caustics (which is the bright spot of light on objects behind (or in front depending) of the objects causing the caustics)”
I believe you’re describing what C4D refers to as Surface Caustics (those that appear on surfaces). I’m trying to work with Volumetric Caustics. It makes sense that these would appear in the Atmosphere layer, but it’s also frustrating that there doesn’t appear to be an option to separate the volumetric lighting effect from the volume caustics.
I was hoping there might be a work around to treat these two elements (volume lighting vs. volume caustics) differently in the compositing stage.
-D
Darby Edelen
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What are your Composition Settings (cmd/ctrl-k)? If your composition is using non-square pixels then things may appear to squish/stretch if you don’t have PAR Preview enabled.
Another possibility if you have a complex parent/child hierarchy may be one of your objects (or nulls) is not uniformly scaled. Check the scale properties of your layers.
Darby Edelen