[Graham Quince]

This is a tricky one. You could create or import a Möbius strip model into C4D Lite (which is included with your AE subscription). You can create a looping texture in After Effects and render this out, then use that as the texture for your Möbius strip. It’ll be a bit of trial and error to get the dimensions of your video right so it doesn’t stretch.

If the shot you’re after is not too fancy, maybe you can fake a Möbius strip with a combination of CC Ball Action to provide the twist and CC Cylinder or Sphere to wrap the text back onto itself.

(Auto-correct is putting the umlauts in)

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
https://shiveringcactus.wordpress.com/ – FX blog

[Graham Quince]

When you say isolate the effect only part of the frame, have you tried using either masks or having the effect pre-comped and then using masks? If it doesn’t like working with masks you could always put the masks on a layer above and use alpha mattes.

If you mean you only wanted working with the brightest part of the image, before the echo effect if you apply a levels effect you should be able to crank up the brightness of the bright spots and make everything else black

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
https://shiveringcactus.wordpress.com/ – FX blog

[Graham Quince]

I’m sorry, but that link appears broken for me.

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
https://shiveringcactus.wordpress.com/ – FX blog

[Graham Quince]

Does that model import? It looks like a .max file and element Can only take OBJ and C4D files. Have you converted it in C4D Lite and did it import correctly into that program? It might be the texture mapping from Max doesn’t conform to something element can read so if you can get the model working in C4D Lite with the texture intact and in the right place you should then be able to export it and then import into element.

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
https://shiveringcactus.wordpress.com/ – FX blog

[Graham Quince]

Would var localcomp = this.mycomp work?

Not used this in AE l, but when I code with JavaScript in web pages, each function is ‘closed’ and you need to use this. to view global variables.

Also return mycomp when send mycomp back to another function outside the current one.

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
https://shiveringcactus.wordpress.com/ – FX blog

[Graham Quince]

Hmm. I’m not too familiar with the fluid dynamics, but I wonder if it looks right except for the speed, could you try precomping the effect and use time remapping to have it go faster at the start then slow down when you need it too?

Might be easier than trying to tweak the physics of the simulation

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
https://shiveringcactus.wordpress.com/ – FX blog

[Graham Quince]

Yikes, ignore my autocorrects. I was talking about Obscuration layers in Particular. Which now that I’ve seen your Gifs was the wrong thing to suggest.

You’ve rendered out a 3D animation from Houdini. You should now treat that as a 2D video that happens to have camera tracking. So, just like with a live action video, you don’t need to place this in 3D space, instead you need to have 3D effects interact with it. You have a 3D camera and you have Particular which responds to the 3D camera, but now you need to tell Particular that some particles need to be obscured depending on proximity to the camera.

Easiest way to do that is to have Houdini render out a Z-Depth pass. This tutorial should cover it: https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/learn-how-to-render-and-composite-z-depth-in-houdini/

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
https://shiveringcactus.wordpress.com/ – FX blog

[Graham Quince]

Digital cameras have their sensors arranged in a pattern known as the Bayer Filter, this provides twice as many green sensors as blur and red ones. So if you’re trying to get the most information into your keying software, shooting with green screen will get you the best result.

RGB because those are the sensors in the camera. Every other colour is a mix of one of those.

Film was found to be able to be most responsive to blue when developing, so blue screens could be turned black while other colours could be made white. This allowed film makers to generate mattes they could then use to cut out the blue backgrounds.

Captain Disillusion does a brilliant, humorous video explaining at lot of this stuff: https://youtu.be/aO3JgPUJ6iQ

To answer your question though – you can indeed use any colour for your keying. Strong, even lighting is often more important. Strong/bright gets more information into the camera, Even to prevent different shades.

If you’re shooting on a smart phone or tablet, check out the Mavis camera app as it includes a Vector Graph so you adjust your camera before shooting.

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
https://shiveringcactus.wordpress.com/ – FX blog

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[Graham Quince]

Have you tried an obscurantism layer in Particular? That’s designed to limpet you put footage in the middle of your particles.

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
https://shiveringcactus.wordpress.com/ – FX blog

[Graham Quince]

To explain a little about how AE’s 3D space works, you can have different layers interacting with each other in 3D space – but these layers are all 2D though they are able to have a z-depth position – hence 2.5D.

3D effects like Element, Orb, CC Particle World can all interact with AE’s camera in 3D space, but each effect is still being applied to a 2D layer. So while they respond to 3D positioning, they are in their own 3D space. To get your Element rings to intersect your Orb planet, you need to “fake” that interaction.

Element has it’s own 3D space, so adding Saturn into that effect (as another group) would let Element sort the intersection out for you. The alternative is to use World Position Matte with duplicates of Element, one above the Orb layer for the front particles, and one below Orb for the back particles.

If you were to use Cinema4D, every thing would be in one, true 3D space – but even using C4D Lite, it would still be a 3D effect on a 2D layer.

http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
https://shiveringcactus.wordpress.com/ – FX blog