[John Cuevas]

Yes, just change the camera system to “Comp camera”. The layer itself just can’t be a 3d layer.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
ThinkCK

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

You either have to use the camera controls within the shatter effect itself or change the Camera System to comp camera. Your layer can not have 3D enabled though or you get the 2d plane problem.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
ThinkCK

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Ximon is right on target with his advice. One thing I though, if you are really new to AE, you might want to think twice about taking on a project like this if you are unsure if you can pull it off. There are quite a few individual techniques you need to have mastered to make something like this work and if you don’t do it well, it’s your reputation.

Also, here’s a tutorial that demonstrates the technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZyopLhG3nk

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
ThinkCK

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[John Cuevas]

If it were me, I would duplicate your book layer and place it on top of the comp stack. Then I would mask the page that will constrain your silhouette animation. You may have to adjust your mask frame by frame, but it shouldn’t be to difficult as everything should be hard/straight lines. When that is done, place the “silhouette animation” below your masked page and change the it’s track matte(F4 will toggles between track mattes and layer switches) to “alpha matte”. Now the silhouette should be constrained to the page.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
ThinkCK

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

You might want to mention that for people at work, they probably should turn the volume down on their computers as there is some NSFW language in that video.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
ThinkCK

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

When you tried particular did you quit when it said custom particle size to large, cause that’s just a warning—one you can choose to ignore. I’ve created comps using particular and 100’s of large jpegs as particles and it worked fine for me.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
ThinkCK

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Lots of shape layers and repeaters, with glow added.

Andrew Devis has created a lot of tutorials on Shape Layers. That would be a good place to start if you aren’t familiar with all of the properties.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
ThinkCK

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Their is a plugin that does this, Plexus. And here’s a tutorial showing how to manually do the effect. Not sure about DOF with plexus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elHqinIm4RI

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
ThinkCK

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[John Cuevas]

You can always press “B” to set your work area to the time indicator, then press “.”(number keypad) to start RAM preview.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
ThinkCK

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Apply the auto traced layer over the layer you wish to subtract. Change the subtract layer’s track matte to “alpha inverted”. Select both layers and precompose(shift+cntl+C). Now you have a layer with a hole in it.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
ThinkCK

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.