[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Add an adjustment layer above all the footage layers and apply the Lumetri effect to it.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Yes, that is expected, and is the down side in using a layer emitter. The entire layer is used as an emitter, but particles get their original settings from the layer, so transparent parts produce transparent particles. On that count, if you know the maximum area the particles will be visible in, you can possibly make a solid that only covers that area for your Particular layer. Never actually tried it, but I believe it could work. (The emitter comp dimensions may or may not need to be adjusted to match the dimensions of the Particular solid.)

I would personally render each Particular pass separately and combine the outputs in another comp. That’s usually faster than running multiple Particulars at the same time.

—

Now, it would be possible to get a similar end result with a light emitter for every piano key with a pixel-sampling expression to determine whether the key is being pressed or not, but in my experience that is just as slow to render, since you have 64 keys to deal with here, so that would involve 64 pixel sampling expressions running in each frame.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Lines will not join if the paths are in different groups. Make sure they are on the same layer, not grouped and not turned into a compound object. “Ungroup” and “release compound object” are two separate commands, which you need to do until the commands grey out, meaning you can’t do them any further. In some odd cases you may need to actually select and cut the object out of a group and paste it in place outside the group to get it to ungroup, although that is more the case with files generated outside of Illustrator and imported into it.

There’s a “file upload” button above the message text edit field, the last button on the far right. Once you’ve uploaded a file, you get a link to the file, which you need to copy and paste into the message text field in order for others to see it in the message context.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

What do you mean by “animated start and end position” on the same keyframe?

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Since the inner rectangle is the one moving, you should need just four nulls, parented to the rectangle. Keep one end of the beam effect at the appropriate corner of the larger rectangle. You will likely need the following expression to convert the parented null’s position to world coordinates for the position of other end of the beam. Change null layer name to reflect the actual names of you corner nulls for each beam.

L = thisComp.layer("null 1");
L.toWorld(L.anchorPoint)

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Quite likely you don’t need Keylight to do this, you can probably use one of the RGB channels in the piano roll footage and get a cleaner black and white output of the notes from it.

I had to animate the still image, so you need to take out the position keyframes after replacing with video. I don’t know if it works directly, the still image is not the same resolution nor dimensions as the comp, so you may need to adjust accordingly.

The important thing is to end up with a slice of the piano roll right above the keyboard, white pieces over transparent, that way you can use it as the emitter for both Particular and Optical Flares.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Well, it’s a template and says “Applications Supported: After Effects”…

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

You could skip CC Cylinder and do a mesh warp instead. A quick test, just eyeballing it.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Here’s a dummy project using your still image as source. I don’t have the latest version of Particular, but this should translate over nonetheless. If you don’t have Optical Flares, turn that layer off. If you do, that gives you the light glow as the keys are being played. If you get a “missing footage file” in the project, that is the still image of the piano roll you uploaded, just use that.

12803_pianorolldummyproject.aep.zip

Looks like this (shortened version)

12804_pianoroll.mp4.zip

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Ok, in that case it makes even more sense to do it in the fashion I described, as you can then use the result in Particular as a layer emitter. I’ll put a dummy project together for you, that’s easier than a long-winded explanation.

Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer