[Ken Latman]

Dan,

You are the best! Thanks so much!

Ken

[Ken Latman]

Steve,

This is helpful.
I will try experimenting that way. I was only using one gradient map for both properties. Tne null camera parenting is a little confusing.
Your fractal noise map, is this very complex or just looks like a basic cloud pattern? I might have tried going too complex with many overlays of the filter and moving n a direction of curtain that I have seen in other tutorials.
I’m just about trying anything and see if it sticks.
Your help is very much appriecated.
I will keep trying.

[Ken Latman]

Thanks Steve,

I did go to this tutorial. This start you off. There are other properities to Card Dance that the tutorial doesn’t go into. If there was more in depth, that would be great.

[Ken Latman]

Thanks for all your help. I need now to prepare all my graphics. These are some really good ideas. Thanks again.

[Ken Latman]

There was a long article in Cinefex Magazine when X2 came out on how they did it. I don’t remember all the details but I seem to recall that either Flame or Inferno was used in the process and several shots were taken of the actor doing the routine which were then composited against a tracked plate with no action.
Mylenium is correct, they did use a particle system. I remember the article reading that custom plug-ins had to be written to get the volumetric effect of the smoke or something.
See if you can find a back issue or purchase one.

[Ken Latman]

I’m a little confused on your suggestion.
Do I map particles using the Ephemerial property or persistant property. I don’t think this is the issue but, am I looking to map using angular velocity or gradient velocity?
I’m doing several tests I’m not get any any results other than just a flow of particles out of a source. Gravity doesn’t appear to be attracting to anything.
Please help.

[Ken Latman]

I’ve been thinking a doing a little sketching. What if instead of building a full bow I animate the strokes that form ribbons into loops and waves. Give like glimpses of how the thing is constructed and then end with a fully completed bow. Show abstracts of the process.
I guess what I’m thinking of is similar to how in MIB they didn’t show how the guy turned into a giant cockroach, but zoomed in a showed growing patterns and then revealed a giant cockroach.
I’ve prebuilt some forms in Illustrator and I could mask reveal them in AE to show a ribbon forming.
Any other toughts on Ribbons and Cockroaches welcomed.

[Ken Latman]

From messing around with Apple motion, it looked like something canned from that

[Ken Latman]

This is a great article. Thanks for defining fractal noise.

[Ken Latman]

Loading all the elements to Pro Animator seem very slow.If I launch Pro Animator as a stand alone application I can scroll pull downs, switch pallettes, move around the entire interface.
It seems when run as a plug-in though, I click on say a pull down and I get a stuttering effect, like all the window are still trying to load into memory. I usually switch applications a couple of times and then I get some change in the interface. This makes it very frustrating to use.