[Mike Clasby]

In the 3rd part of his series on Displacement maps, (only at Cow Podcast, not a tut yet, but coming soon, I’m sure):

Displacement Mapping Part 3
(11 min., 39 sec.) — February 17, 2006
https://media.libsyn.com/media/aftereffectscow/CC_Displacement_Part_3.m4v)

In the comp “water”, Aharon orients, then blends the text onto/into the sandy beach, this might do the trick for you.

Basically he used the “Add” Mode (he has white text, hence the Add) and dropped the transparency to 30%.
Fool around with the mode, one should help your illustration fall into the wall, and a nice little displacement of the wall (see Aharon’s tuts/Pod mentioned above, or click his head for a full listing), will make it seep into every crevice.

[Mike Clasby]

Here’s what I’d do.

Click on Dan Ebbert’s head at the top of the page:
(Welcome to the world of EXPRESSIONS)

Scroll down to Building a 3D Particle Generator

Download the aep, and read the section “more particle fun” (2/3 down the page).

Open the aep, open the comp “snow”… falling snowflakes.

Dan’s particles are 128×128 psd files but you can use almost anything. I made a quick arrow with the pen tool on a red Solid in it’s own comp.

Select all the snow psd’s and then take your arrow (a comp like above, a psd, a jpeg, etc0) from the project window and Alt+drag it onto the selected snow layers. You should have a screen of falling arrows, all a bit different.

If you don’t like all the variations of rotation, select on of your new arrow layers, “EE” reveals all the expressions in the layer, click on the “=” (equal signs)
for rotation and orientation, this will deactivate those expressions, and your arrows will be pointing in the direction they were created.

Hey, what about all those other arrows that are wrong/ Select and Delete them.

Now duplicate (Ctrl D) your only (and fixed) arrow layer as many times as you want arrows (thousands if you want, or until your machine chokes on arrows).

For other tweaking, read Dan excellent tuts.

You could do this with other Particle Systems, but this is a sweet solution for when you need some particle to do what Dan’s comps do. And it’s real 3D so you could fly a camera through your raining arrow storm.

Good luck.

[Mike Clasby]

Here’s what I’d do.

Click on Dan Ebbert’s head at the top of the page:
(Welcome to the world of EXPRESSIONS)

Scroll down to Building a 3D Particle Generator

Download the aep, and read the section “more particle fun” (2/3 down the page).

Open the aep, open the comp “snow”… falling snowflakes.

Dan’s particles are 128×128 psd files but you can use almost anything. I made a quick arrow with the pen tool on a red Solid in it’s own comp.

Select all the snow psd’s and then take your arrow (a comp like above, a psd, a jpeg, etc0) from the project window and Alt+drag it onto the selected snow layers. You should have a screen of falling arrows, all a bit different.

If you don’t like all the variations of rotation, select on of your new arrow layers, “EE” reveals all the expressions in the layer, click on the “=” (equal signs)
for rotation and orientation, this will deactivate those expressions, and your arrows will be pointing in the direction they were created.

Hey, what about all those other arrows that are wrong/ Select and Delete them.

Now duplicate (Ctrl D) your only (and fixed) arrow layer as many times as you want arrows (thousands if you want, or until your machine chokes on arrows).

For other tweaking, read Dan excellent tuts.

You could do this with other Particle Systems, but this is a sweet solution for when you need some particle to do what Dan’s comps do. And it’s real 3D so you could fly a camera through your raining arrow storm.

Good luck.

[Mike Clasby]

I didn’t realize he didn’t see the second keyframe for evolution of Fractal Noise, probably because you offset the layer 10 frames to the right to give yourself a little lead-in time, and it slid out of view. I realized it must have been there somewhere, otherwise no change possible, but I think he missed it.

Aharon, thanks for all the good stuff, will go look at the pod cast asap,
looking forward to your take on time displacement.

[Mike Clasby]

I didn’t realize he didn’t see the second keyframe for evolution of Fractal Noise, probably because you offset the layer 10 frames to the right to give yourself a little lead-in time, and it slid out of view. I realized it must have been there somewhere, otherwise no change possible, but I think he missed it.

Aharon, thanks for all the good stuff, will go look at the pod cast asap,
looking forward to your take on time displacement.

[Mike Clasby]

I just meant the “U” , “E”, and “EE” as a way to tear into a layer, to see what makes it tick.

Aharon’s effect is deceptively simple (no expression I can find)in that there aren’t a lot of keyframes (Fractal Noise), only evolution from 0 to 2 over 4 seconds (120 frames). He puts Spherize on that to give it the nice Global look (bounded by the Mask) and then Hue/Sat to get the colors and Saturation he wants, then Fast Blur to smooth things out. Not many keyframes or expressions here, just a smart combination of effects. There are also a few keyframes for Blur and Opacity.

It’s a little tricky looking at the Table comp in that the two Black Solid 1 layers can be confusing when you open the Effects palette to figure it out. Rename the second layer Black Solid 1b and then you can see the from tabs in the Palette, which is which. Drag the 1b out of the palette and you can see the Effects for both layers side-by-side. The only difference I see between the two is in the Fast Blur, being Vert&Horz in 1, and Vertical only in 1b (and the Blur going to 0 at frame 50, where the opacity drops to 30%). Also the Hue in 1b is blue vs purplish for 1.

I thinks it’s almost amazing that just the difference in Vert&Horz to Vert only gives those beautiful vertical bars that really sell the effect.

It’s the same Black Solid in the Precomp (that’s the displacement map in Table comp), except no Hue/Sat or Blur.

And by “E” on the Table layer you can see how the Displacement Map Effect was applied.

So there not a lot of keyframing here (just smart keyframing) and no expressions I see anywhere.

But it sure is nice when the tutorial authors give you an aep so you can break it down to see what makes it tick.

I don’t know what “SW ROTS movie” is. Is it something I should see, effects-wise?

[Mike Clasby]

I just meant the “U” , “E”, and “EE” as a way to tear into a layer, to see what makes it tick.

Aharon’s effect is deceptively simple (no expression I can find)in that there aren’t a lot of keyframes (Fractal Noise), only evolution from 0 to 2 over 4 seconds (120 frames). He puts Spherize on that to give it the nice Global look (bounded by the Mask) and then Hue/Sat to get the colors and Saturation he wants, then Fast Blur to smooth things out. Not many keyframes or expressions here, just a smart combination of effects. There are also a few keyframes for Blur and Opacity.

It’s a little tricky looking at the Table comp in that the two Black Solid 1 layers can be confusing when you open the Effects palette to figure it out. Rename the second layer Black Solid 1b and then you can see the from tabs in the Palette, which is which. Drag the 1b out of the palette and you can see the Effects for both layers side-by-side. The only difference I see between the two is in the Fast Blur, being Vert&Horz in 1, and Vertical only in 1b (and the Blur going to 0 at frame 50, where the opacity drops to 30%). Also the Hue in 1b is blue vs purplish for 1.

I thinks it’s almost amazing that just the difference in Vert&Horz to Vert only gives those beautiful vertical bars that really sell the effect.

It’s the same Black Solid in the Precomp (that’s the displacement map in Table comp), except no Hue/Sat or Blur.

And by “E” on the Table layer you can see how the Displacement Map Effect was applied.

So there not a lot of keyframing here (just smart keyframing) and no expressions I see anywhere.

But it sure is nice when the tutorial authors give you an aep so you can break it down to see what makes it tick.

I don’t know what “SW ROTS movie” is. Is it something I should see, effects-wise?

[Mike Clasby]

Good to see Novac found some local folks.

The best to New Orleans.

[Mike Clasby]

Try selecting the layer, then “U” reveals keyframes, maybe you missed some animation.

Alos “E” reveals effects, “EE” reveals expressions.

[Mike Clasby]

Try selecting the layer, then “U” reveals keyframes, maybe you missed some animation.

Alos “E” reveals effects, “EE” reveals expressions.