[Mike Clasby]

I’d give a look at Shadow/Highlight, under Effect>Adjust in AE6.5, but probably elsewhere in a newer version. This is very powerful, and the same or very similar to the PhotoShop filter, and beyond me, but a search for the PhotoShop use of this will probably help.

Or, Curves.

[Mike Clasby]

There are a couple of ways they use “cut in pieces” effect. And Dave is right, MK12 is doing Advanced stuff here, but to cut them up, use whatever program your most comfortable with; PhotoShop has many more Selection Tools and if that’s what you know, cutup duplicate layers there then Import as a composition, or use the good old Pen Tool in AE on Duplicate layers.

But, if you want to throw yourself into the deep end of the pool, strap on your water wings, here goes.

1) I especially like the bands of background scenery that slides by at different rates (near the beginning), probably using Posterize Time to get different fps on duplicates of the same/similar footage, very nice.

2) Here is a nifty expression setup from Dan to displace pieces of a cutup frame, like in your MK12 example, where the pieces are scattered then assemble into a whole.

First you need to start with the whole, and with a camera move, disassemble it.

For Dan’s nifty setup, See this thread:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/892532

And Dan’s answer, specifically, the 5th one down. Follow his instructions to the letter and you’ll have that magical MK12 effect of a cutup picture appearing as one piece from a specific spot, then fracturing when you move the camera.

First you need to cutup you picture. as many layers as pieces. PhotoShop and Import, or in AE.

If you don’t know how to add a slider set at 100 for all layers, select one layer, Effects>Expression Controls< Slider control, set the slider to 100, then in the Effect's Palette Window, select and copy the slider, and then paste onto the other layers. For adding expressions, do it to one layer first. Reveal the property you want to apply the expression to (P for position, S for scale), Copy the expression (one at a time) Alt-Click the stopwatch (let's say Position), then Paste. To give the expression to many layers at once, select that expression on the one layer, Edit>Copy Expression Only, then Paste that onto as many other layers as you want.

This is a very powerful expression, and to make things easier in the future you can save the setup as a preset. First select one layer, UU reveals anything changed in that layer. Select the Slider Control, the Position expression and the Scale expression, then, Animation>Save Animation Preset. name it something like “DansAmazingMK12cutout”.

So for any new project, select all the layers that are cutout, and Animation Apply Animation Preset (select ” “DansAmazingMK12cutout”). Done. Well. all the cutout layers you applied it to will have the same slider value, so E on all layers and change the sliders to taste.

OK, to finish the effect like in the MK12 example you showed, set a camera keyframe at the beginning, then down the timeline, change the camera position (I’m thing the Orbit Camera Tool, “C” on a selected camera, cycles thru the Camera Tools) so you get a radical change and the pieces of the cutup whole fly apart. Ok, to reverse the effect, parts coming into a Whole, just grab that first Camera position keyframe and drag it to the right, to the otherside of that 2nd keyframe you set, and now the object will start in pieces and reassemble itself into a whole picture.

Magic, methinks.

There is other stuff going on, that MK12 knows their way around an AE Camera in AE 3D land, but this should keep you busy.

[Mike Clasby]

I found the no-creeping version for when you have an initial x velocity (thanks to the cow for tuning up the Search engine). If you change the last line of Dan’s to this:

[position[0] + Vx0*(-Math.pow(2,-time) +1), floor – y]

Then you put the second line to have an initial x velocity, like this:

Vx0 = 300; // initial x velocity (pixels/second)

And you text is positioned at the top left of the screen, or just off-screen left, then you will get text that flies in from the left and bounces, skidding to a stop. Change the first line to give it y velocity makes it jump up and left before bouncing.

Anyway the whole expression might look like this:

For Position:

Vy0 = 800; //initial y velocity (pixels/second)
Vx0 = 450; // initial x velocity (pixels/second)
g = 2500; // gravity (pixels/second/second)
floor = 400;
e = .85; //elasticity

b = floor – position[1];
h = b + Vy0*Vy0/(2*g);
T = Vy0/g + Math.sqrt(2*h/g);

if (time < T){ y = Vy0*time - g*time*time/2 + b; }else{ Vy = -(Vy0 - g*T); while (true){ Vy *= e; t = T; T += 2*Vy/g; if (time < T){ t = time - t; y = Vy*t - g*t*t/2; break; }else if (T - t < thisComp.frameDuration){ y = 0; break; } } } [position[0] + Vx0*(-Math.pow(2,-time) +1), floor - y] For Scale: Vy0 = 800; //initial y velocity (pixels/second) Vx0 = 450; // initial x velocity (pixels/second) g = 2500; // gravity (pixels/second/second) floor = 400; e = .85; //elasticity d = .02; //squash factor spd= 10; //speed of squash oscillation decay= 10.0; //how fast squash slows down b = floor - position.valueAtTime(0)[1]; h = b + Vy0*Vy0/(2*g); T = Vy0/g + Math.sqrt(2*h/g); if (time < T){ x = scale[0]; y = scale[1]; }else{ Vy = -(Vy0 - g*T); while (true){ max_dev = e*Vy*d; Vy *= e; t = T; T += 2*Vy/g; if (time < T){ t = time - t; x=scale[0]+max_dev*Math.cos(spd*(t))/Math.exp(decay*t); y=scale[0]*scale[1]/x; break; }else if (T - t < thisComp.frameDuration){ x = scale[0]; y = scale[1]; break; } } } [x,y] With these two expressions. if you started the text's initial position as just off-screen left, halfway up, then it will bounce on and stop in about the middle of the screen, with the floor at 400.

[Mike Clasby]

If you aint got the Bucks for Lux, here’s a freebie, but I don’t think I will really do what you want, cutting the beam od light off with Pillars, I too think Maltaannon’s is the best shot, and also Lux doesn’t work on 3D layers as far as I know.

https://www.petertorpey.com/tutorials/volume_light/

Click on the link at the bottom of the page, the second to last sentence is the “Download the script” link. Put the .jsx file into the AE Scripts Folder. You add a light of choice (I

[Mike Clasby]

I Can’t see the pics, I get little red X’s. Here’s a tut:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/lindeboom_kathlyn/whipped_cream.php

What was you question relating to 3D Position expression? Do you want a spiral path expression?

[Mike Clasby]

I love those expressions, but for me I get a little jump at the end (slider time and marker, respectively) to maybe 5-6 frames ahead of where it would normally be if the loop were running normally.

[Mike Clasby]

There are probably several ways but I think if you bicycle involves Parenting and that loop expression, here’s what I’d do:

1) Convert the Loop Expression to Keyframe
2) Split and de-parent the children

1) EE reveals expressions, select the property with the loop expression, Animation>Keyframes Assistant>Convert Expression to Keyframes. Now select the now keyframed loop, where you want the bike to fall apart, Right Click> Select Following keyframes, then delete them (OK< maybe you should have gone one frame forward first, as you might be deleting a frame before you want to). 2) Now Select and Split the Child layers (Edit>Split Layer) and then on the continuing child layer (created above each child), change the Parenting to NONE.

Set Position keyframes for all there, then a few frames later, change position for them to fly apart.

maybe there’s a better way, but this will work.

[Mike Clasby]

There are two scripts that do what you want.

1) Here’s a Script. It works as good as the track you get:

https://del.icio.us/escruz/Rotoscope

Download, then copy/move the jsx file RotAE.jsx to AE’s Script Folder, then open AE.

Select the layer with the Mask, File>Run Script>RotAE.jsx. Then select the Mask again, and in the control panel that popped up, hit “Apply Tracker”, and you’ll have as many track points as you have mask vertices.

Run you Motion Track. The mask will be as good as the motion track so you may have to adjust points by frame like you mentioned in Aharon’s tut.

Now twirl down the layer, select the Tracker 1 (above the mask points) and also select the Mask, then up in the Script’s Control panel, click ” Apply Mask”. You should be good to go.

You can still move individual mask points if the track wasn’t great, or adjust the bezier handles as needed, as the script just set mask Shape keyframes at each frame.

2) There is another script, “rotoTool”, I haven’t really used it yet, but his stuff is great. Here’s the script:

https://www.nabscripts.com/Downloads/downloads_en_3.php?id=1

His site is French and some of the scripts a low on translation, but the Help “?” in the script panel for this particular script is English, and looks very straightforward, yet versatile. It converts tracks to masks, or reverses tat converting masks to tracks.

Lots of other interesting scripts there too.

[Mike Clasby]

Alternatively you can distribute layers along a path with expressions, Dan does it here with his pages on Trails:

https://www.motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/follow-the-leader.html

[Mike Clasby]

Here are examples of using Corner Pin, the first two are for using perspective corner pin with tracker points for sign and monitor replacement.

Keep motion in perspective

https://studio.adobe.com/us/tips/tip.jsp?p=1&id=100241&xml=aft65cornerpin

Using the new Motion Tracker

https://studio.adobe.com/us/tips/tip.jsp?p=1&id=487&xml=aft6ttmotiontracker

Dan uses corner pin here to simulate stretching a 2D layer by four 3D hands, nifty stuff:

https://www.motionscript.com/design-guide/threeD-corner-pin.html