[Mike Clasby]

Can you just make a firefly with a glowing tail (another layer parented to the body/wings) then flicker the opacity of the tail with a flicker expression, like Dan’s here:

https://www.motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/random-3.html

The expression is for a 3D light, but works fine for Opacity.

To get the basic firefly “rising from the ground”, keyframe the basic rise (position), to get that erratic movement of fireflies, you can add a wiggle (position of the body), with:

wiggle (1,30)

Change the Frequency (the 1) or the Amplitude (30) as needed.

Put expressions on by, Copying (Ctrl C) the expression, Alt-click the stopwatch (say Opacity), then Paste.

To get brighter bights and Whiter whites, for the tail, see Andrews tut on 32 bit, here:

EarthQuake with 32bpc

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html?id=33

Anyway, once you get the look you like, precomp the firefly, duplicate it as many times as you want fireflie and move them around so they start in different places.

[Mike Clasby]

Wow, I read that wrong, thought you wanted rounded joints.

Sorry ’bout that.

[Mike Clasby]

In any version before CS3 you can get nice rounded ends with Render>”Audio Waveform”.

Then don’t reference an Audio file (Audio Layer: None), then it won’t wiggle to audio.

Path: Choose your mask.

Display Options: Analog Lines.

Drop the Softness to zero if you want a nice sharp edge, and match the inner and outer colors if you want one solid color. All in all it’s very flexible.

If it’s not as smooth as it should be, up the number for “Displayed Samples”.

[Mike Clasby]

Also CC Lighburst and CC Light Rays.

But for a quickie volumetric I really like Blur and Sharpen>CC Radial Fast Blur. Put it on a duplicate of your text layer, move the “Center” as needed, then drop the Opacity of the layer.

To get a little shimmer (like in Shine) put a little wiggle on Center or Amount (Copy the expression, Alt-Click the stopwatch, Paste):

wiggle(2,4)

Change the Amplitude (the 2) or Frequency (the 4) as needed.

[Mike Clasby]

Are you saying Andrew had a baby? Very cool.

Here’s map stuff.

All Public Domain:

https://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/efs/categories.htm

https://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/data/Earth/

https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_detail.php?id=1438

https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/

This from Andrew’s Blog:

https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/features.html

[Mike Clasby]

Found it, ’twas under “Stop motion”:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/914982

The whole thread has several options. He was trying to make an image sequence.

[Mike Clasby]

There was another post not far back (2-3 weeks?) with a render option, but to get every 4th frame you can also

Layer>Enable Time Remapping and put this expression on Time Remapping (Copy the expression, Alt-click the Time Remapping Stopwatch and Paste):

n = 4;
n*time

But

[Mike Clasby]

Cool. Foam, not often used, but really great for some things.

I love the wobble for somethings, and youcan even controlthe flow with a gradient map.

Enjoy.

[Mike Clasby]

1) You can do it with something like CC Particle World, by dropping your image you want to be a particle into a comp the size of your final comp, name it something like “My Particle” then put that in your final comp.

To that layer add

CC Particle World
Particle Type:Textured Square
Birth Size: Crank it up until you see the whole image you have in the comp “My Particle”. Usually it’s cutoff, so you need to increase that Birth Size.

Now you should have custom particles.

2) Also, for true 3D, I really like Dan’s tut, “Building Your Own 3D Particle Generator “. here:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/ebberts_dan/particle_gen.php

Open any COMP, THEN Swap in your particle for Dan’s. Swap by Alt-Dragging your particle from the Project Window onto a selected layer in the timeline window. Then delete his others and Duplicate yours until you have as many as you want.

There are several types of simulations in the tut, great fun.

3) Foam Also lets you use custom Particles,

Foam (on a Solid, comp size)
View: Rendered
Rendering: Bubble Texture: User Defined
Bubble Texture layer: Choose you image layer (like the note you mentioned)

Foam is very cool for floating objects like bubbles and dust, Notes? you can even put reflections on the particles.

[Mike Clasby]

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 that pops up is very friendly, 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.