[Mike Park]

To answer some of your questions,
I used Particular to generate the thick bands of light and another layer of Particular to generate the smaller particles. I used Trapcode lux to generate the front “flare” and animated the whole thing with trig functions and slider expression controls. It is actually simple in concept, but quite a few layers to pull off. The logo is a solid layer with masks and layer blending effects. I also used Trapcode Shine to ramp up the glows.

[Mike Park]

If I were doing this effect, I would shoot a clean bg plate and then cut out each element. Next, I would reassemble them inside a 3d program like 3d max and use 3d particles for accurate shadowing. I think you will not get as realistic a result inside AFX, even with particle plugins like Particular. This effect has been done many times before in 3d max. Finally, I would import the 3d particles into AFX and animate the reflections on the floor to correspond to the disintegration of the elements.

Hope that helps

[Mike Park]

I actually had messed around with this look before using Particular and came up with this:
https://www.mediafire.com/?n401ymjnz5d
It is not exactly like the one on TNT, but I think looks pretty good. I used nothing more than an image from the web, built in AFX tools, and trapcode’s Particular and Shine.

Is this what you were asking.

[Mike Park]

email me at park_mike@yahoo.com

[Mike Park]

I dont know exactly how TNT did it, but you can do a pretty good approximation using Trapcode Particular.

[Mike Park]

If I understand you correctly, you want a 2d layer to appear to be either on top or below the 3d layer, but not have it in 3d space. Basically, mirror the x,y movement of the 3d layer with no z translation. It is really not that easy. The problem is perspective. You cannot simply take the x,y position of the 3d layer as the change in z value will change the perception of x,y position of the center of the 3d layer on a flat plane. You could do some unit vector calculations, but that would only move the 2d layer on the same vector from the viewing point to the 3d layer, not match the screen coordinates of the 3d layer. To do what you want will require a calculation of the change in xyz space of the 3d layer and build in an offset in 2d space of the 2d layer for the change in z space of the 3d layer. Basically, you must compensate for the change in perspective of the 3d layer.

Somewhat easy to conceptualize, a little more difficult to pull off. However, if anyone can, it will be the prior poster, the expression master, Mr. LaRonde.

Wish I could be more help. Sorry if I made your head hurt. Actually, I am sorry I made my head hurt.

Best of luck

PS, you may be better off precomposing the 3d layer and motion tracking to a null, then parenting your 2d layer.

[Mike Park]

The easiest way is to deinterlace your original footage and then not worry about this. There are tutorials on this site which will show you how to do this.

Best of luck

[Mike Park]

there are a bunch of ways to create this effect from using displacement and blur to using particle systems. Typically particle systems create smoke from text, and people then reverse the footage and play it backwards to make the smoke create the text. AFX’s built in particle systems can be used as well as Trapcode Particular. I believe there is a tutorial in the Cow’s AFX tutorial section called text to smoke which should get you started.

Best of luck

[Mike Park]

I am not quite sure what you are asking. If you are shooting at 4000 fps and then slowing that down to 25 fps, you are making 1 second of original footage last 160 seconds. It is a simple mathematical computation. If you want to know when something will occur 30 seconds into the slowed down footage, all you need to do is figure out how many frames 25*30 is, which is 750 and then divide that by your shooting fps of 4000, which will tell you that your event will occur .1875 seconds into shooting. Not sure your fingers are quick enough to be accurate.

I may have misunderstood your question, but that is how I read it.

Best of luck

[Mike Park]

You need to keep the same distance between keyframes as original to maintain original speed. So, if you move one keyframe in the middle towards the start to speed up the first part of the footage, you need to move the end keyframe with the middle keyframe to maintain the distance and speed. Otherwise, you are slowing down the end footage by increasing the distance (time) between the middle and end so there is less footage and more time and the footage slows down.

Best of luck