[Paul Browning]

Arh I get it now.
I’ll give the pre-comp a try.

Thank you very much, you’ve saved me a terrible headache – LOL
Not sure I’m brave enough to try manual timing and animating, but I’ll have a play.

Thank you very very much !!!
~ Paul

[Paul Browning]

Hi
Thanks for your offer of help.

Using BCC Spline plug in for After Effects (CS5) on a Photoshop file.
When the shatter happens, it does just explode out as it one would expect. Instead the shatter explodes, but then gets cut off around the edges. I’ll include a screenshot.

You’ll see on the stage view the shatter effect, which looks like its in a box – see the straight edges.

So the question is two-fold:
How does one get rid of this square box constraint, and have the shatter look realistic by falling outside this box?
Is it possible to have the shatter peices remian on screen? Again in reality, a shattered box would have pieces lying around.

As you can tell, bit of a novice, and trying hard to get to grips with this amazing software.
I really am very grateful for your help and support.

~ Paul