[Paul Hennell]

heh – In today’s more typical rainy English weather I took your idea and rather ran with it – ended up with this:

…Anyway was intending to explain the whole ‘fan’ thing..

Take your fan layer, and move it’s anchor point to where you want it to be. Add a null object above it called ‘FanControl’ and add to that an angle expression control called ‘Spread’.

Position the null in roughly the same place as the fan layers anchor point and parent the fan layer to the null. this just makes the fan easier to move about later.

Now Alt-click on the fan layer and add the following expression under rotation:


pos = index-1;
angle = -5;
if (thisComp.layer("FanControl").effect("Spread")("Angle") >pos*angle){
pos*angle;
}else{
thisComp.layer("FanControl").effect("Spread")("Angle")
}


This (in order) does the following;
Sets ‘pos’ as index – 1. Index is AE’s reference to the layer number – we’re subtracting 1 because our null is layer number 1.
Sets ‘angle’ as -5. This is the difference between each layers rotation value. -5 worked for me, but put what ever you like. (It’s ‘-‘ because that made it rotate in the right direction 😉 )

The next part checks the value of the ‘FanControl’ layers ‘Spread Angle’. If it is greater than it’s position number * the difference angle, it will set it’s rotation to whatever it’s pos*angle is. Otherwise it will set it’s rotation to whatever the Spread Angle is. Essentially we’ve set a maximum rotation value for each layer with a 5 degree difference between them. Each layer will follow Spread Angle until it gets larger than their maximum value, at which point they’ll stay put.

To get this all to work, duplicate the FanLayer a number of times, and change the spread angle. You might need to rotate the null, to get the fan on screen properly, but it looks pretty good.

Hopefully that all makes sense; it’s a good use of expressions (except it could probably be made ‘cleaner’) – if you’re interested in learning more expression stuff I can really recommend this book which manages to explain it all surprisingly well.

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk

[Paul Hennell]

That is awesome – added it as a panel in Vista/CS3, and works fine – much nicer way to find & run scripts!

Only problem is now I’ll have to remove the duplicated scripts from my original scripts folder, and some of the ones I use often into this!

Great work!

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk

[Paul Hennell]

It depends a little on what exactly you’re trying to do; Toolfarm appear to have a couple of tutorials on backgrounds, but I’d recommend searching for some Fractal Noise tutorials. The number of different styles of background you can create with just that (and a colour adding effect) is astounding. (Cell pattern is also a good starting point).

For a good start watch this fractal noise creative cow podcast.

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk

[Paul Hennell]

I don’t think there is a way to bring brush strokes across, however if you import it as a picture (Or comp with layers if the paths are quite close) you can use the normal paths above as a track matte to reveal the graphic below.

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk

[Paul Hennell]

Might not be exactly what you’re looking for here – but as an alternative to your particle soloution, and a replacement for ‘3D text hanging’ I’ve used this 3D text script before. Handy enough to be worth mentioning.

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk

[Paul Hennell]

I have this with the scrolly touchpad thing on my wacom tablet. Never found a solution I’m afraid; hopefully someone else can help us both out….

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk

[Paul Hennell]

You need to apply a mask to add feathering. Double click the rectangle tool to add a mask the same size as your footage, then feather away!

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk

[Paul Hennell]

You can also right click on font files and hit install.

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk

[Paul Hennell]

>How long it takes to render a video?

Afraid that’s an impossible to answer question. Use of 3D effects, particles, fractal noise (especially with lots of complexity), general noise/grain effects, size of comp, use of video layers etc etc all change how long the render time will take.

If really simple comps are taking a overly long time you might want to examine your settings (Google around for advice on what they should be given your set-up) but if it’s complex renders always take forever.

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk

[Paul Hennell]

I’m a little confused by the set up here – I’m assuming the top layer (hej.mov) is the man/screen footage and the second is the traffic, in which case your mask is on the footage layer which I think is what’s causing the problem.

For future reference it would have been better duplicate the traffic layer and masked in the bus on top or even masked out the screen on the traffic layer putting the screen footage behind. Either way would have kept the screen footage mask free which would have made things easier (Not to mention the bus version would probably be easier to mask!).

Still, if you select the top layer and pre-compose it (Layer>Pre-compose) leaving all attributes where they are, you’ll make a new ‘sub composition’ where the screen-footage should look normal. Add the TV effects to the footage inside this new comp, and they should be better contained by the mask. (I think – I haven’t actually managed to replicate your problem here – just decided this should fix it 😀 )

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
https://hennell-online.co.uk