[Tom J]

Hi there,
Since I believe AE 5 or 5.5 there are some options for supporting 3D files, ie. rpf or rla files, and the usual separate passes or channels that one would work with when compositing a scene.

In your Effects list under 3D Channel / there is ID Matte (it supports Material ID and Object ID) based on scenes or passes rendered out into .rpf or .rla sequences with certain data attached at time of rendering. I used this quite some time ago when manipulating a 3D scene that I imported into AE and used the Object ID channel (which I believe is set to as default) and used Shatter to destroy certain objects in the scene based on the object ID that I chose. I even used this method to separate each object into foreground and background elements.

It’s been a while so forgive me, but I even recall using the Material Id’s to apply certain effects to just those ID’s chosen (maybe you can load bitmaps into those material ID’s, I don’t know). Of course Invigorator from Zaxwerks is definitely a possibility.

Now I know you want to UVW in AE and my description doesn’t necessarily follow that, however I just wanted to point out that you can use both Material and Object ID’s in your filter stack just as long as you render a sequence with that data embedded in the files to be read later on.

Hope this helps, and I’m sure someone here can pitch in and maybe take my option further… :>)

My .02
Tom

[Tom J]

Not a prob, passing on the knowledge is always a good thing in my book…

Tom

[Tom J]

Hi there,
You will probably have to animated the rain drops manually to get things to look just right. For a concept on a project that I was working on a while back, I’ve done this before with the rain on top of a photo I took on an England bike path in the woods and it looked okay, not too bad. For some quick depth perception I added a tree in the foreground. The final cut looked 1000 times better after some serious work (including animated clouds and shadows from the clouds). But you should get the idea. To be honest I basically created the rain with particles in 3D and then animated a fractal noise layer (for the rain drops) over a mask on the path itself and worked with the transfer modes for this concept.

You can see it here for now, it’s about 8.5mb so please be patient for the download.

https://www.visualseparation.com/temp/path_and_rain_sm.mov

You may be able to do this with Caustics and waveworld (reflections, and raindrop displacement respectively).

If it’s just certain areas of the road or perhaps just the surface of the road like a skin over the top of it. For starters I would use two layers, one as your background plate (just the road perhaps), and the other with a mask cutting out the road from other elements in the scene. Then fill that mask with a color like a really light grey (175,175,175) or whatever color that suits the scene and mess around with the transfer modes to produce a wet look, and then create a fractal noise layer on top of that and adjust accordingly to create the rain drops (animate over time).

Another way to work with a water surface is to use the plugins from Digital Anarchy here:
https://www.digitalanarchy.com/section/section_ae-nature.html

Or to learn about Caustics and Waveworld, read Jim Tierney’s tut here at the cow:
https://www.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=2&page=/articles/tierney_jim/caustics/index.html

Hope that helps you,
Tom

[Tom J]

Gotta luv the carefree – care”less” crowd at the Cow. Dig the poem, thanks for the hint of joy! :>P

“Intel Inside, the world’s most popular warning label” – I really dig that one especially…

Tom

[Tom J]

Repetitive work is the key here, ie. masks, path creation, wrist survival :>P, etc. I love using mine in Afx, PS and Ill, as well as in 3ds Max. It is very comfortable and durable. My tablet is an older Intuos 9×12 (graphite, light grey) so there is some serious real estate being taken by this bad boy (full size – approx 18×14 in., tablet area 9×12). However with my dual LCD’s it’s not to bad, but back in the day when I had CRT’s it was really a drag. The only thing that I regret and if I had the need for another or to trade this one in, I would actually step down to the 6×8 (or 9 – whatever it is now).

I love the intuos brand, very reliable.

Tom

[Tom J]

First here are some Music Libraries that may get you what you need:
https://www.megatrax.com/core/sound_effects.cfm
or
https://www.hollywoodedge.com/ – awesome collection of SFX and other libraries.

A couple of ideas come to mind and to get you started, click on the Afx Banner on top of this page, scroll through the many tutorials and you should be able to get started. Combine different tutorial techniques together and you shoule be able to build what you’re after.

For starters look at Mark Simpson’s “Write it with light” and Serge Hamad’s “Creating a nebula” for your explosive gas ring and additional environment, an oldie but a goodie, keep in mind that the effect references in this tut have changed because Adobe purchase Cult Effects a few years back. The names are pretty easy to cross reference though. Ie. CE_Circle is Render > Circle, Noise Turbulent II (I think it was) is now Render > Fractal Noise.

https://www.creativecow.net/show.php?page=/articles/simpson_mark/shine/index.html

Then try one of the text blowing away tutorials. A search here in the forum will bring plenty of results about blowing up or blowing away text.

One idea would be to use AE Shatter and custom gradient maps to direct the explosive elements (both the sun and foreground elements). I would use the alpha channel of your Sun and it’s edges with Trapcode Shine and a little gaussian blur applied for the supernova effect.

Another idea would be to use if you have it in your current AE version is the Invigorator plugin by Zaxwerks (also here as a forum at the Cow). The plugin allows you to use cameras, create, animate, and texture elements of text or other objects brought in from Illustrator, and other programs that can be placed into your AE scenes.

Just a quick run down on some ideas. Hope this helps,
Tom

[Tom J]

Hi there,
Would love to help, but all I can say is that Peder the creator of these plugins for Trapcode is absolutely brilliant. Ask him the same ? over at the Trapcode forum here at the Cow, I am sure he would love to help, or at least someone who may be walking the pastures over there. :>P

Tom

[Tom J]

Oh yeah oops, it’s also for the control of the luminance matte on your smoke layer if I recall correctly. I could be slightly off course and heading us straight into a mountain right now so forgive me. Very little sleep over the past few days, my brain is fried!!!

Tom

[Tom J]

Ron beat me to the punch, I had a phone call… :>)

Anyhow, the whole “creating separate” comps has a few different reasons but the easiest explanation would be utilizing this method for controlling 3D elements in new comps by way of using “collapse tranformations”.

But in this case, it is to control on how Trapcode Shine will appear in your comp. Let’s say that you have a main comp of 720×486 and now you want to bring in a comp with your text that has Shine applied into this one but it is set to 320×240 (for whatever reason). If you were to apply Shine to your text layer in the 320×240 comp and bring that into your 720 version, your rays of light would be chopped off (visible edge).

So to correct this you would remove Shine from your text layer in the 320 version and apply it to the comp (as a layer) inside your 720×486 comp. Voila! your Rays of sunshine now extend beyond the edges of the your full comp.

Hope that helps,
Tom

[Tom J]

Just like Graham mentioned above, Shatter has many different object models already built in (including Puzzle Pieces) that may be suitable.

Like YikesMikes mentioned the other day, https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=855004

[yikesmikes] “If you want total control, I suppose you could slice the photo up in Photoshop putting each puzzle piece on a layer, then import into AE, then manually keyframe the pieces (each their own layer now in AE) when you want them to fly off.”

So you can create a custom map in Photoshop and then use that as your target layer for Shatter in AE. For something simple and quick, you can take your image into Photoshop and use the path tool to create custom shapes over your image. After each shape is closed, make a selection from that path, then cut them out onto their own layers (PC: Ctrl+shift+j) or just Ctrl+j if you want to leave your original untouched. Save that out as a .psd file and import into AE as a Photoshop comp and animate to your hearts content.

Otherwise, for greater control I believe if you fill (white over black) each path or image “piece” with varying whites to black (grey inbetween) and then save that out as a flat image to import into AE, Shatter will animate your puzzle pieces (depending upon your settings) each color individually from whites to grey to black respectively.

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve used Shatter otherwise I probably could give you more detail. So I hope I haven’t directed you incorrectly :>)

Alien Skin makes a package for Photoshop called Xenofex, and it has a plugin that creates the common puzzle style pieces. You can use that to create a quick and easy map as well.

Hope that helps ya,
Tom