The Card Dance Effect

The Card Dance effect is the more powerful sibling to the Card Wipe effect, discussed later in Chapter 19. For more information on most of the properties here (the ones in common with Card Wipe), consult Chapter 19. And while you’re skipping ahead to brush up for the Card Wipe effect, you might also want to jump to Chapter 23 (the chapter on using maps) because the real power and benefit of the Card Dance effect is the way it uses maps to control properties.

The Card Dance effect turns a layer in a bunch of cards. This may seem simplistic or even pointless, but there are such powerful parameters here, that this effect should not be ignored. We can use maps (movies even!) to control how various properties of the cards behave. We can control the width and height (and therefore, the size) of the cards, making them more like tiny dots if we desire.

Another one of the extremely powerful aspects of this effect is that it operates in 3D. As with the Shatter property covered later in this chapter, Card Dance has a built-in camera that you can move around in 3D space, or you can use the comp camera. Also, like Shatter, it has Lighting and Material options as well.

To get some practice with this effect, open up the Card Dance.aep project from the Chapter 15 folder of the exercise files. This project contains an unflattering picture of me that we’ve looked at in other places in this book.

Equally important is the other layer in this project (in the Card Dance comp), Black and White, which is currently obscured by the Chad layer. The Black and White layer is the map that we’ll be using to control Card Dance properties. It doesn’t need to be visible, so once you’ve seen it and know what it looks like, you can click this layer’s eye icon in the Timeline panel to turn off its visibility.

Apply the Card Dance effect to the Chad layer. The options at the top of the Card Dance effect in the Effect Controls panel allow you to set the total number of cards by adjusting the number of rows and columns. However, you won’t be able to see the individual cards until you adjust one of the properties in the position, rotation, or scale areas. And even then, you can’t see what’s really going on. So, let’s assign the Gradient Layer 1 drop down to the Black and White layer.

Notice that there are two different gradient layers that you can choose for this effect: Gradient Layer 1 and Gradient Layer 2. All of the position, rotation, and scale values can use an attribute from either of these two gradient layers as a map. Of course my favorite property here is Z position, which creates three-dimensional movement.

Open up the Z Position area. Like all position, rotation, and scale properties in the Card Dance effect, you’ll see a Source drop down—where you choose the gradient layer and attribute to use to control the current property, a Multiplier property—which controls how much the Source value affects the current property, and then an Offset value which offsets the values, if needed.

From the Source drop down, you’ll see an almost intimidating list of options. Again, you can use any attribute from either gradient layer to control each property. You can use each gradient layer and each attribute as often as you wish. In this case, I’m going to select Intensity 1, which will use the luminance of the first gradient layer. If we were using a second gradient layer, we could control this value with its intensity by choosing Intensity 2.

Taking the Source value to Intensity 1 produces an instant result. But what is it doing?

First of all, let’s increase the number of cards by increasing both the Rows value and the Columns value to 100. This makes the cards much smaller and appears to create a more organic result. However, the original, lower Rows and Columns value could have created some cool motion graphics as well.

OK, so these results are a little creepy. Hang in there just a little longer. To more completely see what’s going on here (and to be wowed and dazzled by the Card Dance effect), open the Camera Position controls in the Effect Controls panel, and increase the Y Rotation value to +30. This allows you to see how the cards have been moved in position along the Z axis, based on the brightness values of the Black and White layer. For example, my gratuitous nose is white on the Black and White layer, so the cards over my nose are the front most cards.

To make these results more intense, increase the Multiplier value to 1.6. This will create a more intense displacement of these cards along the Z axis.

What if we wanted to move this entire piece back in Z space? That is what the Offset parameter is for. It shifts all of the values

of a given property (Z position, in this case). I’m going to take the Offset value to about −2.

If we take the Multiplier value to a negative number, the brightest pixels in the Black and White map will become the farthest away. In Figure 15.9, I’ve used a Multiplier value of −10, and an Offset value of −4. I’ve also reset the Camera Position>Y Rotation value to 0 degrees.

Card Dance is capable of creating some really spectacular visual effects. As with Card Wipe, we can create a grid of images, and then use the same number of rows and columns to distribute each image on a separate card. We can also create stunning motion graphics by having footage explode into a flurry of cards, or we can animate a huge, chaotic field of cards to have them gather into an image.

The Caustics Effect

Have you ever been inside an indoor pool? Aside from shelter from the elements, one of the coolest features of indoor pools are those dancing strings of light on the walls, created by reflections from the water. These reflections are called caustics. The Caustics effect attempts to simulate the surface of water, or other fluid. It does this by allowing you to specify a map for the floor of the water’s surface, a map for the displacement of the water’s surface, and a map for a sky, reflected in the water’s surface.

The Caustics effect was designed with the Wave World effect in mind. Due to the alphabetical ordering of effects, we’re going to cover Caustics first. If you don’t know a thing about Wave World, you’ll be fine because I’ve already created the Wave World maps for you. If you want to know how I created these maps, you can jump to the end of this chapter when we look at the Wave World effect.

Open up the Caustics.aep project from the Chapter 15 folder of the exercise files. As tempting as the Chocolate Caustics comp might sound, we’re going to start in the Caustics Start comp. This comp contains a solid layer that we’ll apply Caustics to, and it also contains three layers that we’ll use as maps. Apply the Caustics effect to the Caustics Solid layer.

The default settings don’t make a significant change to this blue solid layer. A layer of a different color would appear to be tinted blue. This is because the Caustics effect uses the layer it is applied to as the map of the bottom of the virtual pool, and also uses blue by default for the surface of the water. So, what may just seem like a slight blue tint, is actually a little more complex.

This effect can feel a little overwhelming, but it’s actually organized really well. There are three main areas: Bottom (which

determines the texture on the bottom of the water), Water (which controls the water’s surface), and Sky (which can simulate a sky reflected on the surface of the water). There are also Lighting and Material controls to fine tune the end results.

Let’s start at the top. Change the Bottom value in the Bottom area to the Seattle ferry layer. This creates the illusion that the Seattle ferry image is at the bottom of the body of water that we are viewing from the top, or at least it tries to. The results aren’t quite believable until we change the surface of the water.

We have some light options for the bottom floor of our water, such as scaling, tiling, and blur options. But let’s skip ahead to the surface of the water, which is the most important component in this effect. For the surface of the water, we’re going to be using the Wave World Precomp layer, which is an animated texture created with the Wave World effect, covered later in this chapter. This layer is a grayscale texture that appears as though someone is dragging their finger through gray water.

To use this animation to displace the water’s surface, go to the Water area in the Caustics effect and change the Water Surface drop down from None to Wave World Precomp. Then we’ll see something that resembles rippling water, although we still have a ways to go before using this professionally.

With the surface of the water set up, let’s now go back to the bottom of our water and fix that. First, let’s reduce the Scaling value to 0.1, which will shrink the texture. If the Repeat Mode

value is still set to its default value of Reflected, the texture will repeat and reflect as it shrinks.

There’s still way too much detail here. We want this bottom texture to look like the texture at the bottom of the pool. With this much detail, it seems that our water is either an inch deep, or that it’s the purest water known to man. I’m going to increase the Bottom>Blur value to 10. Now this is starting to look a little like something that could pass for water.

This bottom texture is still too opaque and distracting, but there’s not much else we can do for it in the Bottom section. In order to improve the results, we must now adjust the water surface by adjusting the controls in the Water area. The biggest offense here to me is that this water seems so shallow. You might think that we could adjust this with the Water>Water Depth value, but the Water Depth value just increases the contrast of the water ripple. We’re going to increase the illusion of deeper water by increasing the opacity of the water. Increase the Water>Surface Opacity value to 0.8, which means that it will be 80% opaque. This makes it seem like the water is deeper because there is more water between the surface and the bottom.

So, the bottom is looking good, but now the water is too vibrant. Unless radioactivity is involved, water usually isn’t that intensely blue. So, I’m going to change the Surface Color of the water to a more muted, realistic blue. I used the RGB values 60, 120, 200.

For the surface of our water, all that’s left is to tweak the other settings to taste. I’m going to increase the Caustics Strength value very, very gently. Even a value of 1 is a high value.

After increasing the Caustics Strength value, you may want to also increase the Smoothing value to smooth out some of the ugly details.

You can now adjust the Wave Height, Water Depth, and Refractive Index properties until you get the wave you’re looking for.

Now let’s see what adding a sky looks like. In the Sky area, change the Sky drop down to the Seattle Sunset layer. Change the If Layer Size Differs drop down to Stretch to Fit, as the Seattle Sunset layer is considerably larger the this solid.

You can decrease the opacity of the sky by lowering the Intensity value. I’m going to take my Intensity value to 0.15. If you want to increase the amount of distortion in the sky reflection, increase the Convergence value. I’ll set mine to 2. To really appreciate the beauty of the result here, you must play back this animation. A still frame doesn’t quite do justice to the quality of this effect.

With that out of the way, we’re ready to proceed to dessert. Hop on over to the Chocolate Caustics comp. This comp contains a similar bluish solid, but the animated displacement map is very different. The Chocolate Goodness layer is another pattern created with the Wave World effect. Again, you must play this back to really appreciate this, but it contains the text CHOCOLATE with ripples of liquid flowing over it. We’re going to use this to make us some chocolate.

Apply the Caustics effect to the Cyan Solid 2 layer. Change the Bottom layer to None. Change the Water Surface drop down to Chocolate Goodness. Because chocolate isn’t really transparent, increase the Surface Opacity value to 1, which will make the surface completely opaque. Then change the Surface Color from blue to a chocolaty brown. I used the RGB values 60, 30, 0.

The Wave World effect sometimes creates these ugly artifacts around sharp edges. These are causing some rough edges that should be oily smooth. Increase the Smoothing value to 10 to achieve our final delicious result. Again, you’ve really got to play this back to appreciate how truly chocolaty and organic this looks.

The Foam Effect

At the most basic level, the Foam effect creates bubbles. If you’re like me, you’ve never ever needed bubbles in a professional setting before. I’m sure it can come in handy often—for bath tub scenes for animations on TV shows for kids, visual flatulence jokes, bubbling soda, or boiling cauldrons.

There is a limit to how helpful bubbles can be. But the Foam effect is far more important and helpful than for just creating bubbles. The Foam effect is one of my favorites in After Effects because of how intuitive and versatile it is. We can use it to make snow or a multitude of other effects because it allows us to replace the bubbles with textures of our own. It is more powerful than any of the other particle generators in After Effects, other than Particle Playground. But Foam renders far more quickly and is much easier to set up than Particle Playground. I can honestly say that the Foam effect is my native particle effect of choice in After Effects.

Open the Foam.aep project from the Chapter 15 folder of the exercise files. This project contains a few comps because I really want to convey how versatile this effect can be. We’ll start out in the Using Foam comp, which demonstrates the Foam effect in its native habitat (as foamy bubbles).

The Using Foam comp contains a shot of a little kid in the bathtub, as well as a solid layer.

The Foam effect completely replaces the content of the layer it’s applied to, so it’s usually a good idea to apply this to a solid. So, apply the Foam effect to the blue solid layer. The good news is that Foam auto-animates. Preview this comp to watch bubbles fly out all over the place. The bad news here is that the default results leave something to be desired. Note that if you’re not seeing bubbles, you might need to move your current time indicator a little later in time.

The Foam effect is a little old, and used to render more slowly on old machines. With most modern machines, Foam renders fast enough at full quality. From the View drop down at the top of the effect, choose Rendered. Although the current bubble colors don’t mesh well with our project here, it certainly looks more realistic than the default settings do!

Let’s start at the top of the effect options in the Effect Controls panel and work our way down, covering the highlights. Open the Producer area to control the system that is creating the particles. In particle systems like Foam, Shatter, and Particle Playground, you don’t (and usually can’t) control the individual particles, you only control the system making the particles. The Producer Point is the exact spot that is creating the bubbles. You can change its width by adjusting the Producer X Size value, or its height by adjusting the Producer Y Size value. We’ll use these later when we make snow with the Foam effect.

Rotate the foam producer by adjusting the Producer Orientation value. Increase the amount of bubbles (or, more precisely, the speed at which they are created) by increasing the Production Rate value. I’m going to increase the Production Rate value to 9.

Open up the Bubbles area to adjust aspects of the bubble. I’m going to decrease the size of my bubbles by lowering the Size value to 0.2.

The Size Variance parameter adjusts the randomness of size. This may be mildly important with bubbles, but may be hugely important when working with your own custom textures. Lifespan controls how long the bubbles exist before they are popped and disappear. Many of the parameters in this effect— particularly those in the Physics area—pertain to bubbly things. These are properties not seen in most other particle effects. This includes such things as Wobble Amount, Pop Velocity, and Stickiness.

Also in the Physics area, I want to call your attention to one of the reasons I am so devoted to the Foam effect. You’ll notice that there are Initial Speed and Direction values, and Wind Speed and Direction values. This is so that you can have bubbles generated in one direction (the Initial values), and then have it acted upon by a secondary force (the Wind values). I love that.

Towards the bottom of the effect, you’ll see a Flow Map area. This section allows you to use a gradient layer to control how the bubbles flow. A flow map can restrict bubbles from going to certain areas. For more information on using maps to control effect properties, check out Chapter 23.

Pound for pound, the Rendering settings are perhaps the most important in the Foam effect. These parameters determine what the bubbles will look like. From the Rendering>Bubble Texture drop down, change the value from Default Bubble to Amber Bock for example.

Create a lighter bubble (and a grosser one) by using the Spit texture. Or, perhaps, to Algae.

You can also usually get a better composite by adding a slight reflection to the bubbles. To do this, you first need to select the layer that the bubbles will reflect. In the Environment Map drop down (still in the Rendering area), change the value to the kid

in the tub layer. Then, to add reflections from this layer to the bubbles, increase the Reflection Strength value. Here, I used a Reflection Strength value of 0.6 with the Spit Bubble Texture.

Now that we understand something of the technical aspects of Foam, let’s look at some more practical (i.e., nonbubble) uses for the Foam effect. Switch over to the Creating Snow composition. This comp just contains another simple solid layer and a single, somewhat ugly layer that will be used as a snowflake.

The effect is already set up for you in this comp. Make sure the Snowflake layer is turned off, and that the solid layer that contains the Foam effect is turned on. Preview the comp to see the final results.

With this comp, we’re going to start with the end result and deconstruct it. The big question is—how did we get rid of the bubbles? In the Rendering area in the Foam effect controls, I changed the Bubble Texture to User Defined. Then, in the Bubble Texture Layer drop down, I selected the Snowflake layer.

To make the snow fall, I increased the Producer X Size value to make the producer wide. I then placed the Producer Point above the comp, so that the snow would not start from the middle of the screen.

The other key to achieving this effect was to adjust the Initial Direction value to 180 degrees. This pushed the snowflakes downwards from the moment that they were created. The final result is quite impressive when animated.

Finally, let’s look at the Making Sparkles composition. We’re basically looking at the same effect in this comp, except that instead of using a still image as the Bubble Texture Layer, we’re going to be using a movie. The sparkle movie in this composition contains a simple shape that wiggles slightly and changes color over time.

As with the snow comp, this example has already been created for you. The only thing that is interesting that we haven’t looked at yet is that I’ve animated the Producer Point. This leaves behind an interesting trail of bubbles, or sparkles in this case. Also, as with the snow, I’ve already gone into the Rendering area of the Foam effect controls and changed the Bubble Texture to User Defined, and changed the Bubble Texture Layer to the sparkle layer. Because the sparkle movie changes colors over time, the Foam sparkles that use it as a texture will also change colors over time.

The Particle Playground Effect

The Particle Playground effect is probably the single most powerful and confusing effect in all of After Effects. Like the Foam effect, the Particle Playground effect produces particles that you control through particle generating systems. It has very organic physics simulations, original options (such as repel and wall), and is capable of some really spectacular things. However, its confusing interface, unintuitive workflow, and ridiculously slow render times offset the benefit of using Particle Playground for many tasks. If you love the power of Particle Playground and what it can do, then I strongly recommend purchasing Trapcode Particular.

Open up the Particle Playground.aep project from the Chapter 15 folder of the exercise files. This is by far the largest and most complex project that we will look at in this entire book. Because there are a whopping seven compositions, I’ve numbered them for you. We’ll start in the number 1 composition, Particle Playground Intro. This comp consists of a simple solid with the Particle Playground effect applied to it. Particle Playground auto-animates, so preview the composition to see its default particle fountain-style settings.

Don’t worry for now that this looks like an old Atari game exploded. Remember that we can replace these little squares with whatever we want later on.

The Particle Playground effect creates particles using one or more particle generators. There are four particle generators in Particle Playground, and they can be seen as the top four categories of properties at the top of the Particle Playground effect in the Effect Controls panel—Cannon, Grid, Layer Exploder, and Particle Exploder. By default, only one generator is turned on, but you can have as many of these generators simultaneously generating particles as you want.

Let’s look first at some simple examples as we get acquainted with the particle generators. Then, we’ll look at the more practical examples in the other compositions in this project.

In short, the Cannon emits particles from a single point, and it is the default emitter. All others are turned off. Like all emitters in Particle Playground, it can emit several different types of particles. It can emit the simple particles created in Particle Playground, it can emit other layers, and it can emit text (which also can be done by the Grid particle generator). We’ll look at how to use each of these as we go through this section.

For now, we’ll stick to Cannon to go over some Particle Playground basics. Open up the Cannon area in the Effect Controls panel. First off, let’s adjust the Direction value so it’s easier to see our adjustments. I’m going to take this value to 30 degrees, which shoots particles out to the right.

The Barrel Radius value increases the size of the imaginary barrel shooting out these particles. This is helpful when creating things like a waterfall that have a wider source than just a single point.

Note that the Barrel Radius is much different than the Particle Radius, which increases the size of each particle. Here I took the Particle Radius value up to 11.

Before we go any further with Particle Playground, we need to be aware of the importance of the Info panel with this effect. When the Particle Playground effect is selected in the Effect Controls panel, the Info panel will display the current number of particles on screen that After Effects is having to render. There is no way to overstate how helpful this is, especially when working with other emitters such as Grid.

Next up is the Grid. Before we see what the Grid emitter does, we should probably turn off the Cannon. We can turn off the Cannon by taking the Cannon>Particles Per Second value down to 0. Then we must turn on Grid by increasing either the Particles Across or Particles Down value. The Grid emitter actually creates a grid of particle emitters that emit a new particle every frame. It is so important to be careful with these values because they can obliterate your render time. Let’s say that you used a fairly modest value of 10 for the Particles Across and Particles Down values. After 4 seconds, you would have over 12,000 particles on screen. The Grid emitter is great for generating areas of particles, such as a tidal wave or a large fire. Spread out the particles in the grid without increasing their numbers by using the Grid>Width and Height values.

The Layer Exploder breaks up a layer, similar to the way the Shatter effect does (which we’ll look at next). The Particle Exploder also blows up a layer, but it also allows the particles to be exploded as well.

So, how do you turn these emitters on and off? I’ve created a handy chart for you in the #2 comp—Particle ON/OFF Rules. These contain cheat sheets on how to handle the various Particle Playground emitters.

Now that we have enough knowledge to be dangerous, let’s look at some more practical examples as we dig deeper into

Particle Playground. Switch over to the third composition, Grid Waterfall. This comp contains a simple waterfall I created using the default square particle in Particle Playground. Here, I use both the Cannon and Grid emitters. The Grid emitter is creating the actual waterfall. I’ve set the Particles Down value to 1 so that there is only a single grid line creating these particles. Even then, it still renders too slow for my liking. I added the Cannon emitter with a fairly high Barrel Radius value (25) to create a pale splash at the top of the waterfall. It’s subtle, but it adds a nice touch. I finished off the results by applying the Fast Blur effect with a Blurriness setting of 2.5. Fast Blur does a great job smoothing out the squares generated by Particle Playground.

Now let’s move into more advanced territory. Go to comp #4—Layer Exploder Fizz to get an idea of what the Layer Exploder can do, as well as to use controller layers with this effect. We’re going to use the Layer Exploder to dissolve this text like it were soda fizz. This comp contains two layers. The first layer is some super sweet retro text that is a logo for a fictitious soda company.

The other layer is an animated gradient. It looks like a light wave moving upwards through darkness. Wow. That was almost poetic.

Apply the Particle Playground effect to the fizz text. Make sure that the gradient layer is turned off. The first thing we need to do with this effect is to turn off the Cannon. Do that by opening the Cannon controls and taking the Particles Per Second value down to 0.

Now we need to turn on the Layer Exploder. Before we do that, I heartily recommend moving the current time to the first frame. The reason why I say that is because the Layer Exploder will turn the selected Explode Layer into particle generators. That means that every particle of this entire layer will generate a new particle every frame. To give you an idea of how intense this can get, if your current time indicator were only 14 frames in, you would have over 91,000 particles on screen. Once you’re at frame 0, open the Layer Exploder parameters and change the Explode Layer drop down to the PRECOMP fizz layers (the fizzy text).

Here’s our solution to the plethora of particles dilemma. Click the stopwatch for the Radius of New Particles property in the Layer Exploder area. Then advance to the next frame and take this value to 0. This will allow us to use all of the particles generated on the first frame only, and no new particles will be created.

If you preview this animation now, it appears that all of the particles just sink; like a lead brick. That’s not very fizzy. So, open up the Gravity area of parameters and change the Direction from 180 degrees (straight down) to 0 degrees (straight up).

The fizz is now moving upwards, but all particles are moving at the same speed. That looks way too robotic. In the Affects area in the Gravity area, we can use a map to control how gravity is applied to the particles. In the Gravity>Affects>Selection Map drop down, select the Gradient in Motion layer. This will create a much more fizzy layer explosion.

The ability to have particles repel each other is another great feature of Particle Playground. In the number 5 comp, Repel Starfield, I’ve taken the Repel>Force value to −0.5 and the Force Radius to 10. This causes the particles to repel away from each other, which I’ve used to create a zooming starfield effect. Radial Blur and Glow have been added to enhance the effect.

As I mentioned, I really don’t use Particle Playground all that much. But when I do use it, I’m usually after the Wall properties. These allow you to create a mask on the layer and use it to deflect particles. It is so easy to set up and use to create spectacular results, such as those seen in comp #6, Wall Tornado. In this comp, I’ve created a tornado-shaped mask. Then, I change the Wall>Boundary value to the mask I created. Once you’ve done that simple step, the particles bounce off of the sides of the mask, and in this case, create a really cool swirling effect. Note that the mask must be on the same layer that Particle Playground is applied to in order for the effect to see and use it.

Finally, let’s go to the last comp—Text Blown Dust. This comp uses text, which we haven’t looked at yet.

Although this comp is already set up for you, we’re still going to look at how the text was created. Unfortunately, you cannot use a text layer as a source for the particles. To use text as particles, click the Options button at the top of the effect in the Effect Controls panel. As with many older effects that use text, a dialog pops up allowing you to input text. Depending on whether you

want to create text for the Cannon or Grid, click the appropriate button.

I’ve also increased the Radius of New Particles value in the Particle Exploder area to turn it on. Then, as before, I’ve changed Particle Exploder> Affects> Selection Map to the gradient layer to create a more natural and random dissipation of particles. After adding some Fast Blur and Glow, the results are beautiful.

The Shatter Effect

Ah, yes. The Shatter effect. Officially, the purpose of the Shatter effect is to blow stuff up (seriously, click the About button at the top of the effect in the Effect Controls panel if you don’t believe me). But the magic of the Shatter effect is that when it shatters a layer, it makes it fully 3D in the process. There’s just so many cool tricks that we can do with the Shatter effect. Even if violence, mayhem, and explosions aren’t your thing (I’m sure it totally is, but let’s just pretend that it isn’t), the Shatter effect still has a lot to offer.

Open the Shatter.aep project. Let’s start in the Shatter Start comp. This comp only contains a simple green solid. As with other effects in this chapter, we’re going to start off simple to get acquainted, and then we’ll look at more practical examples. Apply the Shatter effect to this green solid. You’ll see that the default view can be a little perplexing at first.

This view is merely a working view to help you work better with Shatter. Before we talk about this lo-fi wireframe view, let’s look at the full blown Shatter results. Take the View drop down at the top of the effect to Rendered. Then preview your composition to watch your layer explode. Yes, one of the joys (and frustrations) of the Shatter effect is that it auto-animates, blowing up

your layer starting on frame 1 (frame 0 is left alone). We’ll look at how to delay the explosion in just a moment.

To really understand the power of this effect, go down to the Camera Position area, and adjust the Y Rotation value to −60 degrees. Now you can see that Shatter is actually making your layer three-dimensional, which means that the blocks that it shatters are also 3D. Oooooooooh …

Let’s now go back to the View drop down at the top, and change this value from Rendered back to Wireframe + Forces.

Understanding this mess is critical to mastering the Shatter effect. That big blue wireframe sphere that you’re seeing is the force (insert tired Star Wars joke here). Only objects that come into contact with this force can blow up. So, let’s talk about adjusting this force. Open up the Force 1 properties in the Effect Controls panel. Note that there is also a Force 2 area. Force 2 is turned off by default, but if you needed an additional explosion, you could use Force 2 for that.

The Depth parameter in the Force 1 area controls the Z position of the force. You’ll notice that as I take this value to 0.4, it barely touches the layer. And again we see that only parts of the layer that touch the force will blow up. So then, if you want to delay the blowing up of a layer, simply animate the Depth parameter. The Radius value determines the size of the force, and the Strength value can be used to adjust the intensity of the blast. If a child threw a baseball through a window, it would have a lower Strength value than, say, a wrecking ball coming through the same window.

Click the Reset button at the top of the effect. Change the View drop down to Rendered, and move out in time a few frames.

When you animate the Position property in the Force 1 area, it creates an interesting gopher-like trail. This can be used to remove parts of the layer to reveal a logo, or to create a logo from the negative space created by exploded pieces.

For this, I’m going to go out to frame 13. I’m also going to take the Force 1>Radius value to 0.1 to create a smaller force. I’ll then adjust Force 1>Position to be in the upper-left-hand corner of the layer, and then click the stopwatch.

I’ll then move in time and lower the position.

Finally, I’ll move to later in time again, and move the force position to the upper right.

I really like this animation, but I’m not so crazy about the shape of our bricks. At the top of the Shatter effect in the Effect Controls panel, you’ll find a Shape area. Open that up to see all kinds of properties that we can use to customize the shape and look of the shattering. The Shape>Pattern drop down is a great place to start. Open that drop down to see a huge slew of patterns that you can use as shatter maps. My favorite is the standard Glass setting.

This glass is looking too clunky. Increase the Repetitions value to create smaller pieces. This basically shrinks the shatter pattern down and repeats it.

The Extrusion Depth value creates thicker pieces, which will come in handy in the next example. Switch over to the 3D pieces composition. In this comp, you’ll find a shape layer that I created in the shape of a fish.

One of the lesser known gems about this effect is that it allows you to create your own custom shatter maps using grayscale layers. And because the Shatter effect makes 3D pieces, you can use this trick to create 3D text or other simple objects! As you can see in the underwater layer, this has already been done for you.

To use the fish shape layer to make a 3D fish, I applied the Shatter effect to the underwater image (NOT the fish shape). Then, in the Shape area of the Shatter effect, I changed the Pattern drop down to Custom, and then changed the Custom Shatter Map value to my black and white fish layer. It’s as simple as that.

In the Blown Dust comp, you’ll see another trick with the Shatter effect. This comp contains a movie with an octopus revealed by blown dust.

The blown dust is created by adjusting two properties. First, crank up the Repetitions value as high as it will go. This will create the smallest possible dust fragments. Then, open up the powerful Physics area in the Shatter effect.

In this area, you can set options like gravity and viscosity. Viscosity refers to the thickness of the air, which is great for blowing things up underwater or in space. What we’re after here, though, is the Gravity property. Set the Gravity Direction in the direction you want the wind to blow. Then increase the Gravity parameter to increase the speed at which the shattered pieces move in that direction.

Finally, go to the Shatter Map composition. We’re going to look at how to selectively shatter an object using grayscale maps. We have here this beautiful shot of a stained glass window. This is the layer that will be shattered (no offense if this is your church).

Equally important is the map that will be used to shatter this stained glass. Pay particular attention to the five white circles at

the top, the black background, and the gradient that covers the remaining glass.

As with other complicated examples in this chapter, I’ve already set this up for you. Here’s how I did it. I first changed the Pattern to Glass and increased the Repetitions value pretty high to create smaller pieces. This is important so that it seems like the windows are shattering and not the walls. I probably should take it even higher than I did.

In the Gradient area of the Shatter effect, I selected the grayscale map layer I painted in Photoshop. Then—and here’s the key—I animated the Shatter Threshold value. As you increase the Shatter Threshold value, it uses more of the gradient, starting with light areas and moving towards dark areas. In this case, because I painted the five circular windows at the top white, they shatter first.

If I were to leave the Shatter Threshold at a low value, nothing else would blow up. But I animated the Shatter Threshold value so that as it increases the other windows shatter from top to bottom. I never let the Shatter Threshold value get high enough to blow up the walls.

The Shatter effect is just so awesome. It renders quickly, it’s extremely powerful, but also easy to use. And the vast array of options makes this a very versatile effect, indeed. Remember that the Shatter effect has 3D camera, lighting, and material options. You can even choose to use a comp camera and/or a comp light with Shatter as well.

The Wave World Effect

The Wave World effect is another effect that often scares away unfamiliar users. Its default results are perhaps more confusing than the default results of any other effect. And even when you do surmount that obstacle, you come to the realization that the Wave World effect is completely useless on its own. But don’t discount it just yet. The Wave World effect simulates real-world water waves and ripples that can be used as maps for other effects, such as Displacement Map. Ultimately, the Wave World effect is supposed to be used in conjunction with the Caustics effect, covered earlier in this chapter.

Open the Wave World.aep project in the Chapter 15 folder of the exercise files. We’ll start in the Wave World Start comp, which consists only of a plain solid layer. Apply the Wave World effect to this layer. When first applied the Wave World effect shows you a working view, like the default view that we just saw with the Shatter effect.

The green bottom grid represents the floor of the water. The white grid represents the surface of the water. Additionally, there are also two other rectangular helpers. Before we discuss those, let’s play back this composition. As we do, we’ll see a 3D representation of the auto-animated waves created by this effect.

As stated previously, this view is only a working view. Its only purpose is to help you better visualize the end result of the Wave World effect. Remember that the end result of the Wave World effect is only to create a grayscale map. That’s all that can be done here. To see that grayscale map, change the View drop down from Wireframe Preview to Height Map.

Now it will be more clear what the rectangles were for in the wireframe view. The top rectangle shows you the white clipping area and the lower rectangle shows you where the shadows will clip. Generally speaking, you don’t want to create displacement maps with clipped highlights or shadows, unless you’re purposely intending to do so for some reason.

The Wireframe Controls area allows you to control your view of the wireframe waves, and that is all. None of these settings have any bearing on the final result whatsoever.

The Height Map controls are almost like a built in Levels effect. Normally, that wouldn’t be very important, but in an effect like Wave World, these controls become very helpful in creating the exact final product that you’re looking for.

The controls in the Simulation area are overall controls. The Grid Resolution setting controls the smoothness of the final result. The default value of 40 is great for working quickly, but not for smooth, final output. I usually use a value between 100 and 150 for output. The results are noticeably smoother.

The Reflect Edges value in the Simulation area creates reflections along certain edges of your choosing. For demonstration purposes, I’m going to take this value to All, which will create reflections along all edges. Then, when waves bump into edges, waves will be reflected back, simulating the way real waves bounce back from surfaces.

In the Simulation area, you can adjust the speed of the waves (using Wave Speed), or you can adjust Pre-roll (seconds) to eliminate the period at the beginning of the animation where the wave is starting up.

Next we come to the Ground controls area. We’ll look more closely at these in a moment. Until we use a map to control this property, however, the only value that does anything is Height. The more shallow water is, the softer its waves will be. So, as we increase the Height value (which represents the height of the water floor), the softer the waves will be.

Lastly, we come to the Producer 1 controls. Here’s where things get fun. Most of these controls are self-explanatory. But the Producer 1>Position value is one of the more important properties in the entire effect. This is the property that we animate to create the illusion that something is disrupting the surface of the ocean. I’m going to place the Position value in the upper left corner and create a keyframe, then move in time and move the position, then move in time and change position again until I’ve created a U shape. Even a still frame in black and white is beautiful.

Now let’s look at the Chocolate Goodness comp. In this comp, I’ve created a very simple layer with text and a slight blur.

I used this layer as the ground in the Wave World effect to create the illusion of flowing chocolate when we covered the Caustics effect, earlier in this chapter. When you use a grayscale map as a ground layer, it allows the water to be displaced by it.

Imagine a shallow stream that is moving. If you put your hand in it, the water will flow over your hand—the flow has been displaced by the objects underneath. And that’s exactly what a ground layer does.

This project has already been set up for you. Make sure that the outlines layer (layer 1) is off, and that the Solid layer (layer 2) is turned on. To use a layer as a ground layer, go to the Ground controls in the Wave Warp effect. Change the Ground value (in the Ground area) to the Ground layer, which is CHOCOLATE Outlines in this case. The Steepness and Wave Height values can be used to control how the water interacts with the ground. If you take the View to Wireframe Preview, you can see how the ground is now severely displacing the surface of the water.

I realize that even the final height map here isn’t much to look at. But Wave World produces such high quality maps that when they are used with the Caustics effect, the results are amazing. Be creative here. Not only can this be used with water and chocolate, but for paint, flowing metal or lava, or any other liquid. And the ground plane doesn’t have to be simple text, it can be a company logo or any other shape.