Hi, I'm trying to create a ballot drum for a 'virtual draw'.
I'm having issues with creating the look of the actual ballots swirling around in the drum. I think my best option is particular. Does anyone have any suggestions on settings or a better method to create the look of ballots swirling around in a turning drum?
Re: Ballot Drum by Dave LaRonde on Feb 12, 2008 at 3:45:10 pm
[Justin Vaillancourt]"Does anyone have any suggestions on settings or a better method to create the look of ballots swirling around in a turning drum?"
This is a job for a real 3D application rather than one for AE's 2 1/2D.
Re: Ballot Drum by david bogie on Feb 12, 2008 at 4:14:22 pm
You can use a drawing of your ballot as the particle source for several of systems. You can create a swirling maelstrom of particles but, as Dave says, it's a simulation of 3D stuff on a 2D stage. There's no way to get this swirling to appear to be inside a cylindrical object in AE without plugins like Zax.
bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: "For crying out loud, read the freakin' manual."
That's what I thought too, but the boss wants what the boss gets.
I managed to fake it by designing a 3D Octagon Drum and using a particular layer inside the drum. I gave the ballots the appearance of tumbling by having them follow a light path similar to the drum shape. Looks pretty darn good, I'll post when it's finished.
Here's my question (I've actually had for a few other projects), I've built the ballot drum with 2D layers in 3D space and mathematically matched all sides of the octagon up to the pixel. Even if I have motion blur on or off, I can still see seams between the pixels as the drum is turning. Is there any way to fix this without the obvious method of overlaping the layers?
Re: Ballot Drum by Darby Edelen on Feb 12, 2008 at 5:54:22 pm
[Justin Vaillancourt]"Even if I have motion blur on or off, I can still see seams between the pixels as the drum is turning. Is there any way to fix this without the obvious method of overlaping the layers? "
Your best options are to change the blending mode of these layers to "Alpha Add" (which only helps if the background of the comp is transparent) and to apply a Matte > Simple Choker effect with a small negative value. This should provide just enough overlap to reduce the seams (but not eliminate, especially with motion blur).
Darby Edelen Designer Left Coast Digital Santa Cruz, CA
Re: Ballot Drum by david bogie on Feb 13, 2008 at 5:04:06 pm
the last time I had to do something similar on a six-sided cylindrical tube,, I ended up applying additional layers to cover the seams. Long skinny things, set at complementary angles and nudged into place. sort of like welding runs. In fact, that's what I called them, "welds."
bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: "For crying out loud, read the freakin' manual."
