Alternative Radio Wave Technique ?

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Dave LaRonde on Jun 30, 2009 at 4:28:45 pm [Christopher Rotter] "I seem to have a problem getting the radio wave effect to only occur when an extruded bulge occurs." Since Radio Waves is such a dead simple effect to use, and since I've never heard of anyone having any kind of trouble with it before, and since this is such a God-awful weird set of conditions, I am led to just one conclusion: Turn off Open GL. Leave it off. Kapish? Dave LaRonde Sr. Promotion Producer KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Dave LaRonde on Jun 30, 2009 at 4:49:38 pm AE's implentation of Open GL uses just a subset of Open GL, which lead to big problems with many effects and levels of complexity in a comp. Devising a comp that can take full advantage of AE's Open GL support WITHOUT invoking commpands that aren't supported will drive you nuts. Most people just give up on it and walk away from it. I've never inquired which aspects of Open GL are supported by AE. I have other things I want to do with my time. I simply read about other people's experiences with it. They're sufficient for me to conclude that it's pretty much useless. But if you enjoy a good -- nay, virtually impossible -- challenge, go ahead and knock yourself out. Dave LaRonde Sr. Promotion Producer KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Ken Knowles on Jun 30, 2009 at 4:50:28 pm I agree with you Christopher. Radio Waves is difficult to control. It emits a wave at the beginning even if you don't want it. Although I haven't tried it, maybe using a layer with a mask would work. You could control the mask expansion in an expression. You would also need something to continue the expansion after you trigger it. Ken Knowles Knowles-McNiff Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Ken Knowles on Jun 30, 2009 at 5:44:07 pm Take a look at what Greg posted. Is that what you are looking for? Ken Knowles Knowles-McNiff Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jun 30, 2009 at 4:52:36 pm I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to accomplish, but it sounds a bit like the reverse of an effect I did a while back. I was creating a "blast wave distortion" that emanated from an on-screen event (in my case, a good football catch). I used radio-waves (or just masked circles), rotated them in 3D to match the angle of my footage, then turned them off and used their black-white values and Effects>Displacement Map to make the "shockwave" emanate from my touchdown pass. Does that sound at all inspiring for what you're trying to achieve? Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jun 30, 2009 at 5:18:22 pm I've uploaded a sample here: http://www.antifreezedesign.com/user/cow/radialRings.mov/ Let me know if you have trouble viewing it. (there's a jpg there too) Cheers. -Greg Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Ken Knowles on Jun 30, 2009 at 5:42:38 pm Greg, That is a very cool effect. Masks and displacement map, eh? Very nice. Ken Knowles Knowles-McNiff Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jun 30, 2009 at 5:54:30 pm Thanks. There's a lot you can do to make the effect cool, and now that I'm looking at it, I probably abandoned radial waves for more control simply using animated masks over a solid. Here are some refinements that are fun to play with: 1. Once you've got your animated solid ring, try adjusting (or animating) the width of the feathered edge. A fairly tight leading edge, and a soft trailing edge will look a lot more realistic, like the shockwave is trailing off. 2. Notice that I've decreased the opacity of each additional ring, to give it less and less effect as additional rings happen. 3. I've also added a bit of particles and lens flare/hotspot to add to the effect. 4. You could try a hint of camera jiggle/bump at the moment of impact (although this would technically only happen if the camera operator was startled, not from the wave--which hasn't reached the camera yet) 5. If you get really crazy, you can try mapping in some animated fractal noise (turbulent wavy works great) into your ring coming off. Instead of a more or less solid ring, you get something that looks like heat distortion or trailing vapors. (Also try pre-effecting the distortion with a pucker (flo motion) at the center so that all of the "vapors" are more or less pointed toward the inital point of impact) Fun, fun! Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jul 1, 2009 at 3:36:12 pm Well, for true 3D shading or hard extruded edges you'll need a 3D app or plugin, of course. But, for example, if I were to want those waves in my sample to have more substance to them, I would do the same procedure, but add a duplicate of my ring layer (currently turned off and only used for the distortion source.) Currently my distortion layer is (appropriately) black and white, so I'd probably also add some sort of coloring--tint or my favorite: Colorama. Or you could use it to mask some footage of something more interesting like fire footage. The different transfer controls would help me make it look less "stuck on", and give it translucence, if that's what I was going for. Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jul 1, 2009 at 4:28:54 pm I'm not sure what you're asking, but the distortion of the footage comes from the displacement map effect being applied to a layer that contains white concentric radiating circles (visiblity turned off). Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jul 1, 2009 at 5:15:09 pm What you're describing sounds like how one might illustrate "sound" coming from a loudspeaker. You could try the radio lines effect but crop it. However, note that AE doesn't do animated vector graphics. You might look to Flash if you want animated vector graphics. Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezedesign.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jul 1, 2009 at 5:48:55 pm Sorry, I meant "radio waves". I'm afraid you'll need to describe more about what you're trying to do for us to be very helpful. I can't conceptualize what you want to achieve from your description. Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezedesign.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jul 1, 2009 at 6:13:48 pm Ah, yeah, try setting yourself up with some nice emanating radio waves (create a solid--which is needed as a base layer for the effect generation, then apply the radio waves effect), then use your pen tool or shapes to draw masks to only reveal a quarter of your circle. You might want to pre-comp your radio waves before doing additional transformations or effects. Often, effects that are generated from scratch and use a solid as a base can't have additional effects applied to them, since those additional effects aren't taking into consideration your previous effect generator. For example, I used the pen tool to add a mask to my radio waves. It didn't do anything. But if you precompose the radio waves solid into it's own composition, then apply a mask to that precomp (in a new composition), it will mask as expected. Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezedesign.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jul 1, 2009 at 6:34:45 pm I'm not sure what you mean by bulge and wave in this context, but it sounds achievable. Tell me what you want to see, and maybe I can give you a mini-tute. Don't describe how you would try to do it. Describe the effect like my mother trying to tell me about something she saw. Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezedesign.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jul 1, 2009 at 6:56:35 pm Well, you could create a layer with text on it, then use a bulge effect to create it's bulge. Behind/under that, you could have a composition of radio waves that has been masked to only be visible on the sides. Would that accomplish it? Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezedesign.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jul 1, 2009 at 7:09:15 pm Maybe that's where we're having a disconnect. The radio waves effect has built in controls for how often the waves emanate, their shape, their color, their thickness, their outward speed, their fade/decay... They start coming at the start of your layer. If you need to time their movement to say, an audio track, you need to adjust their speed and frequency. Changing those values with timely placed keyframes would easily create groups of pulsing waves. Play around with it for awhile and see if it does the trick. Now, if you want to have this done automatically.... yeah, you can do it with expressions. You'll need to link those speed and frequency values to the amplitude of your audio track. I can't give you specific code without doing it myself, but that's where I'd start. Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezedesign.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jul 1, 2009 at 7:37:46 pm Masks are always applied to the outside of a layer. Think of your radio waves in their solid as simply an ingredient that you move around your stage. It may have a centerpoint locator, but you don't really need it if you just move your solid that contains the effect to the place that you want it. To avoid more frustration, this might be a good place for you to back up and dig up some tutorials on the basics of After Effects and how it works with layers/effects. Even if you get it to "kinda" work, you'll likely be disappointed/limited by your final result because you don't yet know what's available to you as part of AE's basic workflow. Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezedesign.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jul 1, 2009 at 7:51:07 pm Not sure I understand "get to the mask feature within..." but remember what I said earlier, you may need to precomp the radio waves layer within it's own comp and apply the mask to the comp. AE is all about nested compositions. Think of each comp as a folder of elements. You can often apply effects and masks to each layer within a comp"folder", or you can apply effects and masks to the entire folder. Try that. Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezedesign.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Alternative Radio Wave Technique ? by Greg Neumayer on Jul 1, 2009 at 8:07:31 pm Ah, yes. That relates to the type of radio waves you're making. If you turn on your wave type to "mask", you can select it from your masks that are drawn on that same solid. Haven't used it so I can't really tell you how it'd be useful. All I can tell you is that I haven't needed it yet. Antifreeze Design http://www.antifreezedesign.com Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index