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Quake and Awecillate : check them out
by Robbie Hall
on
Sep 1, 2009 at 3:43:25 am |
Download Quake & Awecillate:
http://www.filefront.com/14441221/RD%20Quake%201.1%20+%20Awecillate.zip
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Quake
Quake is a custom effect (animation preset) that harnesses the power of the wiggle function,
as well as audio, to drive any effects/parameters you'd like. It's pretty similar to Andrew
Kramer's Twitch plugin, but it does not modify pixels, it simply outputs values for pickwhipping
parameters to.
What Quake does:
Quake generates random values over time. These values are highly
customizeable in order to produce a useable output for your effect.
Quake also includes extensive audio capabilities that includes usage of both
left and right channels, range selection, waveform modification, and of course
output modification. Quake was designed in a such a way that multiple effects
can be linked together and controlled by a master module, or separately.
Quake's output modules can be daisy chained together to synchronize effects you
have attached to Quake. Quake comes with two types of output modules, one designed
for use with slider effect parameters, and one for use with point (x/y) effect
parameters.
Modular Design:
Quake was built to be extremely versatile. Quake is divided into
what looks like 3 presets. Let's start with the one called "Quake".
"Quake" is a bundle that includes a master controller, and 2 output
modules (1 slider and 1 point). "Quake Output Slider" is simply
just the slider output module thats included in the "Quake" bundle,
and "Quake Output Point" is just the point output module from
the "Quake" bundle. Now, you can pickwhip any number of effects/parameters
to one just one of Quake's output modules, however sometimes you need
to specify different values to work correctly with the effects/parameters
you have attached to QUake. For this reason, Quake makes it very easy to
create more output modules. The easiest way to create another output
module is just to duplicate (CTRL + D) one of the output modules from the
"Quake" preset. However I made the invidivual output into presets so you can
just drag them onto whatever layer you need them.
Dynamic:
Quake is very dynamic and flexible. You can drag out "Quake" onto a layer,
delete any one of the modules, and the system still works, no error
messages either. You can have the master module on any layer you want
and the output modules will find it automatically, and function as a slave
to it, when of course the output modules are not set to "Independent".
You can use output modules without a master module at all, which is the simplest
way to control one effect.
Some Rules:
You can only have one master module in your composition. If you have
multiple master modules in a comp the output modules will follow the
first the master module they find, and things will get screwy.
So in simple terms, you should only have one effect called "Quake" in your
comp. You can rename your output modules to whatever you'd like, and
sometimes this is a good way to keep track of what effect/parameter
you have attached to what output module. Example: You have the position
of your layer attached to an output module to create a screen shake,
and you rename that output module "Screen Shake". You are free to rename
output modules with w/e you'd like, however the master controller ("Quake")
should NOT be renamed. Of course I accounted for this, and the system
will still function if you rename the master controller, but things will not
behave the way you'd like.
How to use Quake:
For this I will go over a simple scenario. We want to use Quake
to make a layer flicker randomly over time.
1) Apply the "Quake Output Slider" to your layer. (remember it doesn't matter
what layer its on).
2) Alt/Option-Click on the stopwatch for the opacity parameter of the layer.
3) Use the expression pickwhip to pickwhip to "Quake Output Slider"s
*Output Slider*.
4) Run a ram-preview and tweak Quake's settings.
Some common Effects/Parameters to use with Quake:
Layer : Transform : Position
Layer : Transform : Opacity
Layer : Transform : Scale
Layer : Time Remapping
Distort -> Transform : Position
Distort -> Transform : Opacity
Distort -> Transform : Scale
Blur & Sharpen -> Fast Blur : Blurriness
Color Correction -> Tint : Amount to Tint
Stylize -> Glow : Glow Threshold
Trapcode -> Particular : Emitter XY
etc.
When you apply "Quake" to a layer here's what you get.
1 Master controller "Quake", 1 slider output module "Quake Output Slider",
and 1 slider output module "Quake Output Point".
http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/8378/quakecontrols.jpg
When you apply "Quake Output Slider" to a layer, here's what you get.
This is just the output slider module, and it can work by itself, or
be a slave to the master controller module. This module is included in the
"Quake" bundle. ^
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/4234/quakeoutputslidercontro.jpg
Here's the point output module:
Controls are the same as the slider output module, except
there's an X and Y value for each parameter.
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/7352/quakeoutputpointcontrol.jpg
Audio:
Quake features extensive audio capabilities. Master controller modules and output
modules can be linked to an audio layer. In order for Quake to read audio levels
however, you must first convert the audio layer into keyframes. Do that by right
clicking on the audio layer, and going to Keyframe Assistent-Convert Audio to Keyframes.
This will create a null object with all the audio data stored in it. Now use this
null object as the audio layer in Quake. With Quake you can specify a specific
range of audio values that you want to sample. This makes it easy to sync effects
to important beats of a song, like drum beats.
http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/9338/quakeaudioselection.jpg
This graph is what the output would look like when "Scale to Fit" is turned on.
If it wasn't turned on, values outside of the selection range would be simply ignored.
Note: The Scale to Fit option takes some time to compute.
http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/5736/quakeaudiostretchtofit.jpg
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Awecillate
What Awecillate does
Awecillate takes input values in which you can freely choose
and uses sine and cosine functions from math to produce some
very cool, and useful animation results.
How to use Awecillate
Awecillate is divided into 2 sections, 1 that produces
values into a slider control, and another that produces
values into a point control. Awecillate is designed to have parameters pick-whipped
to its *Output Slider* or *Output Point*.
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/456/awecillatecontrols.jpg
Here's what Awecillate's controls look like.
The slider controls are identical to the Point controls
so I hid them to simplify things. I recommend
first pick-whipping your Point parameter to *Output Point*
so you can see the results as your adjusting Awecillate's
parameters. I'll go over each parameter now.
Base X and Base Y are just the starting XY coordinates
for the calculations. If you want your animation
to start at a certain position, here's where you'd specify that.
Affect X and Affect Y just turn the calculations on/off
for the named axis. X/Y Amplitude is the height of each sine wave.
The Decay Options allow you to animate the Amplitude
in/out. The Exponential option multiplies the Amp Decay
by time^2 resulting in an exponential animation curve.
Cycle Duration is the time it takes for one wave
to complete its cycle (wave length). There are also
Decay options for Cycle Duration, and they work
the same as they do for Amplitude. Positive Only
does just that, it results in crests of only positive increations
to the starting point (Base X/Y). By default Awecillate
uses the sine function for its calculations, however you can also
use the cosine function by enabling the Use Cosine parameter.
Using the Cosine will offset the animations faze by 90 degrees.
The Subtract From Base Parameter subtracts the resulting
values from the Base instead of adding, basically inverting
the animation curve.
It might be best to just attach your parameter to the output
and fiddle with all these options to better see what they do to
the overall animation.
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/4728/graphs3.jpg
Awecillate's Results
Here are just 6 of infinite animation curves Awecillate can produce.
Remember, Awecillate did not create the images itself. I used
the Generate-Write On effect to produce these graphs.
(In order to transform the X axis into time I simply added
the expression "time*100" to Awecillate's Base X
parameter, that way when you play it, the line draws left to right.
Using the Write-On effect is a great way to preview/see your animation
while you're working on it.
Other Notes
3D Layers have 3 values for their Position property,
naturally. Since Awecillate's *Output Point* only has 2 values,
they are not compatible to be pick-whipped. To get around this,
right-click the position property of the layer, and click
"Separate Dimensions." This will separate the XYZ values into
seperate sliders. Now you can pick-whip each one to Awecillate's
*Output Slider* (Depending on your desired animation
you might need to use 3 different instances of Awecillate so you
can adjust each *Output Slider* separately). The "Separate Dimensions"
option is in CS4 ONLY, however Awecillate only works with CS4,
so it's not a problem.
If you run into any problems/errors please tell me.
Spent some time on these, so I thought I'd share.
Thanks for your time.
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