Adobe AFTER EFFECTS CS3 PROFESSIONAL User Manual page 432

Specify the settings for the specified set. X (Real) and Y (Imaginary) specify the pixels at the center
Mandelbrot, Julia
of the image for either the Mandelbrot or Julia set. Magnification specifies the magnification of the effect. Escape
Limit specifies how many times the calculation looks for a color for a given pixel before it assigns the color black. It
also sets the maximum number of line segments the Selection tool can use when tracing the path of a point. Higher
numbers require longer render times.
Specifies the color of the effect:
Color
•
Displays a ghosted version of the opposite set. For example, when viewing the Julia set, use this control
Overlay
to display a ghosted version of the Mandelbrot set. When you select Overlay, a white cross hair with a black drop
shadow appears so you can see the exact point at the center of the opposite set. This control is useful because the Julia
set depends on the center point of the Mandelbrot set.
•
Specifies whether black pixels are transparent. If you choose Solid Color from the Palette menu,
Transparency
this control specifies whether everything inside or outside the set is transparent.
•
Specifies the palette to use when drawing the set. Lightness Gradient creates a gradient that ranges from
Palette
black to white, passing through the hue specified by the Hue control. Then it applies the same gradient eight more
times, each time using the hue 45˚ away on the color wheel. The number of colors in the gradient is specified by the
Cycle Steps control. Hue Wheel uses all the color from the Hue color wheel, with maximum brightness and
saturation. Black And White uses alternating bands of black and white. Solid Color turns everything transparent
except the inside of the set, which uses the color specified by the Hue control. Select Transparent to get the opposite
result.
• Specifies the hue for solid colors and the starting hue for color gradients. This control works well for creating
Hue
smooth color changes or for cycling through the palette. Cycle Steps specifies the number of bands of different color
that appear before the cycle starts over. Cycle Offset specifies where, other than the beginning, a cycle starts.
•
Highlights the edges between color bands. This control requires low-quality mode. If you want
Edge Highlight
to use high-quality edge highlighting, use the Find Edges effect instead.
Specify the oversampling settings for the effect:
High Quality Settings
•
Specifies the method used to oversample the effect: Edge Detect-Fast-May Miss Pixels
Oversample Method
performs a simple edge detection and oversamples only those pixels. This option is the fastest, especially in areas with
a lot of solid color, such as black, and it generally produces results indistinguishable from Brute Force. Brute Force-
Slow-Every Pixel oversamples every pixel in the image. It is slow but precise.
•
Specifies the amount of oversampling to perform. For example, a value of 4 specifies that each
Oversample Factor
pixel is sampled 16 times (4x4=16) and that the average color is used. Higher values produce better quality output
but require longer render times.
Use tools with the Fractal effect
When the Fractal effect is selected in the Effect Controls panel, you can use After Effects tools in the following way.
(If you don't want the Fractal tools active, deselect the effect before using tools.)
• Drag the Selection tool to see if a point's path lies within the set. If the path leads out of the bounded rectangle (-
2, -2, 2, 2), it has gone into infinity; in such a case, the starting-point color is based on how many line segments it
takes to reach infinity. If the path ends within the rectangle, it's colored black.
• Use the Zoom tool to zoom in or out on a particular point, or hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS),
click and hold the Magnifying tool over the center of the image, and navigate from the center. For example, to
zoom straight in, stay in the center; to move up, drag up just a little and then quickly move back to the center.
AFTER EFFECTS CS3 426
User Guide