Improving Performance With Particle Playground (Pro Only); Shatter Effect; View Control For The Shatter Effect - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 Manual

Improving performance with Particle Playground (Pro only)

Keep the following in mind when working the Particle Playground effect:
•
When you're generating a Particle Playground effect, keep an eye on the Info panel to see how many particles are
being produced. If an effect contains more than 10,000 particles, it can significantly slow rendering. If you notice
performance problems, set Particles Per Second and/or Particles Down to relatively low values (between 1 and
100).
•
The Grid and Layer Exploder generate particles on every frame, which may generate too many particles for the
effect you're creating and slow down rendering. To avoid continuous particle generation, animate these controls
to decline to zero over time: Layer Exploder, Radius of New Particles, Grid Width and Height, Particle Radius, and
Font Size. Then Particle Playground generates new particles only at the start of a sequence.
•
When you apply a Particle Playground effect to a layer, the particle positions aren't limited to the bounds of that
layer. To control particles that you can't see or that appear near the edge of the image, use a Selection or Property
Map that's larger than the area of the Particle Playground layer. Also, note that After Effects takes an image map's
alpha channel into account. If you want transparent areas of your map to affect the particles, precompose the map
layer with a black solid behind it.
To specify field-rendering with a Particle Playground effect, select Enable Field Rendering in the Particle Playground
options dialog box. Then Particle Playground calculates the simulation at double the frame rate of the current
composition, which is what field rendering requires.

Shatter effect

The Shatter effect explodes graphic images. Use the effect's controls to set explosion points and adjust the strength
and radius. Anything outside the radius doesn't explode, leaving portions of the layer unaltered. You can choose from
a variety of shapes for the shattered pieces and extrude the pieces to give them bulk and depth. You can even use a
gradient layer to precisely control the order of an explosion. For example, if you import a logo, use Shatter to blow a
logo-shaped hole in a layer.
This effect works with 8-bpc color.
Original (left) and as Shatter is applied over time to reveal another layer (center and right)

View control for the Shatter effect

The View control specifies exactly how a scene appears in the Composition panel by using the following views:
Displays the pieces with textures and lighting—as they will look at final output. Use this view when
Rendered
rendering the animation.
Displays the layer from a full-screen, straight-on camera angle with no perspective. Use this
Wireframe Front View
view to adjust effect points and other parameters that are hard to see from an angle. In addition, the outlines of the
shatter map are visible so you can precisely position, rotate, and scale the shatter pattern. It's handy to toggle between
this view and the perspective view you use for the scene.
Displays the correct perspective of the scene, so you can quickly set up the camera the way you like it and
Wireframe
fine-tune the Extrusion Depth.
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