Lighting Controls For The Shatter Effect; Material Controls For The Shatter Effect; Creating A Custom Shatter Map - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 Manual

ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 7.0
519
User Guide

Lighting controls for the Shatter effect

Lighting controls specify the lighting for the Shatter effect.
Specifies which type of light you want to use. Distant Source simulates sunlight and casts shadows in one
Light Type
direction, where all the light rays strike the object from virtually the same angle. Point Source is similar to a light
bulb and casts shadows in all directions. First Comp Light uses the composition's first light layer, which can use a
variety of settings.
Specifies the power of the light. The higher the value, the brighter the layer. Other lighting settings
Light Intensity
affect the overall light intensity as well.
Specifies the color of light.
Light Color
Specifies the position of the light in (x,y) space.
Light Position
Specifies the position of the light in z space. Negative numbers move the light behind the layer.
Light Depth
Distributes light over the layer. Increasing it adds an even illumination to all objects and prevents
Ambient Light
shadows from being totally black. Turning Ambient Light all the way to pure white, and setting all other light controls
to 0, makes the object fully lit and eliminates any 3D shading from the scene.

Material controls for the Shatter effect

Material controls specify the reflection values of the pieces.
Gives objects form-defining shading. Shading depends on the angle at which the light strikes the
Diffuse Reflection
surface, and is independent of the viewer's position.
Takes into account the position of the viewer. It models the reflection of the light source back to
Specular Reflection
the viewer. It can create the illusion of shininess. For realistic effects, you can animate this control by using higher
and higher values to mask the transition from filtered to nonfiltered versions of the layer.
Controls shininess. Very shiny surfaces produce small tight reflections, while duller surfaces
Highlight Sharpness
spread the highlight out into a larger region. Specular highlights are the color of the incoming light. Because light is
typically white or off-white, broad highlights can desaturate an image by adding white to the surface color.
Note: In general, use the following process to adjust lighting: Set the Light Position and Diffuse Reflection to control the
overall light level and shading in a scene. Then, adjust Specular Reflection and Highlight Sharpness to control the
strength and spread of highlights. Finally, adjust Ambient Light to fill in the shadows.

Creating a custom shatter map

All layers in After Effects are represented as an RGBA image (even black-and-white images). The Shatter effect calcu-
lates the luminance threshold of each channel to create a custom shatter map. Shatter calculates the 50% luminance
threshold of each channel, creating an image composed of only eight colors: red, green, blue, yellow, magenta, cyan,
white, and black. These eight colors become possible combinations of the channels set either all the way on (255) or
all the way off (0). The shatter layer splits along the edges of these different colored sections.
When designing custom shatter maps, it can be useful to manually set a threshold for each channel of the image at
50% (you can use the Curves effect to do this). When you set the threshold you can see how the image will be broken
into pieces. Alternatively, you can create custom shatter maps by drawing an image using only the eight colors listed
above, with no intermediate shades or anti-aliasing.
The alpha channel determines whether or not a shattered piece exists. A white alpha channel value results in a
shattered piece, and a black alpha channel value results in no piece. Using an alpha channel, you can make a tile map
with holes in it or generate simple 3D models like extruded text.