Adobe AFTER EFFECTS CS3 PROFESSIONAL User Manual page 414

AFTER EFFECTS CS3 408
User Guide
Mesh Warp effect
The Mesh Warp effect applies a grid of Bezier patches over a layer, which you can manipulate to distort areas of an
image. Each corner of a patch includes a vertex and two to four tangents (points that control the curvature of the line
segment that makes up the edge of the patch). The number of tangents depends on whether the vertex is in a corner,
on an edge, or inside the grid. By moving the vertices and tangents, you can manipulate the shape of the curved line
segment. The finer the grid, the tighter the adjustments you can make to the area of the image inside the patch.
This effect works with 8-bpc and 16-bpc color.
Original (top left), with distortion mesh (bottom left), and with Mesh Warp applied (bottom right)
To select multiple vertices, Shift-click the vertices.
Specify up to 31 patches vertically (Rows) or horizontally (Columns). For broader distortion, use
Rows, Columns
fewer patches. For finer control, use more. Drag the vertices and tangents to change the grid shape. The image follows
the grid shape according to the elasticity setting and the boundary created by the adjacent patch.
Specifies how closely the image follows the shape defined by the curve. The higher the quality value, the
Quality
more closely the image follows the shape. Higher quality settings require more rendering time.
Click the stopwatch to animate the distortion over time.
Distortion Mesh
Note: Each patch becomes a boundary for the distortion. For example, when you stretch a patch, the area of the image
in the patch stretches, squishing the area of the image in the adjacent patch. The boundary of the adjacent patch protects
the image inside it from being squished to zero. In other words, you can't push an image out of its patch.
Mirror effect
The Mirror effect splits the image along a line and reflects one side onto the other.
The position of the line about which the reflection occurs.
Reflection Center
The angle of the line about which the reflection occurs. An angle of 0˚ reflects the left side onto the
Reflection Angle
right. An angle of 90˚ reflects the top onto the bottom.
This effect works with 8-bpc and 16-bpc color.