Adobe After Effects CS4 - Manual (Page 498)

492 USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Effects and animation presets
Last updated 12/21/2009
• Wrap Back Values above 255 or below 0 are reflected back into the 0-255 range. For example, a value of 258 (255+3)
is reflected to 252 (255-3), and a value of -3 is reflected to 3. With this setting, Contrast values above 100 increase
complexity and detail.
Disperse How randomly the pattern is drawn. Lower values cause more uniform or gridlike cell patterns.
Note: If you set the Disperse value above 1.0, set the layer to Best quality to avoid artifacts.
Size The size of the cells. The default size is 60.
Offset Determines the portion of the fractal shape used to create the pattern.
Tiling Options Choose Enable Tiling to create a pattern built of repeating tiles. Cells Horizontal and Cells Vertical
determine how many cells wide and how many cells high each tile is.
Evolution Animating this setting results in changes of the pattern over time.
Note: Although the Evolution value is set in units called revolutions, it’s important to realize that these revolutions are
progressive. The Evolution state continues to progress infinitely at each new value. Use the Cycle Evolution option to
return the Evolution setting to its original state at each revolution.
Evolution Options Evolution Options provide controls that render the effect for one short cycle and then loop it for
the duration of your clip. Use these controls to pre-render cell pattern elements into loops, and thus speed up
rendering time.
• Cycle Evolution Creates a loop that forces the Evolution state to return to its starting point.
• Cycle The number of revolutions of the Evolution setting that the cell pattern cycles through before it repeats. The
amount of time between Evolution keyframes determines the timing of the Evolution cycles.
Note: The Cycle control affects only the state of the cell pattern, not geometrics or other controls, so you can get different
results with different Size or Offset settings.
• Random Seed Specifies a value from which to generate the cell pattern. Animating this property results in flashing
from one cell pattern to another (within the same cell pattern type), which is not usually the result that you want. For
smooth transition of the cell pattern, animate the Evolution property.
Note: Create new cell pattern animations by reusing previously created Evolution cycles and changing only the Random
Seed value. Using a new Random Seed value alters the cell pattern without disturbing the Evolution animation.
Checkerboard effect
The Checkerboard effect creates a checkerboard pattern of rectangles, half of which are transparent.
This effect works with 8-bpc color.
Anchor The point of origin of the checkerboard pattern. Moving this point offsets the pattern.
Size From How the dimensions of the rectangles are determined:
• Corner Point The dimensions of each rectangle are the dimensions of the rectangle with opposite corners defined
by the Anchor and Corner points.
• Width Slider The height and width of a rectangle are equal to the Width value, meaning that the rectangles are
squares.
• Width & Height Sliders The height of a rectangle is equal to the Height value. The width of a rectangle is equal to
the Width value.
Feather Thickness of the edge feather within the checkerboard pattern.
Color The color of the nontransparent rectangles.