Adobe After Effects CS3 - Manual (Page 497)

AFTER EFFECTS CS3
User Guide
492
Original (top left), with Foam applied (bottom left), and with a robot layer used as the Bubble Texture Layer (bottom right)
You can also substitute any image or movie for bubbles. For example, you can create swarms of ants, flocks of birds,
or crowds of people.
Note: On a frame-by-frame basis, Foam renders quickly, but the slightest adjustment in the initial settings is likely to
result in very different output a few seconds into the simulation. When making adjustments to Physics controls, the
farther into the simulation you are, the longer the adjustments take to render, because each adjustment results in the
simulation being recalculated all the way back to the beginning. Not every frame takes this long to calculate; once Foam
adjusts to the change, rendering speeds up again.
See also
“About randomness and random seeds” on page 354
View controls
Draft Displays the bubbles without fully rendering them. This is a fast way to preview the behavior of the bubbles.
Draft mode is the only way to preview the universe edges, the Flow Map alignment, and the Producer location, orien-
tation, and size. Bubbles are represented by blue ellipses. The Producer Point is represented by a red ellipse. The
bubble universe is represented by a red rectangle.
Draft + Flow Map Displays the Draft view wireframe superimposed over a grayscale representation of the flow map,
if selected.
Rendered Displays the final output of the animation.
Producer controls
The Producer controls specify the location where the bubbles originate, as well as the speed at which they are
generated:
Producer Point The center of the area from which the bubbles can be produced.
Producer X Size, Producer Y Size Adjust the width and height of the area from which the bubbles can be produced.
Producer Orientation Adjusts the rotation (orientation) of the area from which the bubbles can be produced.
Producer Orientation has no noticeable effect when Producer X Size and Producer Y Size are identical.
Zoom Producer Point Specifies whether the producer point and all of its associated keyframes remain relative to the
universe (selected) or to the screen (unselected) when you zoom in or out on it. For example, if you set a position for
Producer Point in the upper-left corner of the layer and then zoom out on that layer, the producer point stays in the