Create Procedurally Animated Rhythmic Dancing Marbles
Tutorial Details
- Requirements: After Effects and Trapcode Lux
- Difficulty: Advanced
- Run Time: 48:16 min
- Difficulty: Advanced
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
Twice a month we revisit some of our reader’s favorite posts from back in the archives of Aetuts+. Today we’ll look at a great post from Satya Meka. This tutorial was published in July 2009.
By now you should expect nothing less than amazing procedural animations from Satya and this tutorial is no exception. Inspired by this piece by Eamae Mirkin which was originally created using the processing programming language, Satya explains the required math background and shows you how to replicate this beautiful animation in After Effects.
Tutorial
Download Tutorial .flv
File size 252MB
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Satya…
Thanks so much for a terrific tutorial… really impressive work.
It’s very good of you to share your time, expertise and creativity with all of us.
Also, you’re extremely generous to follow up the comments with specific help.
And for you people who are looking for something to criticize… you remind me of the guy who asks for a drink and then complains there’s no ice in it.
Keep up the good work, Satya and best regards.
I loved the music, could you tell me who is the composer
thx
Moby – In my heart
Awesome tutorial!! But I am confused with one thing, your math is wrong, unless you just got the terms switched.
With…
t = Math.floor(time); // you said you want to divide the “time” in half, but you divided it by 0.5.
And with…
seed.random((t+1),true); // you wanted to double the t+1 by multiplying it by 0.5.
To divide something in half by 0.5, your have to multiply it, to double something by 0.5, you have to divide it…
1/0.5 = 2 // doubled
1* 0.5 = 0.5 // halved
Thanks again for the totally sweet tut =]
I actually meant time period for each bounce!
Can you make this whit a text?
That the balls jump and then a text appears?
great great tut!!!!
Satya u’r a monster expression!!!
awesomeness !!!
Awesome tutorial. My first exposure to using expressions and mathematics in my animations.
Do you have any thoughts about making a “ball” bounce off of walls in addition to the floor? I’m trying to experiment with limiting the values on the sides, but making a ball hit the wall mid bounce is tricky. Any thoughts?
If your wall is a known value you could perhaps rig up some sort of “if” expression to the effect that if your ball gets to a certain x value it runs the function that Satya created in the tutorial. But then again, you would have to somehow calculate the incidence of reflection to the wall, and not get some random number…… Anyway, something along those lines. Check out Dan Ebbert’s site and I’m sure you could figure it out: http://www.motionscript.com/
- Spencer
Sick tutorial one of the best i’ve seen in ages, any change of you adding the part about how to do this without using Trapcode lux?
ty
Hey great tutorial i saw it n the site and thourght awsume thats the look i need for an aniamtion however i would need to code it to fit the comp etc um i ran into issues thou when linking the radio waves to make a wave when the ball hits the floor the fromWorld(this comp etc well it throws up an error at me and is how you did it saying there is no such ‘comp’ or position helps?
oo and you said you would breifly go over how to do this without trapcode Lux but you never actually said anythign at the end could you please tell me? thanks
:)
Hey, awesome tutorial. A bit long, but well worth the time watching. One thing you forgot Satya. In the tutorial you said you’ll explain how to create the orbs without Lux. Errr, you forgot to do that. I don’t have Lux, and would love to know how to do it without.
Satya…
Sweet animation bro. Thanks for he inspiration. This is exactly the starting point concept I want to use on my next project. Thanks again.
-Pat
Hey Satya
Thank you taking the time to post this tutorial! It’s a very cool effect! When the tutorial was finished, I unfortunately didn’t have my balls jumping quite like yours. I have the expressions in correctly so I’m a little confused as to why they aren’t jumping around like yours. I’ve sent a copy to your gutsblow account. If you have time to take a peek that would be great but if not I understand. Thanks again for posting!
Do u know what is meant by meka
In Telugu it is called Goat
cha..maaku teliyadule..ippude telusukunna..
Nice tutorial I will give it a try, but i absolutely don’t understand what the expressions
-math.floor(value,value)
-a = random(value) (what does the value stand for?)
-linear(time,t*value,(t+1)*value,a,b)
Mean? Could someone give me some clear details in what they do. Because i could just exactly copy the expression, but im not gaining any new knowledge from that.
And oh, thanks for letting me know that the stupid y=blablabla stuff I have to do in school actually is used in real life.
Keep up the good work!
very beautiful (tosi hieno)
Can someone tell me why I can’t make the very first math step?
I meant no matter what I try to click at the x,y,z position it not showing the math option. Instead of 3 or 4 icon in the video (expression: Y position icon, icon, icon, icon ) my AE just have a stop watch and 1 more icon.
So confused
very interesting tutorial. thanks for posting it
how can i make the balls jump to music?
if i want the balls to initially bounce on a specific point how could i do that?
thanks
WOW! You are freaking epic! I realize this is quite old, but dang! I thought I would never have to hear of this sort of math again, but who knew I would be using it in my design degree. You fully lost me on the formulas but I made it work and it looks sick. Hats off to you bro.
One happy kiwi :D
Hey, thanks for the tutorial. Took ages to render on my macbook (8 gigs of ram) though.
So awesome !
For those who want to know how to do it without lux , there is a great tut on VC.net
3D Light casting
bro NICE TUTORIAL! however u didn’t cover the part that i wanted! the song beat! btw its like I’m in my math class in the 1st 16 mins. haha