aescripts + aeplugins

Krystyna Kwiatkowska · July 2016

Hi,

I don't see any Plexus in my Composition. Placing Layer > Plexus, Primitives, Camera > black Screen, nothing happens - why? (Using CS6, plexus 2 works fine).

James Scott · July 2016

Installing trial of Plexus 3 removes Plexus 2. When trying to apply Plexus to a solid I get errors concerning unable to find entry point.

AE CS6 Mac OS 10.8.5

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Krystyna Kwiatkowska said:

Hi,

I don't see any Plexus in my Composition. Placing Layer > Plexus, Primitives, Camera > black Screen, nothing happens - why? (Using CS6, plexus 2 works fine).

Hi Krystyna,

What OS are you running? Also, do you happen to know your graphics card? Thanks.

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

James Scott said:

Installing trial of Plexus 3 removes Plexus 2. When trying to apply Plexus to a solid I get errors concerning unable to find entry point.

AE CS6 Mac OS 10.8.5

Hi James,

Can you open a support ticket with a screenshot or any crash log if possible?

Krystyna Kwiatkowska · July 2016

Rowbyte said:
Hi Krystyna,
What OS are you running? Also, do you happen to know your graphics card? Thanks.

Sure:

OSX 10.9.5

Mac Pro 3 GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon E5

32 GB 1867 MHz DDR3 ECC

AMD FirePro D700 6144 MB

Adobe CS6

Philipp Steinkellner · July 2016

hello,
similar problem here: ae cs 5.5 / mac 10.6.8 says on startup: "Couldn't find main entry point for Plexter64.plugin (48 § 72)" see screenshot attached.

my specs: macpro 3.1 (2008) 8 core 2.8 ghz, 32 gb ram, os 10.6.8, ati radeon hd 5870 1024 mb ram, after effects cs 5.5 (10.5.1.2), plexus version 2.1.1 runs fine, maybe my config is too old to run plexus 3.x (?) ... but then sys req are including cs 5.5...

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Philipp Steinkellner said:

hello,
similar problem here: ae cs 5.5 / mac 10.6.8 says on startup: "Couldn't find main entry point for Plexter64.plugin (48 § 72)" see screenshot attached.

my specs: macpro 3.1 (2008) 8 core 2.8 ghz, 32 gb ram, os 10.6.8, ati radeon hd 5870 1024 mb ram, after effects cs 5.5 (10.5.1.2), plexus version 2.1.1 runs fine, maybe my config is too old to run plexus 3.x (?) ... but then sys req are including cs 5.5...

Hi Phillipp,

Plexus 3 requires atleast 10.8 (because of the OpenGL version) and isn't compatible with 10.6.8.

Philip Rafferty · July 2016

Using Plexus V3.0.7 - Having difficulty with the points or lines renderers not showing on MacBook Pro 13" (Intel Iris Graphics 6100)

Works as expected on my iMac and MacPro - is this a known limitation?

No problem with facets, beams or triangulation, I'm just using defaults with a cube. Points and lines show on MBP when i open the same setup made with Plexus V2.

OSX V10.11.5

AE-CC 2015 13.8.0.144

Philipp Steinkellner · July 2016

Rowbyte said:

Philipp Steinkellner said:

hello,
similar problem here: ae cs 5.5 / mac 10.6.8 says on startup: "Couldn't find main entry point for Plexter64.plugin (48 § 72)" see screenshot attached.

my specs: macpro 3.1 (2008) 8 core 2.8 ghz, 32 gb ram, os 10.6.8, ati radeon hd 5870 1024 mb ram, after effects cs 5.5 (10.5.1.2), plexus version 2.1.1 runs fine, maybe my config is too old to run plexus 3.x (?) ... but then sys req are including cs 5.5...

Hi Phillipp,

Plexus 3 requires atleast 10.8 (because of the OpenGL version) and isn't compatible with 10.6.8.

ok, i see. thank you for shedding light on this. so i stay with plexus 2.1.1. for this configuration.

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Philip Rafferty said:

Using Plexus V3.0.7 - Having difficulty with the points or lines renderers not showing on MacBook Pro 13" (Intel Iris Graphics 6100)
Works as expected on my iMac and MacPro - is this a known limitation?
No problem with facets, beams or triangulation, I'm just using defaults with a cube. Points and lines show on MBP when i open the same setup made with Plexus V2.

OSX V10.11.5
AE-CC 2015 13.8.0.144

Hi,

We've identified a bug that happens on Intel cards and we'll issue a bugfix soon.

David Arbor · July 2016

I'm getting an error every time I hit Spacebar on a comp. This happened on two totally different projects on two different iMacs. The only thing in common between the two is OS X 10.11.6 and After Effects 13.8 x144. It happened on both a new project and an existing one where Plexus 2 was working with no issues.

My work computer has a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4 GB and my home computer has a ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics 1 GB. Attached is a screenshot of the error I'm seeing.

Let me know if I can provide any more info.

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

David Arbor said:

I'm getting an error every time I hit Spacebar on a comp. This happened on two totally different projects on two different iMacs. The only thing in common between the two is OS X 10.11.6 and After Effects 13.8 x144. It happened on both a new project and an existing one where Plexus 2 was working with no issues.

My work computer has a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4 GB and my home computer has a ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics 1 GB. Attached is a screenshot of the error I'm seeing.

Let me know if I can provide any more info.

Hello David,

Can you send me a project either by using the contact form or opening a support ticket? Thanks.

Krystyna Kwiatkowska · July 2016

Any updates in my case? Concerning some projects it would be nice to hear from you to decide to switch back to ver. 2 or to wait? Thanx.

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Krystyna Kwiatkowska said:

Any updates in my case? Concerning some projects it would be nice to hear from you to decide to switch back to ver. 2 or to wait? Thanx.

Download v3.0.8 and install it. Let me know if it resolves the issue.

http://go.rowbyte.com/dl-plexus

David Arbor · July 2016

Rowbyte said:
Hello David,
Can you send me a project either by using the contact form or opening a support ticket? Thanks.

Thanks, I just opened a support ticket and attached two projects for you to look at.

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Philip Rafferty said:

Using Plexus V3.0.7 - Having difficulty with the points or lines renderers not showing on MacBook Pro 13" (Intel Iris Graphics 6100)
Works as expected on my iMac and MacPro - is this a known limitation?
No problem with facets, beams or triangulation, I'm just using defaults with a cube. Points and lines show on MBP when i open the same setup made with Plexus V2.

OSX V10.11.5
AE-CC 2015 13.8.0.144

Hi, this issue should be fixed in 3.0.8. Can you download and see if this is resolved? Thanks.

http://go.rowbyte.com/dl-plexus

Krystyna Kwiatkowska · July 2016

Hi Rowbyte,

te version 3.0.8 works, but it doesn't work properly. Some strange things happen. Shade Effector doesn't work at all. When I play around with DOF it makes a blue screen (of composition), Plexus disappeares. I have to delete the Project, make another one … it's a pity. Concerning a focus distance, DOF playing around, somehow plexus disappeared, when slightly changing the camera settings...

Sorry, but it's not a kind of professional work, I'm feeling like a beta tester by lying the update.

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Krystyna Kwiatkowska said:

Hi Rowbyte,

te version 3.0.8 works, but it doesn't work properly. Some strange things happen. Shade Effector doesn't work at all. When I play around with DOF it makes a blue screen (of composition), Plexus disappeares. I have to delete the Project, make another one … it's a pity. Concerning a focus distance, DOF playing around, somehow plexus disappeared, when slightly changing the camera settings...

Sorry, but it's not a kind of professional work, I'm feeling like a beta tester by lying the update.

Open a support ticket with the project file and screenshots. Bear in mind, that any software will have minor issues right after release (especially concerning GPUs) and most if not all of the issues you're describing are related to Graphic drivers and their quirks, especially in older versions of Mac OS X we're actively working to fix them.

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Hey guys,

Please download and install the latest version (v3.0.9) released today. It fixes all the reported issues, including

- ‘Item cannot be Null’ error when applied to a text layer.

- Render Glitches when applied to non-square pixel aspect ratio comps.

- crash when using Sprites on Windows.

- Render issues on Mac OS X 10.9.

- Overall stability improvements.

Please note that even though we support Mac OS X 10.8 and 10.9, we highly recommend you to upgrade to 10.10 or higher because the graphics drivers are more stable and give better performance compared to earlier versions of Mac OS X.

If you're having any issues, open a support ticket with as much as information as possible and we'll look into it right away.

Krystyna Kwiatkowska · July 2016

Sorry, the same issues as before. I understand some developmental aspect on software, but… This screenshot happened as follow:

Plexus > Primitive > Noise > Camera > DOF on / off (playing with camera around, so far so good), then > Shader / Light > screenshot > nothing works then. (If I don't play with DOF everything is ok).

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Krystyna Kwiatkowska said:

Sorry, the same issues as before. I understand some developmental aspect on software, but… This screenshot happened as follow:

Plexus > Primitive > Noise > Camera > DOF on / off (playing with camera around, so far so good), then > Shader / Light > screenshot > nothing works then. (If I don't play with DOF everything is ok).

Try attaching the project file here. The reason why Shader Effector doesn't work is I see that in your screenshot that you are using a 'Parallel Light'. Parallel Lights aren't supported in Plexus 3 Shader Effector. Only Point Lights are supported.

Andrew Sones · July 2016

Hi, I purchased and upgraded to Plexus3 today and get the same error message on start up very similar to David Arbors post above. It appears when loading an old project (rather intense one using lots of plexus2 and .obj references). Now the message wont appear to go away when you click 'OK'... not even a flicker. But I noticed after a ton of 'OK' clicks, and a shed load of patience, one of the reference .OBJ files appeared in the projects window and timeline.

I'm on MacPro, OS X EL Capitan (v10.11.1), 2x2.66GHz 6-CoreIntelXeon, 32GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC Memory, ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB

Adobe AE CC 14 and 15 same issue.

I'm guessing it has something to do with the link up with .OBJ files perhaps...

For now, is there a simple way I can uninstall plexus3 for now and reinstall plexus2?

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Andrew Sones said:

Hi, I purchased and upgraded to Plexus3 today and get the same error message on start up very similar to David Arbors post above. It appears when loading an old project (rather intense one using lots of plexus2 and .obj references). Now the message wont appear to go away when you click 'OK'... not even a flicker. But I noticed after a ton of 'OK' clicks, and a shed load of patience, one of the reference .OBJ files appeared in the projects window and timeline.

I'm on MacPro, OS X EL Capitan (v10.11.1), 2x2.66GHz 6-CoreIntelXeon, 32GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC Memory, ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB

Adobe AE CC 14 and 15 same issue.

I'm guessing it has something to do with the link up with .OBJ files perhaps...

For now, is there a simple way I can uninstall plexus3 for now and reinstall plexus2?

Hi Andrew,

You can re-install Plexus 2 again and it'll overwrite Plexus 3. The error is likely due to missing OBJ files. Can you open a support ticket and attach the project (v2 one) and the OBJ files? Thanks.

Andrew Sones · July 2016

Rowbyte said:

Hi Andrew,
You can re-install Plexus 2 again and it'll overwrite Plexus 3. The error is likely due to missing OBJ files. Can you open a support ticket and attach the project (v2 one) and the OBJ files? Thanks.

Reinstalling Plexus2 fix's it alright. No error message now. Everything is linked fine with no missing/unlinked files. Plexus 3 just doesn't seem to like OBJs right now. I'll try and send a simplified project via support ticket soon. Thanks, great work non the less chaps.

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Andrew Sones said:

Rowbyte said:

Hi Andrew,
You can re-install Plexus 2 again and it'll overwrite Plexus 3. The error is likely due to missing OBJ files. Can you open a support ticket and attach the project (v2 one) and the OBJ files? Thanks.

Reinstalling Plexus2 fix's it alright. No error message now. Everything is linked fine with no missing/unlinked files. Plexus 3 just doesn't seem to like OBJs right now. I'll try and send a simplified project via support ticket soon. Thanks, great work non the less chaps.

Looks like this only happens during the upgrade of old projects and new projects are unaffected. We'll look into this right away, thanks.

Mark Whitney · July 2016

Just purchased Plexus3. Installer says it completed but Plexus doesn't show up in AE CS6 effects list, nor does a Rowbyte entry.

Two plug-ins (Plexus64.aex and Plexter64.aex) do however get added to:

\Programs\AdobeCS6\Common\Plug-ins\CS6\MediaCore\Rowbyte\Plexus\

So it seems like there should be a simple solution such as just moving them from the Common folder, but I'd like a confirmation on this first.

Might I get help here or should I contact Support with Rowbyte?

Thanks.

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Mark Whitney said:

Just purchased Plexus3. Installer says it completed but Plexus doesn't show up in AE CS6 effects list, nor does a Rowbyte entry.

Two plug-ins (Plexus64.aex and Plexter64.aex) do however get added to:

\Programs\AdobeCS6\Common\Plug-ins\CS6\MediaCore\Rowbyte\Plexus\

So it seems like there should be a simple solution such as just moving them from the Common folder, but I'd like a confirmation on this first.

Might I get help here or should I contact Support with Rowbyte?

Thanks.

Hey Mark,

That doesn't look like a correct location of Plug-ins. If AE is installed properly in Program Files, the plug-in files should end up in this location- [Program Files]\Adobe\Common\Plug-ins\CS6\MediaCore\Rowbyte\Plexus\

If you don't see the plug-in files in that location or still don't see them in Effects menu, contact us directly or by opening a support ticket.

Mark Whitney · July 2016

I've a "custom" install to my

. namely

\Programs\AdobeCS6\Adobe After Effects CS6\Support Files\Plug-ins.

I've railed at Adobe & a few other software developers for years at their arrogance at insisting that their product gets install to the boot drive for years, not that this is the case with Plexus as you might be forced by the way the Adobe products work.

I'll contact you at Rowbyte Support for a more direct approach.

Thanks.

Mark Whitney · July 2016

Actually, I went ahead and just copied the plug-ins to my normal AE plug-ins folder on my Dee drive that the AE scripts forum insists on changing to a smiley face.

Anyway, Plexus showed up and allowed me to register. I'll kick the tires over the weekend and make sure it's working as expected and get used to the new interface.

Thanks.

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Mark Whitney said:

Actually, I went ahead and just copied the plug-ins to my normal AE plug-ins folder on my Dee drive that the AE scripts forum insists on changing to a smiley face.

Anyway, Plexus showed up and allowed me to register. I'll kick the tires over the weekend and make sure it's working as expected and get used to the new interface.

Thanks.

Ok. Just to make sure, there should be 4 plug-in binary files (Plexter64.aex, Plexus64.aex, BalancerSDK64.dll and OBJ_IO.aex) and they should all be in the same directory.

Mark Whitney · July 2016

Yes they are. I copied the entire Rowbyte folder.

Thanks again for your rapid response time.

Krystyna Kwiatkowska · July 2016

Rowbyte said:

Krystyna Kwiatkowska said:

Sorry, the same issues as before. I understand some developmental aspect on software, but… This screenshot happened as follow:

Plexus > Primitive > Noise > Camera > DOF on / off (playing with camera around, so far so good), then > Shader / Light > screenshot > nothing works then. (If I don't play with DOF everything is ok).

Try attaching the project file here. The reason why Shader Effector doesn't work is I see that in your screenshot that you are using a 'Parallel Light'. Parallel Lights aren't supported in Plexus 3 Shader Effector. Only Point Lights are supported.

> Sorry, "mea culpa" concerning the lights, but NOW: With the version 3.0.10 EVERYTHING WORKS AS IT SHOULD! Thank you for your service and finally this great update!

Mark Whitney · July 2016

Would it be possible in a future revision to have the Open Plexus Object Panel be an Open/Close toggle? I really like the functionality of it, but it really takes up a lot of screen real estate no matter where I dock it.

Thanks.

Rowbyte Inc · July 2016

Mark Whitney said:

Would it be possible in a future revision to have the Open Plexus Object Panel be an Open/Close toggle? I really like the functionality of it, but it really takes up a lot of screen real estate no matter where I dock it.

Thanks.

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the suggestion. We'll consider your request to open/close toggle it. Right now, you can close it like every other dockable panel in AE.

Joshua Oluwagbemiga · July 2016

Hi, I'm running plexus on a windows 10 PC and After Effects crashes when enabling the unified rendering option... Any fix or is it my Graphics Card which is Intel HD 4000?

Josh

Rowbyte Inc · August 2016

Joshua Oluwagbemiga said:

Hi, I'm running plexus on a windows 10 PC and After Effects crashes when enabling the unified rendering option... Any fix or is it my Graphics Card which is Intel HD 4000?

Josh

Make sure you're running the latest version & update your graphics drivers.

David Arbor · August 2016

I'm really enjoying Plexus 3, but the one thing that keeps screwing me up is that I can't see all of my property keyframes in my timeline unless the "Layer" object is selected in the Object Panel. Is this a bug? Right now if I hit "U" in my timeline I don't see all of my keyframes, and when I adjust a bunch to change the timing I might forget that I'm leaving a bunch behind because only a single properly or group of properties is selected. If it's not a bug, is there a way to decouple property visibility in the timeline only from the property visibility of the Effects Controls panel?

Rowbyte Inc · August 2016

David Arbor said:

I'm really enjoying Plexus 3, but the one thing that keeps screwing me up is that I can't see all of my property keyframes in my timeline unless the "Layer" object is selected in the Object Panel. Is this a bug? Right now if I hit "U" in my timeline I don't see all of my keyframes, and when I adjust a bunch to change the timing I might forget that I'm leaving a bunch behind because only a single properly or group of properties is selected. If it's not a bug, is there a way to decouple property visibility in the timeline only from the property visibility of the Effects Controls panel?

Hi David,

That is the intended behavior. We're looking into adding an option to opt-out of that behavior in the near future.

David Arbor · August 2016

Thanks for the quick response. Is there a forum that you'd recommend for asking Plexus technique questions, or is this the best place for it? I have a couple bars I'm trying to build up (think simple bar graph), and I'd love for them to build from the bottom up, but I can't figure out a way to do that. I'm adding the noise effector, but it seems to largely be affecting the bar from the middle and exploding outward. I can see the different options to change what axis the noise effects, but that's not doing the trick. To compare it to a more traditional Ae layer, I'm looking to set the anchor point to the bottom of my bar and then I think the Noise Effector would work the way I want it to. I keep messing with the Center XY Transform property, but that doesn't seem to do what I want. I also tried the spherical field, and while it gives a neat effect, it's kind of limiting because I have to make the field gigantic so it doesn't look like a circle is touching my bar, but then when it's so big it doesn't allow me to achieve the effect I'm looking for.

Edit: Scratch the Spherical Field, I think I might have found a bug with that. I can adjust the radius and XY Location and things look pretty cool. However, as soon as I set two keyframes for the XY Location (they can even be the same values with some space in between) things start to look really weird. Instead of animating between the two values and looking as if you dragged the on screen controller to adjust the field, it's almost as if all the triangles in my bar get distorted and stretched and pulled, but they never move from their current position. Let me know if you need me to submit a project showing this, I can try to pull one together today or tomorrow.

Also, is there an easy way to tie an object to a 3D null? I was trying to link my layer to the focus distance of a camera, but I can't do that with Plexus (at least, not easily, it seems), so I thought the easiest way would be to create a 3D null. At the moment I'm pre-comping because I couldn't get lights to work (I was using a spot light and I wasn't limiting them by name), so I'm now linking the pre-comp to my cam's distance, and that's working just fine. However, if there's a better, or more appropriate way, I'd like to do that.

Thanks again for the awesome support in the last couple of weeks,

David

Rowbyte Inc · August 2016

David Arbor said:

Thanks for the quick response. Is there a forum that you'd recommend for asking Plexus technique questions, or is this the best place for it? I have a couple bars I'm trying to build up (think simple bar graph), and I'd love for them to build from the bottom up, but I can't figure out a way to do that. I'm adding the noise effector, but it seems to largely be affecting the bar from the middle and exploding outward. I can see the different options to change what axis the noise effects, but that's not doing the trick. To compare it to a more traditional Ae layer, I'm looking to set the anchor point to the bottom of my bar and then I think the Noise Effector would work the way I want it to. I keep messing with the Center XY Transform property, but that doesn't seem to do what I want. I also tried the spherical field, and while it gives a neat effect, it's kind of limiting because I have to make the field gigantic so it doesn't look like a circle is touching my bar, but then when it's so big it doesn't allow me to achieve the effect I'm looking for.

Edit: Scratch the Spherical Field, I think I might have found a bug with that. I can adjust the radius and XY Location and things look pretty cool. However, as soon as I set two keyframes for the XY Location (they can even be the same values with some space in between) things start to look really weird. Instead of animating between the two values and looking as if you dragged the on screen controller to adjust the field, it's almost as if all the triangles in my bar get distorted and stretched and pulled, but they never move from their current position. Let me know if you need me to submit a project showing this, I can try to pull one together today or tomorrow.

Also, is there an easy way to tie an object to a 3D null? I was trying to link my layer to the focus distance of a camera, but I can't do that with Plexus (at least, not easily, it seems), so I thought the easiest way would be to create a 3D null. At the moment I'm pre-comping because I couldn't get lights to work (I was using a spot light and I wasn't limiting them by name), so I'm now linking the pre-comp to my cam's distance, and that's working just fine. However, if there's a better, or more appropriate way, I'd like to do that.

Thanks again for the awesome support in the last couple of weeks,
David

Spherical Field - Try sending me a project, I'm not entirely sure I understand it.

Tie an object to a null - The easiest way to do it is with the transform effector. You need to link the rotation values using expressions and set the position translate values relative to the layer position.

Spot Lights - Are you trying to use Spot lights in the Layers Object? Or for shading? In the Layers Object, you need to change the 'Light Type' to spot lights.

http://docs.rowbyte.com/plexus/geometry_objects/layers_object/

Raym Bintz · August 2016

Hi,

Plexus 3 crashes AE 2014/2015... once I import a +- complex .OBJ file

any advise ?

thx

Raym Bintz · August 2016

Raym Bintz said:

Hi,
Plexus 3 crashes AE 2014/2015... once I import a +- complex .OBJ file
any advise ?
thx

OK, got it! first problem solved for .OBJ import (import in Element 3D and export from there or change Normal facing in 3D software) works fine with Form and Plexus, even .OBJ with many polygons...
2nd Problem ;-) there was once a very good Tutorial online how to synchronize coordinates/size of Plexus and Element 3D
did you change coordinates system in Plexus 3 ?
ty

Rowbyte Inc · August 2016

Raym Bintz said:

Raym Bintz said:

Hi,
Plexus 3 crashes AE 2014/2015... once I import a +- complex .OBJ file
any advise ?
thx

OK, got it! first problem solved for .OBJ import (import in Element 3D and export from there or change Normal facing in 3D software) works fine with Form and Plexus, even .OBJ with many polygons...
2nd Problem ;-) there was once a very good Tutorial online how to synchronize coordinates/size of Plexus and Element 3D
did you change coordinates system in Plexus 3 ?
ty

Can you send me the original OBJ file that caused an issue? ( http://www.rowbyte.com/contact/ )

The co-ordinate system is unchanged from previous versions of Plexus.

David Arbor · August 2016

Rowbyte said:

David Arbor said:

I have a couple bars I'm trying to build up (think simple bar graph), and I'd love for them to build from the bottom up, but I can't figure out a way to do that. I'm adding the noise effector, but it seems to largely be affecting the bar from the middle and exploding outward. I can see the different options to change what axis the noise effects, but that's not doing the trick. To compare it to a more traditional Ae layer, I'm looking to set the anchor point to the bottom of my bar and then I think the Noise Effector would work the way I want it to. I keep messing with the Center XY Transform property, but that doesn't seem to do what I want. I also tried the spherical field, and while it gives a neat effect, it's kind of limiting because I have to make the field gigantic so it doesn't look like a circle is touching my bar, but then when it's so big it doesn't allow me to achieve the effect I'm looking for.

Also, is there an easy way to tie an object to a 3D null? I was trying to link my layer to the focus distance of a camera, but I can't do that with Plexus (at least, not easily, it seems), so I thought the easiest way would be to create a 3D null. At the moment I'm pre-comping because I couldn't get lights to work (I was using a spot light and I wasn't limiting them by name), so I'm now linking the pre-comp to my cam's distance, and that's working just fine. However, if there's a better, or more appropriate way, I'd like to do that.

Thanks again for the awesome support in the last couple of weeks,
David

Spherical Field - Try sending me a project, I'm not entirely sure I understand it.
Tie an object to a null - The easiest way to do it is with the transform effector. You need to link the rotation values using expressions and set the position translate values relative to the layer position.
Spot Lights - Are you trying to use Spot lights in the Layers Object? Or for shading? In the Layers Object, you need to change the 'Light Type' to spot lights.
http://docs.rowbyte.com/plexus/geometry_objects/layers_object/

Thanks for the response. So after a week of messing with this, I finally figured out why I was seeing undesirable results—the distorted bars I mentioned showed up when I used both the Spherical and Noise effectors, but only after I set keyframes. This was because I had previously set my Triangle Distance calculations from only one frame. So when I set a Noise Amplitude value (based on a light intensity) of 17,000% the vertices were scattered all over the place and the triangles were still connecting, but they were gigantic. That part is solved, and it's definitely not a bug, sorry about that.

However, the reason I had to calculate the triangle distance based on one frame is because when I rotated the Y-value of my bars they would flicker a little because some triangles were appearing or disappearing. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to get around that short of pre-comping, but I need Collapse Transformations and Plexus doesn't seem to work with that option enabled. I found a blog post from Mylenium mentioning that this is now possible with Plexus 3 if Unified Rendering is enabled (https://myleniumblog.com/2016/07/20/its-plexus-with-plexus-this-time/) and my iMac supports OpenGL 4.1, so I'm not sure what's going on. When I enable Unified Rendering on my Plexus layer and nest it with Collapse Transformations turned on, my objects don't react to a camera, they stay completely static while all other 3D layers in the comp react to my main comp's camera.

And thanks for the other info. I was originally trying to light my object with the Shading Effector, but I saw in the documentation that triangles don't react to lighting, so pre-coming is working just fine, except for the fact that I can't get Collapsed Transformations to work (if it is, in fact, supposed to work that way).

Rowbyte Inc · August 2016

David Arbor said:

Thanks for the response. So after a week of messing with this, I finally figured out why I was seeing undesirable results—the distorted bars I mentioned showed up when I used both the Spherical and Noise effectors, but only after I set keyframes. This was because I had previously set my Triangle Distance calculations from only one frame. So when I set a Noise Amplitude value (based on a light intensity) of 17,000% the vertices were scattered all over the place and the triangles were still connecting, but they were gigantic. That part is solved, and it's definitely not a bug, sorry about that.

However, the reason I had to calculate the triangle distance based on one frame is because when I rotated the Y-value of my bars they would flicker a little because some triangles were appearing or disappearing. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to get around that short of pre-comping, but I need Collapse Transformations and Plexus doesn't seem to work with that option enabled. I found a blog post from Mylenium mentioning that this is now possible with Plexus 3 if Unified Rendering is enabled (https://myleniumblog.com/2016/07/20/its-plexus-with-plexus-this-time/) and my iMac supports OpenGL 4.1, so I'm not sure what's going on. When I enable Unified Rendering on my Plexus layer and nest it with Collapse Transformations turned on, my objects don't react to a camera, they stay completely static while all other 3D layers in the comp react to my main comp's camera.

And thanks for the other info. I was originally trying to light my object with the Shading Effector, but I saw in the documentation that triangles don't react to lighting, so pre-coming is working just fine, except for the fact that I can't get Collapsed Transformations to work (if it is, in fact, supposed to work that way).

Triangles don't react to 'Shade Effector' but you can still shade them using Lights in the Main Plexus Render Effect. Shade Effector only works with vertices.

For Reference: http://docs.rowbyte.com/plexus/render_plexus/#shading

Collapse Transforms - You need to apply Plexus on the precomp. Watch this tutorial https://vimeo.com/177978423

David Arbor · August 2016

Rowbyte said:

Triangles don't react to 'Shade Effector' but you can still shade them using Lights in the Main Plexus Render Effect. Shade Effector only works with vertices.
For Reference: http://docs.rowbyte.com/plexus/render_plexus/#shading
Collapse Transforms - You need to apply Plexus on the precomp. Watch this tutorial https://vimeo.com/177978423

Fantastic, thank you so much! And thank you for making that quick tutorial, I had been looking around for that exact info, but I couldn't find anything. You just saved me from having to make a "super comp" and breaking open several pre-comps so I could have Plexus work the way I wanted it to.

José Flavio Gonzalez · August 2016

Hi! I hope you are well. I have a strange problem with the Plexus 3 plug in and I was wondering if someone could help me. I'm doing a video with various animations. The final export is made in FinalCutProX in HD. While seeing the master file, the video looks perfectly fine. However, when I upload it to the Internet, only the segments animated with Plexus get terribly pixelated. Any idea as to why this might happen? The master file follows the recommendations of Vimeo ( H264 .mov file ) I also tried mpeg4 and got the same results. I leave here a couple of screenshots for you to have a better idea of what I'm talking about. Thank you very much!

Saskia Klein · August 2016

Hey there... I have a question and i hope you can help me. I have an animation which is already fine. But my Lines renderer is looking for new connections so it makes it jittery. I tried to calc the lines distance on only one frame but it still does look for new connections. Is everything working as it should? the "calc lines based on this frame" check is grey. if i click on it nothing happens, just the frame changes, it remains grey. Could you please have a look? Thanks in advance! Im working on a mac...

Rowbyte Inc · August 2016

Saskia Klein said:

Hey there... I have a question and i hope you can help me. I have an animation which is already fine. But my Lines renderer is looking for new connections so it makes it jittery. I tried to calc the lines distance on only one frame but it still does look for new connections. Is everything working as it should? the "calc lines based on this frame" check is grey. if i click on it nothing happens, just the frame changes, it remains grey. Could you please have a look? Thanks in advance! Im working on a mac...

If you select 'Calc Lines Based on a Single Frame' then it will only create lines based on one frame. If you're still getting jittery lines, it is likely due to multiple points being equidistant. You can add some noise (less than 2 px) using noise effector to reduce it. If that doesn't resolve it then open a support ticket with the project file.

Aleksandar Sandorov · August 2016

Hi, we have a big problem with Plexus 3 on both Windows and Mac computers using AE 2015.2 and AE 2015.3

When we apply the noise effector some weird ghost lines start appearing in front of the camera.

It's very unpredictable and hard to avoid, making the plugin useless.

Did anyone had a similar problem and found a solution?

Please have a look at the attached image.

Tnx,

Alex

http://pasteboard.co/aQfhN2w64.png

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