Hey, absolutely love this plugin. But a quick question - is it possible to insert (or mask out) a 3D layer inside a Plexus setup (a bit like 3D visibility layers in Particular)? I have a corporate video, with the main presenter keyed out, and I want the plexus elements to wrap around her. I would insert her as a single particle, but I don't think there's a single instance generator in plexus as far as I can tell. I guess I could do a workaround and import a single point OBJ. But it would be neat if there was a more elegant, integrated solution. Especially if you had a "stencil alpha" type blend mode to mask out all particles/lines further back in Z-space from that layer
That is not possible with Plexus 2 but it's a highly requested feature that we are considering for a future version of Plexus
Thanks Lloyd - and Satya! Yeah, and the ability to unify the 3D rendering space for lines/dots/polys would be awesome too - kind of essential actually to achieve what I was asking In the meantime, I cheated the effect by creating a duplicate of the effect (with linked properties) and used different distance opacity graphs to effectively separate foreground from background. Sadly, that only works for lines - not for sprites/dots. But it's good enough for my current job! Good luck with the next version
I'm getting this error in AE 2014 and AE 2015. I can only get the Lines Renderer's Calc Lines Distance to work with the Every Frame option - the other two options throw up identical errors.
You get that error only when you use objects that produce different number of vertices over time. For example, if you animate the "No. of Points" in the Paths object over time, the vertex count changes every frame. Hence, the lines are forced to calculate every frame instead of pre-defined frames.
Hi Satya, my machine's tied up with a render now. I'm pretty certain I didn't animate the # of Points parameter cos I had no reason to do that. I'll take a look soon and report back.
This is the reason why you're getting this error. If the layers have various In & Out Points then Plexus sees different number of layers at different times.
There is currently no way of doing this. But, you can use a light and the Spherical Field object to affect the color of individual vertices within a certain range.
hello! is there a way to make the triangle facets glassy, glossy, and reflective like i see in your example video Red Bull Signature Series 2013? plz help great plugin btw
Hi, new to Plexus, have question. I need to create a series of circular objects in 3D space with dynamic lines connecting to a central object. I don't want lines connecting all the objects, only to the central object. I see how to easily create lines going between all objects and can adjust the maximum distance parameter to sort of fake it, but can I set Plexus to only render to the central object? I suppose I could set up a whole bunch of instances of Plexus but was hoping for something more elegant.
Yes, you can do that quite easily in Plexus using Groups. Put the objects in separate groups and make the Lines connect only between different groups. Watch this tutorial to know how
I have owned this for a while now and only just starting to use it and love it BUT,
It is slow. Super slow. I thought my PC was handling everything reasonably well until I started using this. 16GB RAM, 6 core, QUADRO 5000, Intel i73930K CPU @ 3.20GHZ I thought I should at least get through this barely but it is choking like crazy. Tried ray trace etc but not sure if it is a processing issue on my side.
Is there a minimu requirements list here for smooth use?
I'm still having trouble figuring out how to group these objects to make this configuration. These need to move around in 3D space but not connect everything together, rather just branch out as in the graphic. How should I set this up?
thanks,
Steven
edit:
Ok, not sure if what I figured out is a workaround or the best way to do it. I have multiple nulls attached to the circles to divide them all into groups. I needed 11 groups so created a new Plexus layer to get number 11. Is this the best course of action?
Hello, this week I used Plexus 2 for the first time for a Logo Animation. I had rebuild the Logo(which was made out of small dots) using about 650 light objects as I wasn't given a proper Illustrator file and my knowledge in this program is very little so I had to do it by hand.
I could use Plexus to generate Points and Lines using all of those layers but it got pretty slow to work with. The Lights weren't animated as I just used the Noise Effector. It rendered in a decent amount of time (about 12 sec per frame) but the viewer was extremly slow and sometimes the renderer kicked in several seconds after I had changed a value or relocated the timeindicator. I guess using 650+ Layers isn't really recommended by the Developers but I'm curious if there is something to speed the work up in the viewer. Is it better to use Masks or Shape Layers? Is the Lines Renderer something to better disable as long as I'm working with such a high amount of Layers and turn it on only if I need it? Is Plexus using the GPU or the CPU/Ram to get calculated - I guess the GPU only kicks in if the GPU option is enabled?
Also, if you Paths (Text/Masks) you'll definitely get better performance instead of so many layers. There are many other variables and it depends on the project.
OpenGL- Yes, you need to enable the GPU option for Plexus to render using GPU.
So has back face culling been added to Plexus as of yet? I saw a post from 2013 in this thread where it said the feature was planned for the future. It's 2016 aka the future.
I have a client that is asking me to map images onto the triangles of a Plexus rig. Since there doesn't seem to be a way to do this natively, I'm wondering if it's possible to access positions of single points in the rig, so I can then come up with a custom solution.
Please let me know if you have any recommendations for achieving this effect. Otherwise, my fallback will be to recreate the Plexus rig in C4D, probably using a custom Python effector with MoGraph.
Is it possible to set up plexus to connect two different obj objects but not connect to each other? So, if I have an object at 0 on the Y and another one say 50 units higher in the Y axis, can I set it up so the object 1 will connect to the points of object 2, but not to the adjacent points of object 1? Thanks.
edit - Of course as soon as I post this I find the setting for drawing lines between different groups. Exactly what I was looking for.
Is it possible to set up plexus to connect two different obj objects but not connect to each other? So, if I have an object at 0 on the Y and another one say 50 units higher in the Y axis, can I set it up so the object 1 will connect to the points of object 2, but not to the adjacent points of object 1? Thanks.
edit - Of course as soon as I post this I find the setting for drawing lines between different groups. Exactly what I was looking for.
Summary - Set 'city' points as one plexus group on a globe (earth) and have those points join together with the other points (lights/nulls?) beams renderer, then on a second group they should join from those points to an object above the earth (The cloud) - which could be a light. Essentially it'd be like the simple example on your beams renderer tutorial, but the 1st group is linked or synced to a globe/earth.
The problem:
I'm on a client job with a deadline, and I need to have a spinning globe - So far as I have set up one of these in Trapcode Form - but I am guessing that this could also be done in Plexus.
Separately i have watched the beam renderer tutorial on here, and can see how this will work well for connecting dots and lights via groups and bezier beams.
Where I am stuck is how to get the place dots (cities) on to earth, preferably on land so they are synced to a globe - maybe my approach is wrong, but I am just trying to work out a simple way to achieve the right effect.
Summary - Set 'city' points as one plexus group on a globe (earth) and have those points join together with the other points (lights/nulls?) beams renderer, then on a second group they should join from those points to an object above the earth (The cloud) - which could be a light. Essentially it'd be like the simple example on your beams renderer tutorial, but the 1st group is linked or synced to a globe/earth.
The problem:
I'm on a client job with a deadline, and I need to have a spinning globe - So far as I have set up one of these in Trapcode Form - but I am guessing that this could also be done in Plexus.
Separately i have watched the beam renderer tutorial on here, and can see how this will work well for connecting dots and lights via groups and bezier beams.
Where I am stuck is how to get the place dots (cities) on to earth, preferably on land so they are synced to a globe - maybe my approach is wrong, but I am just trying to work out a simple way to achieve the right effect.
Not sure if this is confusing!
Any tips would be gratefully recieved.
Matt
You can use a Primitive Sphere and then use beams to connect them. Or, you can import a globe OBJ model directly into Plexus as well.
Hi Satya, I can't get the Beam's Range Selectors to work as expected. The Doc says they should work as per AE's Text Range Selectors but this isn't the case. It's as if there's a huge bug here.
I'd like to only have a segment, say 10% of the Beam at all times but I can't get this to work. I'd like this 10% segment to run across the length of a Beam; starting with no Beam, then showing just 10% until it reaches the end of the Beam, and then the 10% runs to the end of the Beam and goes away.
FWIW, with the Text's Range Selectors, I would set Start to 0 and End to 10 and then Keyframe Offset from -10 to 100 (of course this is dependent on the Shape Type for the Text Layer - so let's assume the default; Square).
Summary - Set 'city' points as one plexus group on a globe (earth) and have those points join together with the other points (lights/nulls?) beams renderer, then on a second group they should join from those points to an object above the earth (The cloud) - which could be a light. Essentially it'd be like the simple example on your beams renderer tutorial, but the 1st group is linked or synced to a globe/earth.
The problem:
I'm on a client job with a deadline, and I need to have a spinning globe - So far as I have set up one of these in Trapcode Form - but I am guessing that this could also be done in Plexus.
Separately i have watched the beam renderer tutorial on here, and can see how this will work well for connecting dots and lights via groups and bezier beams.
Where I am stuck is how to get the place dots (cities) on to earth, preferably on land so they are synced to a globe - maybe my approach is wrong, but I am just trying to work out a simple way to achieve the right effect.
Not sure if this is confusing!
Any tips would be gratefully recieved.
Matt
You can use a Primitive Sphere and then use beams to connect them. Or, you can import a globe OBJ model directly into Plexus as well.
I did this a roundabout way recently by using AE's 3D Camera Tracker. The globe was created by wrapping an image using CC Sphere (Element 3D should work too). I placed some contrasting spots on the image where I wanted my tracked areas to be. I adjusted down the contrast of the original image for the sphere so that it didn't bother AE's Camera Tracker too much. Rendered this out and then camera tracked it. There are limitations in that you obviously can't track the backside of the globe but anything to the front and not too close to the edge and you should be OK.
Hi Satya, I can't get the Beam's Range Selectors to work as expected. The Doc says they should work as per AE's Text Range Selectors but this isn't the case. It's as if there's a huge bug here.
I'd like to only have a segment, say 10% of the Beam at all times but I can't get this to work. I'd like this 10% segment to run across the length of a Beam; starting with no Beam, then showing just 10% until it reaches the end of the Beam, and then the 10% runs to the end of the Beam and goes away.
FWIW, with the Text's Range Selectors, I would set Start to 0 and End to 10 and then Keyframe Offset from -10 to 100 (of course this is dependent on the Shape Type for the Text Layer - so let's assume the default; Square).
This isn't working with Plexus 2.1.1
What am I missing or is this a bug?
If you are not using Object Beams (like multiple points in a single object) the way to do it is using the "Time" parameter. The range selectors are intended when the beams go through multiple points. The same applies to Group Beams where a single beam only goes from one point to another. Hope that helps.
It's not working for me Satya. I only ever want to see a segment of the entire Beam as it animates across. I can't get it to work and tweaking what should work ends up with strange results - the segment doesn't animate at all or it stays it animates from nothing to a segment and then simply pops off.
I've got a roundabout fix which is to create a duplicate, time offset the duplicate and use it as a matte. This helps to create a segment.
I'll drop you a AEP and an MP4 if you're keen to see my issue, up close.
It's not working for me Satya. I only ever want to see a segment of the entire Beam as it animates across. I can't get it to work and tweaking what should work ends up with strange results - the segment doesn't animate at all or it stays it animates from nothing to a segment and then simply pops off.
I've got a roundabout fix which is to create a duplicate, time offset the duplicate and use it as a matte. This helps to create a segment.
I'll drop you a AEP and an MP4 if you're keen to see my issue, up close.
I'll do so as soon as I wrap this gig up. FWIW, my end-goal is to use Optical Flares' Luminance feature to auto-track (via luminance) the tip of Plexus' Beam.
Hi Satya, I've made a simple and short video to show what I'd like to be able to achieve. FWIW, the example I've shown was created with the Stroke effect, by using its Start and End props.
Sorry if this is a dumb or obvious question but is there someway to easily morph/transition one .obj to another .obj with plexus? Or should I just animate it morphing in C4d and import that .obj sequence to AF? I have a plexus field that I want to focus on one of the points that pulls away and expands and grows/morphs into a cell like plexus object, from it.
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...
in your example video Red Bull Signature Series 2013?
plz help
great plugin btw
i love you
A big thanks in advance!
Brad
this week I used Plexus 2 for the first time for a Logo Animation. I had rebuild the Logo(which was made out of small dots) using about 650 light objects as I wasn't given a proper Illustrator file and my knowledge in this program is very little so I had to do it by hand.
I could use Plexus to generate Points and Lines using all of those layers but it got pretty slow to work with. The Lights weren't animated as I just used the Noise Effector.
It rendered in a decent amount of time (about 12 sec per frame) but the viewer was extremly slow and sometimes the renderer kicked in several seconds after I had changed a value or relocated the timeindicator.
I guess using 650+ Layers isn't really recommended by the Developers but I'm curious if there is something to speed the work up in the viewer.
Is it better to use Masks or Shape Layers? Is the Lines Renderer something to better disable as long as I'm working with such a high amount of Layers and turn it on only if I need it?
Is Plexus using the GPU or the CPU/Ram to get calculated - I guess the GPU only kicks in if the GPU option is enabled?
Thanks for your help
Here are some guidelines to get better performance.
So has back face culling been added to Plexus as of yet? I saw a post from 2013 in this thread where it said the feature was planned for the future. It's 2016 aka the future.
http://www.broadcastgems.com/mediascreamer01/Plexus_PartialBeamPath_Example_01.mp4