Is there a way to have it cast shadows with 3D lights.
For example, I have a layer running at a 90º and want a shadow to be cast from boa onto a canvas under it. I know it can "use comp lights" however it doesn't cast a shadow on layers under it.
I can make boa a 3d layer, but gets a little messy and cannot move the camera around like I would like.
Is there a way to have it cast shadows with 3D lights.
For example, I have a layer running at a 90º and want a shadow to be cast from boa onto a canvas under it. I know it can "use comp lights" however it doesn't cast a shadow on layers under it.
I can make boa a 3d layer, but gets a little messy and cannot move the camera around like I would like.
Hi,
Boa works in 3D, but like most 3D effects (Particular or Element for example) it is applied on a 2D layer. So it cannot interact with AE's 3D layers, like casting shadows on other layers. There are workarounds, though, but it's a bit complicated. For example, you could use Boa in another comp, with camera positioned at light position and pointing to your Boa shape. You can then use this precomp as a 3D layer in your main comp, put it between your light and the canvas, and make it cast shadows only.
If you have trouble with the camera, please make sure your 2D layer is at the center of the comp, and that it has the same size than the comp.
Picked up the BOA plugin today and it worked great! That is until I changed from half to full res. I'm working in 4k but that doesn't seem to be the issue when at half res. I also saw the comment about collapsing transformations, but that doesn't apply either. Adaptive Res is off now. I do have particular nested in the precomp which is 8k x 8k and I have even tried to export that precomp and simply just use the output to no avail.
Any thoughts on this would be helpful. Lemme know if you want the project file and a support ticket opened.
for the record, and if anyone hits the same issue: Boa works best applied on a solid the same size as the composition, using any other layer as source. The other layer can be any size and larger than the solid (as long as your graphic card can handle this size of texture). Applying Boa on a layer bigger than the composition can lead to image clipping, if this layer exceeds graphic card's render buffer maximum size.
I'm having the same issue as Scott Cornell. I have a texture that's 8196x8196 and I'm applying boa to it. Boa renders at half res, but disappears at full res. What do I do about that? Cant use boa?
I'm having the same issue as Scott Cornell. I have a texture that's 8196x8196 and I'm applying boa to it. Boa renders at half res, but disappears at full res. What do I do about that? Cant use boa?
Thanks for any help.
Hi,
try using Boa on a smaller layer (usually a layer the same size as the composition, see previous comment), and select your large texture as source. It should fix the issue. If you still have hard times with it, please open a supoort ticket and send me your project, I'll see what I can do.
Hi, I'm interested in purchasing and I'm trying the trial, which has the X (as expected), and I can get the effect to work, however after 2 or so frames the entire layer disappears. Is this some limitation of the trial?
Hi, I'm interested in purchasing and I'm trying the trial, which has the X (as expected), and I can get the effect to work, however after 2 or so frames the entire layer disappears. Is this some limitation of the trial?
Hi, that's definitely not a limitation of the trial. Did you try to purge the memory? Sometimes AE's cache can be 'dirty'... If it still doesn't work, can you open a support ticket and send me your project? I'll have a look see what's going wrong. Cheers, François
I just bought your plugin, under extremely pressure to finish a project and it doesnt work at all. Can you help me ? I follow the pencil tutorial and nothing happens.
I just bought your plugin, under extremely pressure to finish a project and it doesnt work at all. Can you help me ? I follow the pencil tutorial and nothing happens.
Hi,
can you open a support ticket and send me your project? I'll have a look at it, see what's going wrong.
Cheers, François
EDIT: There was an issue with v1.1.8. The plugin's been updated now, so please try with v1.1.9.
Just updated to latest version and I'm having problems. 80% of time applying boa to a solid layer crashes AE. When it doesn't crash the plugin simply does not work. Was working fine before the update: EDIT: UPDATED MY GRAPHICS DRIVER AND PROBLEM IS SOLVED I submitted a support ticket so you can ignore that if you find it
I´m trying your 1.1.11 try version before purchase the newest and its chrashing every time I select the effect. It goes the same on differents after effects versions 2015/2017 and 2018. I Update my card driver (I have a Nvidia Geforce GTX 550 TI on Windows 10 64bits) and still having crash.
There is Video Cards incompatibility? There is a way to try the newest version??
I´m trying your 1.1.11 try version before purchase the newest and its chrashing every time I select the effect. It goes the same on differents after effects versions 2015/2017 and 2018. I Update my card driver (I have a Nvidia Geforce GTX 550 TI on Windows 10 64bits) and still having crash.
There is Video Cards incompatibility? There is a way to try the newest version??
Hi,
I don't know of any incompatibility (specially on Windows, Mac is sometimes more unpredictable...), though of course I couldn't try every GPU on my side...
Did it work with previous versions? If it did, can you open a support ticket? We'll try to see what can cause this.
hello, I am realizing that I cannot get the Z Vertex parameter to cast a shadow due to it being a mask path (I assume.) I can only change the Z position of the whole layer. Is there any way to get a shadow to cast (onto layer beneath using lights) by changing specific vertices's Z position? Otherwise, the shadow remains flat while the graphic is moving in Z position. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!
hello, I am realizing that I cannot get the Z Vertex parameter to cast a shadow due to it being a mask path (I assume.) I can only change the Z position of the whole layer. Is there any way to get a shadow to cast (onto layer beneath using lights) by changing specific vertices's Z position? Otherwise, the shadow remains flat while the graphic is moving in Z position. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!
Hi,
casting shadows is tricky, cos' AE
wasn't built to handle anything else than flat layers (except with
raycasting, but effects have no effect on it...).
What
I usually do when I need to cast shadows is to add a camera, place it
at the same position than the light, and make it point to the object I
want to cast shadows on. I make only the layers that will cast shadows
visible and pre-render this view (with alpha).
Then I import
this pre-render and place it between the light and the objects I want to
cast shadows on. This pre-render will cast shadows only, while the
'original' layer doesn't cast shadows.
If you have only one light, it's a pretty easy workaround.
Hi, I'm having a weird render behaviour of Boa. I have a user licence and a render only licence. I rendered my project on image sequence using 2 computers, one with full licence and one with render only licence.
for objects animated with Boa I get some frames renderred as the solid itself that hosts the plugin, and some blank frames
What could be the problem?
I'm running on AE2019 on Win 10 64, animated layers with boa are mostly precomps with effects.
This is super helpful! I would like to ask you how you would recommend scaling? I'm using an Illustrator file for the source for Boa, and the best solution I found was to link the "scale at mask start" and "scale at mask end" to the scale for the solid that the Boa effect is applied to. For significant zooming in, it appears pretty good, but not as good as if I were able to somehow use the collapse transformations/continually rasterize.
This is super helpful! I would like to ask you how you would recommend scaling? I'm using an Illustrator file for the source for Boa, and the best solution I found was to link the "scale at mask start" and "scale at mask end" to the scale for the solid that the Boa effect is applied to. For significant zooming in, it appears pretty good, but not as good as if I were able to somehow use the collapse transformations/continually rasterize.
Thanks again for this great product!
Jesse
Hi Jesse,
Glad you like it!
Unfortunately, rasterizing is not available with layer parameters (for any effect, not only Boa). This is due to the way AE sends the layer data to the effects...
So, your method is a good 'workaround', but as you noticed it has limits.
The most accurate is to precomp your source layer where it gets the highest used scale, this way you'll have the best precision. But of course, it means you have to work with big precomps and it will probably slow things down...
I was just curious if you've ever heard of Boa working with Windows remote desktop (or some other remote desktop application)? It appears some video capabilities are disabled during such a session, such as hardware acceleration, and an AE project opened remotely immediately crashes due to a Boa error (the Boa effect being used in the project).
I've experienced the same issue with windows 10 on a virtual machine. And actually, it's not only Boa, but all OpenGL plugins... It's working fine with Mac OS though.
You're right, it's due to hardware limitations. I really hope they can fix it soon.
If you want to avoid the crash, you'll have to uninstall Boa from the virtual machine (you can just drag it to a new folder named "(old)" or "(unused)", so AE doesn't find it).
This way, you can still work on your project and Boa will be disabled. If you move the project back to a physical machine with Boa installed, it'll use Boa as usual.
Hi can Boa repeat a texture / image on a mask line? For instance, I'm wanting to create a rope effect and could use a seamless texture repeated multiple times? Thanks!
Been playing with the plugin today and I'm having an issue where my reference comp for the texture pops in and out and stops displaying without warning. Any thoughts?
Hi can Boa repeat a texture / image on a mask line? For instance, I'm wanting to create a rope effect and could use a seamless texture repeated multiple times? Thanks!
Been playing with the plugin today and I'm having an issue where my reference comp for the texture pops in and out and stops displaying without warning. Any thoughts?
Hi,
Boa doesn't have any repeat function, but there are ways to do it. The most simple is to repeat your texture inside your reference comp and distort it along the path...
Also, you might want to have a look at Mask Brush (which was designed for this!). There is a free trial, so you can see if it fits your needs.
About the texture popping or disappearing, it could be a problem with your graphic card.
You can try updating your pilote. It could also be another app or effect trying to use GPU at the same time than the plugin... It's a bit difficult to say. If you still have the issue, please open a support ticket and I can try to see more precisely what's going wrong here.
Can I align the various repeating textures using Mask Brush so they remain a constant? I am trying to create a rope animation using a PNG of a rope texture but don't want to show hard edges between tiles. I already own Mask Brush but have not been able to figure out how to smooth the tiling there which is why Boa felt more appropriate?
Hi can Boa repeat a texture / image on a mask line? For instance, I'm wanting to create a rope effect and could use a seamless texture repeated multiple times? Thanks!
Been playing with the plugin today and I'm having an issue where my reference comp for the texture pops in and out and stops displaying without warning. Any thoughts?
Hi,
Boa doesn't have any repeat function, but there are ways to do it. The most simple is to repeat your texture inside your reference comp and distort it along the path...
Also, you might want to have a look at Mask Brush (which was designed for this!). There is a free trial, so you can see if it fits your needs.
About the texture popping or disappearing, it could be a problem with your graphic card.
You can try updating your pilote. It could also be another app or effect trying to use GPU at the same time than the plugin... It's a bit difficult to say. If you still have the issue, please open a support ticket and I can try to see more precisely what's going wrong here.
Can I align the various repeating textures using Mask Brush so they remain a constant? I am trying to create a rope animation using a PNG of a rope texture but don't want to show hard edges between tiles. I already own Mask Brush but have not been able to figure out how to smooth the tiling there which is why Boa felt more appropriate?
Can you open a support ticket and send me your png file?
I downloaded BOA 1.3.0TRY version just to try the product and After Effects CC 2018 crashed. It crashed every time when I apply BOA to the solid layer. I was thinking that NVIDIA card drivers causing problem so I check the update version of my card drivers but it was up to date. I update it manually, again, just to be sure, then restart PC but crashes of AE CC 2018 continues, on and on, every time I tried to apply BOA to the solid layer. Then I go through the comments and find that another person have the same problem that I have because both of us use the same graphic chard. It is NVIDIA GeForce GTX550 Ti and my OS is Windows 7, 64 bits.
I´m trying your 1.1.11 try version before purchase the newest and its chrashing every time I select the effect. It goes the same on differents after effects versions 2015/2017 and 2018. I Update my card driver (I have a Nvidia Geforce GTX 550 TI on Windows 10 64bits) and still having crash.
There is Video Cards incompatibility? There is a way to try the newest version??
Hi,
I don't know of any incompatibility (specially on Windows, Mac is sometimes more unpredictable...), though of course I couldn't try every GPU on my side...
Did it work with previous versions? If it did, can you open a support ticket? We'll try to see what can cause this.
I downloaded BOA 1.3.0TRY version just to try the product and After Effects CC 2018 crashed. It crashed every time when I apply BOA to the solid layer. I was thinking that NVIDIA card drivers causing problem so I check the update version of my card drivers but it was up to date. I update it manually, again, just to be sure, then restart PC but crashes of AE CC 2018 continues, on and on, every time I tried to apply BOA to the solid layer. Then I go through the comments and find that another person have the same problem that I have because both of us use the same graphic chard. It is NVIDIA GeForce GTX550 Ti and my OS is Windows 7, 64 bits.
Hi,
it seems you searched everything that was needed to make it work... I can't really tell you why it doesn't work. But what I can tell you is that if it's crashing with the trial version, it won't be better with a registered one.
I downloaded BOA 1.3.0TRY version just to try the product and After Effects CC 2018 crashed. It crashed every time when I apply BOA to the solid layer. I was thinking that NVIDIA card drivers causing problem so I check the update version of my card drivers but it was up to date. I update it manually, again, just to be sure, then restart PC but crashes of AE CC 2018 continues, on and on, every time I tried to apply BOA to the solid layer. Then I go through the comments and find that another person have the same problem that I have because both of us use the same graphic chard. It is NVIDIA GeForce GTX550 Ti and my OS is Windows 7, 64 bits.
Hi,
it seems you searched everything that was needed to make it work... I can't really tell you why it doesn't work. But what I can tell you is that if it's crashing with the trial version, it won't be better with a registered one.
Sorry, can't really help on this one...
François
Thanks Leroy on fast reply.
Well, I will buy a new graphic card This card is too old and its time for new one. Then I will try and eventually buy a BOA and some other plugins you made which I find that they are very useful.
I downloaded BOA 1.3.0TRY version just to try the product and After Effects CC 2018 crashed. It crashed every time when I apply BOA to the solid layer. I was thinking that NVIDIA card drivers causing problem so I check the update version of my card drivers but it was up to date. I update it manually, again, just to be sure, then restart PC but crashes of AE CC 2018 continues, on and on, every time I tried to apply BOA to the solid layer. Then I go through the comments and find that another person have the same problem that I have because both of us use the same graphic chard. It is NVIDIA GeForce GTX550 Ti and my OS is Windows 7, 64 bits.
Hi,
it seems you searched everything that was needed to make it work... I can't really tell you why it doesn't work. But what I can tell you is that if it's crashing with the trial version, it won't be better with a registered one.
Sorry, can't really help on this one...
François
Thanks Leroy on fast reply.
Well, I will buy a new graphic card This card is too old and its time for new one. Then I will try and eventually buy a BOA and some other plugins you made which I find that they are very useful.
Bye,
Vladimir
Well, before you buy a new card, you can also give it a try with another version of AE... I know it did the trick for some users (and I don't really understand why it worked, but it did...).
I downloaded BOA 1.3.0TRY version just to try the product and After Effects CC 2018 crashed. It crashed every time when I apply BOA to the solid layer. I was thinking that NVIDIA card drivers causing problem so I check the update version of my card drivers but it was up to date. I update it manually, again, just to be sure, then restart PC but crashes of AE CC 2018 continues, on and on, every time I tried to apply BOA to the solid layer. Then I go through the comments and find that another person have the same problem that I have because both of us use the same graphic chard. It is NVIDIA GeForce GTX550 Ti and my OS is Windows 7, 64 bits.
Hi,
it seems you searched everything that was needed to make it work... I can't really tell you why it doesn't work. But what I can tell you is that if it's crashing with the trial version, it won't be better with a registered one.
Sorry, can't really help on this one...
François
Thanks Leroy on fast reply.
Well, I will buy a new graphic card This card is too old and its time for new one. Then I will try and eventually buy a BOA and some other plugins you made which I find that they are very useful.
Bye,
Vladimir
Well, before you buy a new card, you can also give it a try with another version of AE... I know it did the trick for some users (and I don't really understand why it worked, but it did...).
I honestly think, the Contour Masking to make it look 3D should've automatically resized (closest at least) to your artwork rather than doing it manually. But overall it is a fantastic plugin, something that shouldve been added in AE by adobe, i use to go in maya to make something like this and then export it back in AE.
I honestly think, the Contour Masking to make it look 3D should've automatically resized (closest at least) to your artwork rather than doing it manually. But overall it is a fantastic plugin, something that shouldve been added in AE by adobe, i use to go in maya to make something like this and then export it back in AE.
Thanks!
Hi!
I keep the 'automatic contour size' in mind for a future update, thanks for the feedback.
Amazing plug-in. Really high quality and fantastic options. I have noticed a small bug if your mask points happen to be on top of each other exactly, the entire distorted image can just vanish. Also, there seems to be a limit of 100 points to the mask? Is that true? (I assume so since it seems to only list 100 and only use the first 100.) Any way around that? (I'm using new AE features Mask from Nulls to drive my mask and this flaw is possible when using that.)
Amazing plug-in. Really high quality and fantastic options. I have noticed a small bug if your mask points happen to be on top of each other exactly, the entire distorted image can just vanish. Also, there seems to be a limit of 100 points to the mask? Is that true? (I assume so since it seems to only list 100 and only use the first 100.) Any way around that? (I'm using new AE features Mask from Nulls to drive my mask and this flaw is possible when using that.)
Thanks,
zane
Hi,
glad you like it! And thanks for reporting the bug, I'll try to fix.
You're right, 100 vertices is the actual limit. I had to choose one, and it was a good compromise between speed (the more parameters, the slower the plugin loads...) and most users' needs.
So, the easiest workaround is to split your mask and use an instance of Boa for each...
The documentation on the verts match is not that descriptive. Can you offer any more insight into how it works? Also, I don't see any description of the Reference Mask parameter under the Source parameters group.
I've been trying to figure it out--I see that it supposed to work like puppet pins, but it's not clear to me.
The documentation on the verts match is not that descriptive. Can you offer any more insight into how it works? Also, I don't see any description of the Reference Mask parameter under the Source parameters group.
I've been trying to figure it out--I see that it supposed to work like puppet pins, but it's not clear to me.
Hi,
first, the 'Reference mask' parameter will appear only if you check the 'Stretch with verts match' box.
You're right, it is close to how puppet pins work, but it's actually more powerful...
If you think about your mask verts as puppet pins, then your 'ref mask verts' will be where you created your puppet pins (by clicking on your layer). Then, when you move your mask verts, the image will stretch between verts like a layer stretches between puppet pins...
So, why is it more powerful than actual puppet pins? Because you can modify your ref. mask, and you can even animate it, while puppet pins distort a mesh than cannot be modified.
The best way to fully understand it is to actually give it a try :-)
Hope it helps. If you have any other question, don't hesitate.
Hi! Thanks for the great plugin! Is there a way to make the geometry bend at a sharp angle? I'm rigging up a character using BOA and want the elbows and knees to be a bit sharp not round. Using a mask with two straight segments and without any bezier does not provide the expected result.
I know there are other BOA plugins for character rigging but I wanted to do the IK part myself and only use BOA for deforming.
Hi! Thanks for the great plugin! Is there a way to make the geometry bend at a sharp angle? I'm rigging up a character using BOA and want the elbows and knees to be a bit sharp not round. Using a mask with two straight segments and without any bezier does not provide the expected result.
I know there are other BOA plugins for character rigging but I wanted to do the IK part myself and only use BOA for deforming.
Thank you! Toms
Hi! And sorry for the late reply...
Unfortunately, there's no real way to do what you describe...
But there is a workaround, though:
Let's assume you work on an elbow. The 'normal' way to do would be to do like this, with the mask passing through the middle of the source:
(the source is on the right)
But if you offset the elbow in the source layer, it'll be closer to the mask, and distortion will be sharper:
You can even play with the shape of the source to have sharp and round junctions...
I downloaded version 1.4.4 , trial, to test it before I buy it. But the plugin is crashing my After Effects CC 2020. Do you know what could be the cause ?
I downloaded version 1.4.4 , trial, to test it before I buy it. But the plugin is crashing my After Effects CC 2020. Do you know what could be the cause ?
Hi,
it definitely shouldn't crash. Can you open a support ticket so we can see why?
I downloaded the trial and followed the tutorial, but it just doesnt work at all. Boa doesnt take any composition I try as a source, nothing happens. Using AE 2020.
I downloaded the trial and followed the tutorial, but it just doesnt work at all. Boa doesnt take any composition I try as a source, nothing happens. Using AE 2020.
Hi,
can you open a support ticket and send me your project?
I'm working with very large layers, (22000 px wide) and everything seems to workjust fine when I'm rendering at quarter rez, but when i change it to full, the object changes x and y dimensions and pops off the path, distorted. Is there a setting to switch here or a best practice I'm unaware of?
Also, i notice sometimes theres bit of the texture that's torn off and floating in other parts of the frame.
I'm working with very large layers, (22000 px wide) and everything seems to workjust fine when I'm rendering at quarter rez, but when i change it to full, the object changes x and y dimensions and pops off the path, distorted. Is there a setting to switch here or a best practice I'm unaware of?
Also, i notice sometimes theres bit of the texture that's torn off and floating in other parts of the frame.
Hi Mike,
22000 px wide is large... You're probably way over your GPU maximum texture capacity.
Can you open a support ticket and send me your project? I'll try to have a look, see if there's any workaround...
Boa works in 3D, but like most 3D effects (Particular or Element for example) it is applied on a 2D layer.
So it cannot interact with AE's 3D layers, like casting shadows on other layers.
There are workarounds, though, but it's a bit complicated.
For example, you could use Boa in another comp, with camera positioned at light position and pointing to your Boa shape. You can then use this precomp as a 3D layer in your main comp, put it between your light and the canvas, and make it cast shadows only.
If you have trouble with the camera, please make sure your 2D layer is at the center of the comp, and that it has the same size than the comp.
Hope it helps,
François
Picked up the BOA plugin today and it worked great! That is until I changed from half to full res. I'm working in 4k but that doesn't seem to be the issue when at half res. I also saw the comment about collapsing transformations, but that doesn't apply either. Adaptive Res is off now. I do have particular nested in the precomp which is 8k x 8k and I have even tried to export that precomp and simply just use the output to no avail.
Any thoughts on this would be helpful. Lemme know if you want the project file and a support ticket opened.
Scott
for the record, and if anyone hits the same issue:
Boa works best applied on a solid the same size as the composition, using any other layer as source. The other layer can be any size and larger than the solid (as long as your graphic card can handle this size of texture). Applying Boa on a layer bigger than the composition can lead to image clipping, if this layer exceeds graphic card's render buffer maximum size.
Cheers,
François
try using Boa on a smaller layer (usually a layer the same size as the composition, see previous comment), and select your large texture as source. It should fix the issue.
If you still have hard times with it, please open a supoort ticket and send me your project, I'll see what I can do.
Cheers,
François
that's definitely not a limitation of the trial. Did you try to purge the memory? Sometimes AE's cache can be 'dirty'...
If it still doesn't work, can you open a support ticket and send me your project? I'll have a look see what's going wrong.
Cheers,
François
can you open a support ticket and send me your project? I'll have a look at it, see what's going wrong.
Cheers,
François
EDIT:
There was an issue with v1.1.8. The plugin's been updated now, so please try with v1.1.9.
Is there a way to make the geometry bend at a sharp angle?
I'm rigging up a character using BOA and want the elbows and knees to be a bit sharp not round.
Using a mask with two straight segments and without any bezier does not provide the expected result.
I know there are other BOA plugins for character rigging but I wanted to do the IK part myself and only use BOA for deforming.
Thank you!
Toms