Text Matrix plug-in> Streams group
Streams are lines of text characters which have their own attributes, such as Length and Speed. Streams let you group characters together for all sorts of interesting effects, from the good ol’ Matrix effect to Slot Machine wheels. Streams travel in slots or 'grooves' of the matrix. There are a number of parameters in the Streams group to control the positioning of the streams.
Center of Streams
Center of Streams Randomness
Sets the origination point of the streams by defining the upper-left starting point of the streams. As you add more streams, they extend to the right edge of the screen from this origin point. Randomness varies the origination point of each stream.
Number of Streams
Sets the number of streams that make up the matrix of text. The streams, by default, fall vertically and are spaced out horizontally. If you set Number of Streams to 10, you will have 10 slots spaced out (courtesy of Space Between Characters) across the screen that streams can fall in. There are ways to get the streams to break out of their grooves, which we’ll discuss that a bit later.
Here is how Number of Streams works: Imagine having a piece of metal with 10 grooves cut into it. Water can only go into the grooves. The streams of water may not be constant, so you may have two small streams in different parts of the groove. The streams can ONLY be in the grooves, so if you count up the streams, including the cases where there are two streams in one groove, you could possibly have more than 10. However, you will never have more than 10 grooves for them to fall through.
Length of Streams
Length of Streams Randomness
Now we are getting into the heart of the Text Matrix plug-in. Length of Streams defines the number of characters that the stream will have in it. The higher the value, the longer the stream. The characters get revealed over time. New characters appear as old ones move out of the way. So, the higher the Speed setting, the faster the stream will reach its maximum length. Of course, it’ll move off the screen faster as well.
Try setting a value of 1. This will give you streams of 1 character, which, well, isn’t really a stream. You’ll simply end up with lots of single characters falling from the sky. However it’s a pretty neat effect.
Length of Streams plays a large part in how your final animation looks. Very long streams will end up just being columns of characters on the screen. If you don’t want this effect, then keep the value relatively low. This will give you lots of variation, particularly if Time Between Streams is set to a low value. If you want to adjust the starting position of your streams, check out the Phase parameter.
Randomness varies the length of each stream on a stream-by-stream basis. This is important because in combination with Speed Randomness and Time Between Streams, Length of Streams Randomness will give you variety in the look and positioning of the streams.
Speed
Speed Randomness
Speed is probably the most essential parameter to Text Matrix, since it controls how fast the streams move. If you set this value to 0, the streams do not move (or more technically, you get a bunch of one-character streams).
The streams usually require that one character move out of the way before another character is displayed. If the initial character doesn’t move, the second character has no place to go. So the second character just sits at home waiting for the casting call. Once the initial character gets moving and makes some room on the stage, the second character makes an appearance. Whatever you set Speed to is how many pixels the streams, and/or characters in the stream, will move per frame.
This is where Speed Randomness comes in. With Randomness set to 0, the streams move down the screen in one big block of text.
Time Between Streams
TBS Randomness
Determines how long (in frames) Text Matrix waits before producing a new stream, once an old stream has reached its maximum length. By default, streams are stuck in a 'groove' and line up together. They can catch up to streams that came before them, but they don’t usually shift to a different slot.
If Time Betwen Streams is set to 30, then 30 frames after a stream has reached its maximum length, a new stream will be produced, regardless of whether the old stream has disappeared off the screen. This is what determines if you can have more than one stream in a groove.
You may want text raining down on the screen like, well, like rain. Rain is pretty random, so in this case you should crank Randomness up to 100%. Now you have streams beginning and ending all over the place. Use Time Betwen Stremas with Length Randomness to create the variation needed to really make the streams seem random.
Add Randomness to stream values for variety in the streams.
Direction of Streams
Direction Randomness
Controls the direction of the streams. For instance, the streams can move at an angle, or horizontal (set the value to 90 degrees), or going upwards. As you rotate the streams, they will rotate around the Center of Streams point as if it were the upper left corner (which it is). This produces a hard edge where the streams get created. To remove this simply drag the Center point of the edge of the layer, until the edge isn’t visible any more.
Direction Randomness has one quirk. Each stream is rotated randomly, however, it’s rotated around it’s starting point. So instead of having all the streams go out from a central position, the go out randomly from what appears to be a line, basically the edge that occurs when you rotate them.
You can solve this quirk in a couple ways. One way is to set the Number of Streams really low, like a value of 4, so they are at a similar origination point, and set Time Between Streams really low, like 10, so you have a LOT of streams being created. Two (and probably the better way): Set Space Between Streams to a negative value, so that all the streams are on top of each other. This gives them all the same origination point and when you move the Direction Randomness slider from 0 to 100, all the streams spread out like a flower.
Snap To Grid checkbox
Causes the characters to lock to a matrix, which is defined by the SBS and SBC parameters. This creates a more digital or computerized look. Instead of smoothly moving down the screen, the characters jump from preset position, to preset position, all the way down.
Characters in streams will usually move smoothly down the screen. This makes everything feel very random, a bit like flowing water. If you don’t want this kind of smooth randomness, activate the Snap To Grid checkbox. This will force all characters into appearing in a predefined ‘matrix’, much like a digital clock screen or old computer terminal.
At left, the streams are scattered about. At right, with Snap To Grid, the characters are locked into grid positions.
New Streams Overtake Old checkbox
Normally, streams in the same groove will never catch up to streams in front of them, even if the Speed of the streams is randomized. The first stream will always get off the screen before the second one catches up to it. This checkbox overrides that behavior. With this checked, streams can overtake older streams and overlap on top of them. Turned off by default.
No New Streams checkbox
Prevents any new streams from being created after the first set of them are displayed. Turned off by default.
Auto-Point Size/Spacing checkbox
Takes the Number of Streams and automatically adjusts the point size of the characters and the Space Between Characters, to fill the screen up with characters. There is an upper limit on the point size of the characters so if you have too few streams, they won’t fill up the screen. This is basically a quick and dirty way of filling the screen up. Turned off by default.