GridSquares plug-in> Color group

This section controls the color of the GridSquares shape particles.

 

 

 

Color Chips, 1-4

The color chips control what colors are in the gradient and where they're positioned. The gradient bar controls what colors the squares and outlines receive.

The squares can take the color from the bar sequentially or randomly. If they take it sequentially, then if the bar goes from red to blue to green, as new squares are created, they will be red, then blue, then green, then repeat. If the squares take their colors randomly, then each square just selects a color out of the complete range of the gradient bar, and what order the colors are in, doesn't make a difference.

 

 

Gradient Bar

Each color chip has three parameters: The Color Chip itself, an On/Off checkbox and a Percentage slider.

Color Chip: This is pretty self explanatory. Click to select a color or use the eyedropper to select a color from the comp window or wherever.

On/Off checkbox: Allows you to ignore the color chip. If you only want two colors in your gradient, there's no reason to mess around with all four of the color chips. Turn the last two of them off and just use colors 1 & 2. Likewise, if you want the squares to all be the same color, turn all the chips off except one

Percentage slider: Positions the color on the gradient bar. The bar goes from 0 to 100% with 0 at left and 100 at right. The higher the percentage, the closer that color will be to the right edge. If you have a gradient and you want it to blend smoothly from red to green to blue, you will set red to 0, green to 50, blue to 100, and turn the fourth chip off.

Change colors: Move the percentages to move the colors around. If you want your gradient to be solid red in the first half, then blend between green and blue, you will set red to 50, green to 75, and blue to 100. With the start and end colors, if they are at anything other than 0 and 100, all the space before the start or after the end will just be a solid color. With red at 50, from 0 to 50 will be solid red. With blue at 75, from 75 to 100 would be solid blue, and so forth.

 

 

Take Color From Source checkbox

Causes the gradient to be ignored and all squares get their color from the underlying source image (the layer the filter is applied to). This is based on where the squares originate at, so if you have a very small producer point, most likely all squares will have the same color.

For example, if you have a 20 pixel by 20 pixel producer point, only that 20x20 area will be sampled for colors. If all the pixels in that area in the underlying image are the same color, all your squares will be the same color.

 

 

Blend Modes pop-up

Controls how the Squares lay on top of each other. These modes work like the transfer modes you're accustomed to in After Effects.

 

 

Color Cycle Speed, Randomenss

Specifies how long it takes for the squares to go through the entire gradient. It's set in frames and as the squares are getting produced and pulling colors from the gradient, it's controlling how fast you move from 0 to 100. Once it hits 100, it flips over back to 0.

If Color Cycle was set to 200, and the gradient was red to blue, it would take 200 frames to go all the way from red to blue. Once it hit blue, it would turnover and start at red again, and repeat forever (or until your timeline ran out).

If you want to control when your squares start pulling a given color, be very aware of what this is set to. You can give your squares specific colors at specific times if you match up the gradient to this control. For example, set Color Cycle to 90, and set red to 33 in the gradient, blue to 66, and green to 100. That divides the gradient up into thirds, and since a third of 90, is 30, every 30 frames the squares will come out a different color.

 

 

Randomly Take Color From Gradient checkbox

With this checkbox selected, the color for the squares are taken randomly from the gradient. Color Cycle Speed is ignored.

 

 

Outline Color swatch

Defines what color the outlines are. For a complete explanation of outlines, see the Square Setup section. All outlines will be this color, unless…

 

 

Take Outline Color From Gradient checkbox

Causes the outlines to take their colors from the gradient. You can use any of the color chips to make the gradient. Usually, it will take the colors sequentially from the gradient, going from left to right. The Color Cycle Speed works with this as well.

 

At left, using Colors 1-3. Before 10% everything is red, and after 65% everything is blue.
In middle, using Colors 1-4. The yellow is pushed against the orange and there is minimal blending since they're so close.
At right, using the two middle chips to section off a single color to get a 3 color gradient with no blending, and only those exact 3 colors.

 

 

Outline Gradient Offset

Moves the point on the gradient at which the outlines are sampling their color from. This prevents outlines from having exactly the same color as the squares, making the outlines blend with the squares. This is a percentage, so if it's set to 50%, the point that the outlines are sampling, is half way across the gradient from the point that the squares are sampling from.

 

 

Take Outline Color Randomly From Gradient checkbox

Forces the outlines to randomly sample the gradient. This causes most of the other outline controls to be ignored. The outlines should randomly pick a spot on the gradient and sample from it.

 

 

Composite On Original checkbox

If Composite on Original is active, the shapes are combined with the layer they are applied to. If that layer is a solid, not an image, then you will not see a visual difference. Turned off by default.