GridLines plug-in
GridLines was designed to create the random animating lines that you often see in broadcast design. These lines aren't hard to produce but can be quite tedious to animate. GridLines is meant to simplify the process of creating these lines. Similar to GridSquares, this plugin is based around a particle system that is designed to do nothing but lines. This makes it easy to customize the lines, control their behavior, get the look you want, and move on to other things. This ease is facilitated by Randomness controls that automatically randomize the lines' appearance and behavior. Let's get started!
GridLines plug-in.
How it Works
In order to do its magic, GridLines first sets up a grid, then draws the lines on top of it using the rows and columns for guides. You tell the lines how they're going to look, how to behave, and how rigidly they're going to follow the grid. It's all about setting up the grid, then telling the lines to get a little crazy and ignore it. Of course, you can tell your lines to behave as well.
The grid itself can be set to any size, rotation or position, and can be set up with any number of rows and columns. How you set up the grid goes a long way in determining how the animation is going to look, so make sure you have some idea of what you want to do before you jump in.
Two layered instances of the GridLines. The yellow lines have a Thickness that is larger than the Grid Spaces to create overlapping lines.
Grid group
The grid is your key to directing the lines initially. This section allows you to determine where the GridLines particles sit against a typically invisible, underlying grid. Go to the Grid page for details.
Producer Point group
This section controls the Producer Point. The Producer Point defines where the lines start at. This area can be as small as a single pixel or as large as the entire grid area. The grid defines where the lines can go, and the Producer Point defines where they start on their journey. Consider the grid a range, and the Producer Point the home on the range. The lines can go anywhere they want on the range, but they all have to start out back at home.
Producer Point> Position, Randomness
Determines where the center of the Producer Point is located on the grid. You CAN position this off the grid, but lines will only be created in the area that overlaps onto the grid. If no portion of the Position Point is on the grid, no lines will be created.
If you have a large Producer Point, lines can be created anywhere within it. This creates a much different effect than if it's small, since in that case, all the lines seem to be coming from the same point, and moving outward. If it's large, there is no central point, so lines are created wherever, and head off in the direction (or directions) you have specified. A large area produces a much more random effect, especially if Random Lines is checked in the Line Setup section.
At left, the Producer Point is 20x20. At right, the Producer Point is 150x150 and the lines are spread out.
Producer Point> Height, Width
Sets the size of the Producer Point in pixels. While you can set these numbers higher than the height and width of the grid itself, GridLines is smart enough to cap the Producer Point size at the size of the grid. There isn't any point in having lines created outside the grid as there are no rows or columns for them to be created in.
Line Setup group
This section controls some of the behavior of your line particles. Generally, these parameters have to do with the type of line or the direction it moves.
Line Setup> Lock Birth Attributes checkbox
This checkbox affects some of the parameters in the Line Attribute section. Specifically: Speed, Thickness, Viscosity, and Opacity.
If Lock Birth is checked, each line that gets created will remember its settings for those attributes. If you animate those attributes, lines created before the change in values will not be affected. For example, if you animate Thickness from 2 to 6, lines created before the keyframes will always have a Thickness of 2. Lines created afterwards will have a Thickness of 6, so you'll have lines with varying Thicknesses on the screen at the same time.
If Lock Birth is not checked, when you animate Thickness from 2 to 6, ALL lines on the screen, and all those created afterwards will be 6 pixels wide. This is how most of the attributes behave regardless of whether Lock Birth is on or off.
Lock Birth constrains the movement to only downwards and a blue gradient gives a 'rainy' sort of look.
Line Setup> Line Unit pop-up
Determines what measurement unit is used for the lines, in the attribute section. There are two options: Pixel and Grid Space. Your choice of Line Unit can have a very signficant on the look of your lines, and how they animate.
If you change to Grid Space without adjusting the particle attributes, you may get extremely long render times. Let's say Attributes> Minimum Length is set to 10, and we change to Grid Spaces. If a grid space is 50 pixels by 50 pixels, at a minimum of 10, the minimum goes from 10 pixels, to 500 pixels (10 (the minimum) x 50 (the size of a grid space)). This results in a lot of extra calculation, which will slow things down while you're trying to change everything to a more normal amounts for the Grid Space unit.
Setup your attributes to something that makes sense for the particular unit BEFORE switching over to it. This is very key in achieving certain types of effects with the lines, particularly when you want the squares to make the grid obvious. For example, you could move the Producer Point over the grid, and new lines would be only created in the grid spaces, which makes the grid much more apparent.
In this example, each Grid Space equals 24 pixels. If you had fewer rows and columns, the number of pixels would be larger. If you had more rows and columns, the number would be smaller. Divide the size of the grid by the number of rows or columns to get the pixel value of each grid space.
Line Setup> Random Lines checkbox
When active, this chceckbox causes lines to be sent off in all directions. You have no control over where they go, they get created and are sent off and running in some random direction. Actually, the Turning Controls still affect random lines, so you do have some control over what they do, but not much. With this selected, the Vertical Lines and Horizontal Lines pop-ups are ignored. The lines are quite happy running about in any direction they choose and aren't about to be hampered by a couple silly pop-ups. That said…
Line Setup> Vertical/Horizontal Lines popups
If Random Lines is not checked, then the lines are constrained by these two popups. Vertical Lines controls how the lines behave in the vertical direction, and Horizontal Lines controls their horizontal behavior.
If you have the Turn Probability parameter set to anything other than 0, the lines will still turn and go in the crossing direction. If you want the lines to occasionally turn, but to make sure they return to the original direction, set the Perpedindicular Max Length to a low amount.
Up, Down: Set the lines to move in one direction. For Vertical Lines, that means up and down. For Horizontal Lines, it means right and left.
Bi-Directional: Set the lines to move in both directions. Having both popups set to Bi-Directional is essentially the same as having Random Lines selected, since lines are free to go off in any direction they choose.
Line Setup> Straight Lines Only pop-up
Causes the Turning Controls to be ignored and only straight lines are created. This works with both the pop-ups and the Random Lines checkbox.
This works better with a large Producer Point. If you have the producer point set to only a few pixels, the lines will essential be created right on top of one another and since they don't turn, you'll just end up with a few lines going out from the center. This may or may not be what you want, so be aware of it.
Your choice of units can have a very significant effect on the look of your lines and how they animate. For instance, let's say that each grid space equals 24 pixels. If you had less rows and columns the number of pixels would be larger. If you had more rows and columns, the number would be smaller. Divide the size of the grid by the number of rows or columns to get the pixel value of each grid space.
Line Setup> Line Wrapping pop-up
Causes any line that goes off the screen to reappear on the other side of the screen as a continuation of its path.
Line Setup> Line Attribute group
This section determines the length of time that the lines stay onscreen. Go to the Line Attribute page for details.
Color group
This section controls the coloration of the line particles.
Color> Start Color, End Color well
These two color chips define the colors at the start and end of the lines. The colors are blended along the length of the lines.
Color> Ignore End Color checkbox
Causes the lines to only recognize the start color, making all the lines that solid color. Very useful if you want to animate the color of the lines over time, but want to keep them solid colors. You could do the same thing by animating the Start and End colors together, but this simplifies things a bit.
Color> Take Color From Source checkbox
Samples the underlying color of the layer that GridLines is applied to.
Color> Blend Modes pop-up
Determines how the lines lay on top of each other. Most Blend Modes work like the standard transfer modes, although there are a few unusual ones: Behind and In Front. Behind causes new lines to be created behind older ones, and In Front causes the new lines to be created on top of the older ones.
Color> Composite On Original checkbox
Composites the lines on top of the original layer.
Grid Adherence group
The controls in this section determine how closely the lines stick to their grid.
Grid Adherence> Grid Adherence Amount
The maximum number of pixels that the lines will be allowed to stray off the grid. Once a line is created, it's given a GA value, which doesn't change. GA can be animated, but the value changes only affected newly created lines, not lines already visible.
This allows you go have your lines form a very obvious grid or make it look like they are totally random with no underlying structure. The lower the Grid Adherence Amount, the more tightly the lines will stay to the underlying grid. If you turn on 'Show Grid' you'll be able to see the underlying grid and get an idea how the lines behave. It doesn't matter how big or how many rows or columns the grid has. The lines will follow it and stick to the rows and columns within the range that you set in Grid Adherence.
A good example of what Grid Adherence does (or doesn't) do for you. The top image has a Grid Adherence setting of zero. All the lines stick pretty well to the grid and, in this case, their movement is constrained to moving only horizontal or vertically. No turning. The bottom image, has a Grid Adherence setting of 10. You'll notice that the lines are pretty well scattered. If you're looking to make your grid obvious, set Grid Adherence to a low number. Otherwise, if you want a more random look, set it to a high number
Grid Adherence> Grid Adherence Randomness
Varies the amount that the line is off the grid, based on the Grid Adherance value.
Grid Adherence> Grid Adherance Probability
Determines the likelihood of a square being off the grid. If a square is striving to be off the grid, it has to get through the Probability parameter first. If it gets past that, then it has to get an amount determined.
The amount a square is off the grid is determined by [Grid Adherance] * [Grid Adherance Randomness] (unles Randomness is 0. Of course, Randomness varies from square to square, so there's no precise way of know this unless Randomness is 0.
Turning Controls group
This section controls how the GridLines behave when they come to an intersection in the grid. Basically, they will either go straight or turn. Let's see how that works.
Turning Controls> Turn Probability, Randomness
Sets the likelihood that a line will turn when it comes to an intersection of columns and rows. If Turn Probability is low, then once a line turns, it is unlikely to turn again. If Turn Probability is high, the lines will turn more frequently. If Turn Probability is set to 25%, for example, then a line will turn one fourth of the time that it hits to a grid intersection.
Turning Controls> Perpendicular Max Length
If the Turn Probability is low, then lines will occasionally turn, but they won't turn back in the direction they were going. To prevent lines from never returning to their original direction, Perpendicular Max Length was introduced to assist with Turn Probability. PML acts as a line herder, making sure the lines keep going in the direction you want them to go.
PML sets the maximum number of grid spaces that a line can go after turning before it is forced to turn again. No matter what Turn Probability is set to, after the line has gone this number of grid spaces, it turns back to the direction it was going. If PML is set to 5, for instance, no line can go more than 5 grid spaces before turning back to its original direction. If you want your lines to stick to one direction, make sure both Turn Probability and PML are set very low. As you increase PML, they will vary more in direction.
At left, PML is 1 and Turn Probability is 5%. The lines can go only one grid space before turning and they head in a similar direction.
In middle, PML is 5 and Turn Probability is 5%. This results in a much wider spread of lines.
At right, PML is 10 and Turn Probability is 50%. The lines are going in all sorts of directions and the spread of the lines is huge.