GridLines plug-in> Line Attribute group

This section controls many characteristics of GridLine's line particles, including their thickness, opacity, length, speed and lifespan. Many of the controls determine the length of time that the lines stay onscreen. The number of parameters may look a little daunting but they are all easy to use and have a unified result.

 

 

 

Minimum/Maximum Length, Randomness

All lines are assigned two lengths when they are created, a Minimum and a Maximum.

The Minimum is the least number of pixels a line will be when it appears on the screen. For example, if Minimum is set to 10, then whenever a line appears on the screen it will be 10 pixels long. That is essentially its starting length.

The Maximum is what the line grows to. Once a line is created, it grows to reach the Maximum length. If Maximum is 35 and the Minimum is 10, then the lines will get created 10 pixels long and will grow to 35 pixels long. Once the line hits 35 pixels, the entire line will start moving, since adding a pixel onto the front requires removing a pixels from the back to keep the length at 35.

The line doesn't move until it reaches its Maximum value. Until then it just grows from wherever it was created at the Producer Point. To start the lines moving immediately, set the Min and Max to the same value.

 

 

Birth Rate, Randomness

Determines how many lines are produced each frame. The higher the value, the more lines you'll have.

Be careful about cranking up Birth Rate, because this is another parameter that can seriously affect render times. The more lines there are, the more stuff there is to keep track off, and the slower the filter renders. This is especially true if the LifeSpan is set high. Once a line dies off, GridLines doesn't need to keep track of it. However, if the lines have a long LifeSpan and there's a high Birth Rate, things can get really slow. You have a lot of lines being produced and they're lingering around for a long time.

 

 

LifeSpan, Randomness

This controls how long a line should exist on the screen before disappearing, measured in frames. LifeSpan can affect render times by having lines linger around for a long time. This is fine if that's what you need, but if the lines are going off the grid, and hence not visible, GridLines is keeping track of a bunch of lines it doesn't need to. Adjust this so that lines are living as long as they need to, and not significantly longer.

 

 

Speed, Randomness

Sets the speed that lines move/grow at. Pretty self-explanatory, the higher the setting the faster the line will reach it's maximum length, and the sooner it will scoot around the screen afterward.

 

 

Thickness, Randomness

Allows you to control the thickness or width of the lines. Again, nothing particularly special about this one. The higher the value, the fatter the lines will be. Randomness is particularly useful with this one as it varies up the look of your composition.

For instance, in our example below, we used two different instances of GrdiLines with different Thickness and Thickness Randomness. This created different colored lines that behave the same way and seem to interact with each other. animation quite a bit. If all the lines are the same Thickness, they tend to blend into one another. Varying line weights make the individual lines stand out.

 

Varying Thickness values on two instances of GridLines.

 

 

Viscosity, Randomness

Viscosity causes the lines to slow down as they get further away from the producer point. Normally, viscosity refers to the amount of resistance that comes from the thickness of a liquid or substance.

For example, water has a higher viscosity than air, oil has a higher viscosity than water, mud has a higher viscosity than oil, and so on. This allows you to have the lines slow down, without having to keyframe the speed.

By increasing the Viscosity, you are essentially telling the lines that they are moving through some substance with a certain amount of thickness. This will cause them to slow down as they move, and if the Viscosity is high enough, they will stop completely.

 

 

Opacity, Randomness

This determines how opaque or transparent the lines are. The lower the setting the more transparent the lines are, and the more you can see the background through them.

This is accomplished by adjusting the alpha channel, so if you save out a QuickTime movie or photoshop file with an alpha channel, it will contain the transparency information from GridLines. This allows you to take advantage of the transparency in other programs whether it's an editing program, 3D, or whatever.

 

 

Fade In/Out, Randomness

Tells the lines to slowly fade in or out over a given number of frames. The lines will go from opaque (or whatever Opacity is set to) to transparent and disappear. Both controls are wholly dependant on the LifeSpan parameter, especially Fade Out.

Fade Out will cause a line to fade as it gets close to the end of its LifeSpan. If the LifeSpan is 60 frames and Fade Out is 10 Frames, then the line will fade to fully transparent from frame 50 to 60. This can make the lines exit from the screen a bit more gracefully than just disappearing at frame 60. Disappearing lines tend to be somewhat jarring visually so it's best to fade them out.

Fade In works the same way. If it's set to 10, then over the first ten frames of its life, a line will slowly go from completely transparent to the Opacity value. This allows the line to make a smoother entrance.

 

 

Corner Size, Randomness

Defines the radius of the curve when the lines turn. The larger this is, the sooner the lines will start their turns, and the longer it takes for the lines to finish turning.

 

Left to right, Corner Size at 5, 50 and 200. Notice that lines don't need to be larger than the corner. The entire line can be turning.