Skip to main content
This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Towerguy

Hi, happy to help but today is a bit frantic. As a starting point put your Keylight effect on the layers themselves, don't use adjustment layers. To get the particles underneath the green bars move the video layer to the above the Particular layer, and turn the eye icon off for the precomp so it becomes invisible. For the rest I will get back to you asap.


Hi. To put the particles behind the bars adds quite a level of complexity. However, let's start from scratch:

In your main comp have your video, duplicate it (Ctrl +D) and Precompose it - call it Precomp ( make sure you Move All Attributes and Open New Composition for the precompositions we're going to be doing).

In Precomp add the Keylight effect and key out the green bars (toggle the Transparency Grid on at the bottom of the screen, it's the checkerboard symbol next to Active Camera). You should see a checkerboard pattern where the green used to be which shows that it is transparent. Add a new solid and make it the same green as the bars (use the eyedropper tool and sample the green from the Keylight swatch). Put the green solid below the video. You should see a TrkMat pulldown box beside the pickwhip symbol - if not press the Toggle Switches/Modes button at the very bottom of the screen and it should appear. Toggle the box open and select Alpha Inverted Matte. This will leave you with only green bars on a transparent background.

Precompose Precomp - it will automatically be named Precomp 2.

In Precomp 2 turn on the eyeball switch beside the video - the video will reappear. Use the pen tool and draw a wide thin box just above the top of the keyboard - this is the area that the particles will appear from. Toggle open the video layer and you will see Masks listed. Select the heading "Masks" and copy it (Ctrl +C). Select the Green Solid layer and paste the mask (Ctrl + V). Turn off the eyeball for the video layer and you should have a thin slit which the green bars will move through with a transparent background.

Now, in your Main comp: make a solid and add Particular to it and move it below your video layer

The layers should now be:

Video

Particular

Precomp 2 (turn off the eyeball - make it 3D)

Precomp

Black Solid (you'll need to make this)

Using the pen tool draw a tight mask around the keyboard only.

Now go to your Particular settings and set it as per my earlier post using Precomp 2 as the Layer emitter.

You should now have little green balls coming our from behind the green bars - now is the time to work on the actual particles to get them to look like you want.

I've tried to be as clear as I can, if there is anything that is unclear let me know.

PS: Getting some knowledge about Track Mattes is one of the most useful things you can learn in After Effects - they have a lot of uses.

10 replies

A
Anonymous
November 1, 2021

Hello there,
I understand how to create particles with particular and now, I have an aditional question to this topic. I am curious how the midi notes can be editet? This looks amazing and I think this can not be done with a simple filter. Here are two examples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkgyOZxIw0k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md6c6aEP4Cs

Does anyone have an idea, how this is made?

N
Nasirul5E1D
Participant
March 20, 2021

Brother Plz help me any one..........How to make this flash lite effect

 

E
emmanuel5C06
Participant
June 25, 2021

Those light effect are from paricular he just added a glow on the basic synthesia effect.

 

Mo Moolla
Mo Moolla
Legend
November 23, 2018

Maybe Particular was used. Easily recreated but will take time. Unless, and I have my suspicions on this, a simple more automated piece of particle generating software was used. I won't mention any names

Mo Moolla
Mo Moolla
Legend
November 23, 2018

Maybe we should open a Particular thread?

P
Phillip1234
Participating Frequently
November 11, 2018

Hello everyone, I am referring to Towerguy's long comment. I followed almost all of his steps but I couldn't manage to do the following:

- Now, in your Main comp: make a solid and add Particular to it and move it below your video layer

- Using the pen tool draw a tight mask around the keyboard only.

Now go to your Particular settings and set it as per my earlier post using Precomp 2 as the Layer emitter.

What's the main comp? And how do I add Particular? What's your earlier post?

Can anyone elaborate on this? Thanks so much

T
Towerguy
Participating Frequently
November 12, 2018

Hi. The main comp is the composition that you started with and that the precompositions are in.

To add particular create a solid and then add the Trapcode Particular Effect to the solid.

"Using the pen tool draw a tight mask around the keyboard only" means you should already have a copy of the synthesia video as the top layer in your main comp  draw the mask on this layer. In order the layers you should have are:

Video

Particular

Precomp 2 (turn off the eyeball - make it 3D)

Precomp

Black Solid (you'll need to make this)

The earlier post was (this is an edited version)

In Emitter settings: Particles/sec very high (say 24,000); Emitter Type - Layer; Layer Emitter - set to Precomp 2 (turn off the eyeball and make it 3D), Layer Sampling - Current Time. Then it's down to creating the particles to look and behave as you want.

Is that clearer?

T
Towerguy
Participating Frequently
November 12, 2018

Sorry, the Layer Sampling should be "Still" not "Current Time".

Roland Kahlenberg
Roland Kahlenberg
Legend
August 27, 2018

All of this can be done within AE and Expressions. The amount of work involved will of course be quite heavy but it's not too difficult. It all depends on whether you'll want to reuse this effect. If you're going to use and reuse it a fair bit then it's a good idea to invest the time into creating an Expression-driven template where you can easily create new collision styles/effects and have these populate across the 'final comp'.

Very Advanced After Effects Training | Adaptive & Responsive Toolkits | Intelligent Design Assets (IDAs) | MoGraph Design System DEV
    T
    Towerguy
    Participating Frequently
    August 25, 2018

    On further research it's actually an app called Synthesia. I suspect the footage was shot of the player recording a MIDI file (on a light-up keyboard), then the file was imported into Synthesia and rendered, then overlayed above the real hands playing (color corrected with some glow added?). The particles might possibly be made with trapcode, using a masked section of  the piano roll as layer emitter (?).

      R
      Robertomr00Author
      Participating Frequently
      August 26, 2018

      Indeed, I already knew it was made synthesia, sorry to not have mentioned it. I'm specially interested in the particles and their behaviour, because I don't think they were made one by one for each note and I would love to know how to construct this. If you can specify a little bit more I would love it. Thank you all for trying, too.

      P.M.B
      P.M.B
      Legend
      August 26, 2018

      Dumb question.  Have you tried asking in the synthesia forums?

      ~Gutterfish
      P.M.B
      P.M.B
      Legend
      August 25, 2018

      In the video's description there's a link to an app called Flowkey.  That might have something to do with it.  If I were you I would reach out to the person who's channel it is and just ask.

      ~Gutterfish
      T
      Towerguy
      Participating Frequently
      August 24, 2018

      Hi. It's called Piano Roll Notation which some audio editing programs can show. It takes the MIDI information from the digital input/score and instead of showing notes on a staff  it shows the pitch and length of the notes as bars. It's the system pianolas or self playing pianos used to use where the 'bars' were cut out of a long paper roll which caused the notes to sound.

      Roland Kahlenberg
      Roland Kahlenberg
      Legend
      August 24, 2018

      I highly doubt this was done with a particle system - the elements falling down are too well-placed and perfectly timed for them to be left to particle simulation. If I were to do this I'd begin with creating one animation for each of the two types of elements, in a precomp. Then nest them in a 'final' comp; duplicate as many as required and put them into position and time to suit my needs. HTH.

      Very Advanced After Effects Training | Adaptive & Responsive Toolkits | Intelligent Design Assets (IDAs) | MoGraph Design System DEV
      Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
      Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices