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Can Echo effect stay visible for longer?

Engaged ,
Jun 03, 2021 Jun 03, 2021

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I'm trying to create an Echo effect that doesn't disappear as it goes or at least stays visible longer.  I've tried different settings in the Effects panel, but nothing seems to keep it from disappearing.  Is this possible?  Thank you!

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Community Expert , Jun 03, 2021 Jun 03, 2021

Your time-delay is -.001 so each copy of the layer is .001 seconds behind the current time. You have 800 copies. By doing the math the longest the image trail can be is .8 seconds. 

 

I'm not sure what Time Remap has to do with anything unless the brush (white points) is moving too slow, and you should not be applying Echo to an adjustment layer. 

 

If I wanted complete control I would have made a few little dots with the brush, offset the anchor point of each, applied a little wiggle to each br

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Community Expert ,
Jun 03, 2021 Jun 03, 2021

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Show us your screenshot with the modified properties of the layers revealed by just pressing the 'u' key twice. Time offset and number of frames are critical. If you run out of time your layer needs to be longer or in a pre-comp that is longer than your main comp. If the layer ends, so does the effect.

 

* The "Drag & Drop here..." area is buggy and should not be used to share images. Please use the toolbar or just drag your images to the reply field.

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Engaged ,
Jun 03, 2021 Jun 03, 2021

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Hi Rick, thanks for your reply!  Here's a screenshot showing my settings and how short my stroke is.  I have keyframes going in a full circle, and the stroke animated around all the way, but only as this little short caterpillar 😄Echo_Example.JPG

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Community Expert ,
Jun 03, 2021 Jun 03, 2021

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Your time-delay is -.001 so each copy of the layer is .001 seconds behind the current time. You have 800 copies. By doing the math the longest the image trail can be is .8 seconds. 

 

I'm not sure what Time Remap has to do with anything unless the brush (white points) is moving too slow, and you should not be applying Echo to an adjustment layer. 

 

If I wanted complete control I would have made a few little dots with the brush, offset the anchor point of each, applied a little wiggle to each brush position, tied the transform brush rotations to the first brush rotation with simple pickwhip expressions, then animated the number of echoes and the decay to end up with something like this:

echo.gif

That is a custom workspace I have set up for working on expressions. You can see enough of the modified properties to recreate the comp. I have animated the decay and number of echos and the rotation of the number 1 paint stroke. The rest of the animation is handled by very basic expressions. There is no need for time remapping, just a change in the speed of rotation and a few keyframes in the Echo effect to get the look you want.

 

The time delay can be calculated by the number of pixels per frame each dot moves. If you want each repeat to overlay and the shape moves 10 pixels per frame and the shape is 20 pixels in diameter then you'll need to have the time delay equal to the time between frames. For a 30 fps comp that would be 1/30 or =0.033 which is the default for echo. If your shape was only 10 pixels then the delay would be half that or 0.016.  You don't have to do the math, but knowing it at least gives you a guess at the proper time offset.

 

Here is the project file showing a couple of methods.

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Engaged ,
Jun 04, 2021 Jun 04, 2021

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Wow, thank you so much for your expert help, Rick!!!  Now with your help, I'll be able to fix up my comp and make it happen!  I'm going to get a cup of tea and sit down with your thorough instructions and sort it out. 🙂  Thank you for caring enough to do this and explaining it so well.  This is very educational and so helpful!  I can't thank you enough!!!

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Explorer ,
Dec 08, 2022 Dec 08, 2022

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This is useful information but for one of the original optical motion graphic effects, I can't fathom why this effect can't be more intuitive to use and quick to render. Unreal engine can render a photo real landscape in real time but to simply do a light trail there needs to be linked expressions, an understanding of time to framerate ratios and a large caveat of excuses about how processing intensive it is to offset a raster image in succession? 

This really makes no sense. All anyone wants are a few controls that do the work in the background like every other useful effect. I want a seamless light trail that can extend backwards as short or as long as I want, and I want to be able to control the front and back falloff. Maybe another slider that controls smooth trail or stepped trail. I don't believe that can't exist yet it's never ever that easy for some reason.

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