Slow down dancing dissolve...?

[Matthew A]

Hi there

I have been testign a few ways to animate a feathered mask. So far my preferred option is a straightforward dancing dissolve blend mode — but I can figure out how I might go about slowing this down?!


Any thoughts much appreciated!

thanks... 🙂

[Matthew A]

[Rick Gerard]

Dancing dissolve is a random effect based on the frame rate of the comp. The only way you can slow it down is to slow down the frame rate of the comp, but this won't create a smooth movement, the particles will snap to their new location. You can stop the movement by pre-composing the layer and freezing a frame or slow it down by pre-composing the layer, setting the new comp frame rate to something like 4 fps, and then selecting Preserve Frame Rate when nested or in the render cue in the Advanced tab of Comp settings. 

[Matthew A]

Thanks Rick — trying that now 🙂

[Matthew A]

That worsk well for slowing the 'dance' — but now my problem is that animating the mask from small to large which is my basic transition looks too stepped / clunky... feels liek I probably need to generate a slow dissolving dance thne apply it to the alpha channel somehow?!

[Rick Gerard]

You have a Catch 22 happening. A low frame rate is required to slow down the random pattern created by the Dancing Dissolve blend mode, but a high frame rate is required to animate the feathered mask that used to generate the soft edge alpha channel required by the Dancing Dissolve blend mode. 

Personally, I would use a combination of effects to generate that look instead of trying to use the Dancing Dissolve blend mode. If I get a few minutes later this morning I'll see what options I can come up with.

[Matthew A]

Thanks Rick

In the end I just worked with a slower comp and kept dancing dissolve — you are right that theres a Catch 22 in terms of wanting motion AND slowing down the dissolve...!

I found that the roughen edges filter worked quite well, but doenst have the pleasing 'fizz' of dancing dissolve...

And then I discovered that H264 compression seems to HATE Dancing Dissolve!! Really messes it up, so after all that I went back to a regular mask with feather...!

Image below shows the h264 on the left... right hand frame shows a frmae from a ProRes export

[ShiveringCactus]

I'm not surprise by the compression - although that it particularly bad.  If you're still after the "tiny dots" look, try Fractal Noise with its transform scale all the way down.  Unlike Dancing Dissolve, this will be static until you keyframe the evolution, at which point you can set the speed.

[Marta Kulinska]

Hi, If the mask is static the good idea might be to use the precompose  + enabling time remapping of composition using hold keyframes.