Drive any parameter by another layer's luminance

[Szalam]

You know how awesome Compound Blur is? I want that power everywhere.

That is, it would be extremely powerful to be able to switch a parameter to be "driven by" another layer.

You would set your minimum and maximum values and pick the layer it's pointed to. Just like how Compound Blur blurs more or less depending on the luminance, this would drive whatever the parameter was by the luminance of the referenced layer. (You could also include the ability to posterize it and soften it.) Oh, and the min and max values would be keyframeable too, of course.

Some use cases:

• Drive the complexity of a Fractal Noise layer by a depth map. So you have big fog up close and denser, more complex fog the further away it is.
• Some very cool, stylized effects by driving the size of the Venetian Blinds effect by footage.
• The size/density of CC Ball Action balls
• Mosiac sizes
• Glow size and intensity being driven by a different layer would be neat
• Stylized directional blurs where the blur angle changes based on the luminance of another layer (or the same one)
• Soooooo many more

There are some third party tools that do things like this and it opens up a ton of creative options. Red Giant's Mir lets you displace a 3D mesh based on another layer's luminance and Form lets you drive all kinds of particle parameters with another layer's values.

I've been thinking about a feature like this for a very long time, but now that Red Giant has released Depth Generator and I've been playing with depth maps, I keep wanting to drive things besides the opacity, blur, or color of a layer with these maps. The more I think about this, the more useful it could be. I'm aware it would likely require some significant refactoring (and some parameters wouldn't make sense for it), but sooooooo many things could benefit from this.

I know you'd have to have the ability to restrict it. For example, particle tools shouldn't change depending on the pixel values of another layer - I mean just think of changing the particle count based on another layer's luminance: it'd be simulating 255 times in an 8-bit project instead of 1!

But this could unlock so much procedural coolness.

[Kyle Hamrick]

+1. Compound effects FTW!

[Rick Gerard]

I would also like to see a limit switch on adjustment layers so you can choose how many layers an adjustment affects. Something similar to how you can add masks to a layer's effects.  That would eliminate the necessity to pre-compose and open two comp viewers to make adjustments. We can now put a track matte layer anywhere in the stack. Let's make adjustment layers work the same way. 

[Roland Kahlenberg]

This is doable combining sampleImage() and Linear Interpolation methods. I've used this combo before and I know others have as well. And if you've deep dived into Particle Playground, lots of its properties are driven in this manner.

Perhaps an updated sampleImage() that is 10x faster coupled with a user-friendly UI will make it more reachable while providing good UI-UX - quicker set ups using presets for both the greyscale as well as the Interpolation Method. And yeah, wrap it up as a new toy and call it Compound Effector should get good mileage. 

[Szalam]

I'm not talking about properties of an effect on a layer being driven by a single color selection of a layer below it. I'm talking about the whole effect being driven to be different values across the whole layer - like compound blur, but for other things like the mosaic size. Basically like this, but with only one layer (and getting to pick luminance from a different layer).

[ahmed hamed elsaid]

yeah I understand exactly what you want.
it is a good concept, and we can do it in a lot of things and creating cool styles and filters.
Unfortunatley, I think it is probably hard to be abstract(works for all effects).
because at the end, after effects isn't node based.
and that makes it hard to combine effects and give them behaviours.
in summary, it is semi imposible to be done for all the effects in after effects🙏

[Roland Kahlenberg]

Hi Ahmed! Good to see you here!  🙂

For me, nodes belong in the Effects Space - take a look at Stardust for its implementation - super cool nodes in AE - so, you use nodes instead of the Effects Control Panel. 

[Roland Kahlenberg]

AH! So ... I thought Red Giant and possibly BorisFX's Sapphire's offerings may have something similar. Thanks for that link - interesting stuff. 

BTW, a little trivia - Mikey Borup is quite an AE Legend. Wayyyyyy back ... before Youtube, AE's preset.xml file had lines of code for his presets. So, the original AE DEVs took time to help spread Mikey's work - very cool stuff as always from Mikey.

[ahmed hamed elsaid]

Hello Roland!😊