Posterize time on a Turbulent Displace effect ?

[David Tessier]

Hi there,

I'm making a Hand drawn style animation. I made animations on Adobe Animate, then exported the swf files (at 25fps). I the import the files in AE, and I want to set a sketchy effet on my flash brush strokes. So I decided to apply the Turbulent Displace effect on it, and the render is fine. But I have 2 render solution: the first one is to set no evolution on the stroke, it's cool, but when nothing is moving on the scene, it's quite too static. So the second solution is to make an evolution on this turbulent effect so the strokes seem to move a little bit. BUT my problem is that the effect mouvement is a bit too fluid to be convincing. The effect would be perfect if it had something jerky, something like a Posterize time on it, and ONLY on it, not on the swf animation. I guess that an expression could do something close to what I'd like to get, but I'm not really familar with expressions…

Any ideas?

Thank you

[Rick Gerard]

You could try adding expression to evolution that randomized the evolution so you get a bunch of random values. Something like this will give you random values for evolution between zero and 90º:

random(0, 90)

You can choose any value you like.

It that is too jerky you can modify the expression so the random seed is controlled by time by complicating the expression a bit so it looks like this:

f = time/thisComp.frameDuration;

fr = 3; // number of frames to hold

c = f/fr;

s = Math.floor(c);

seedRandom(s, timeless = true);

random(0, 90)

Just set the number of frames (fr) you want to hold.

You could also use posterize time on a pre-composed fractal noise layer used as the source for Effect>Distort>Displacement Map. Let me know if the expression doesn't work out for you and you can't figure out posterize time on fractal noise. Come to think of it you could use the same expression on fractal noise for evolution.

I'm going to offer another suggestion - do not use SWF as a delivery format. You'll kill more than half your potential audience because SWF is dead and incompatible with mobile devices. Instead render a production master and then compress an h.264 MP4 and use html 5 or Adobe Animate to embed the file in a web page.

[Roei Tzoref · Accepted solution]

I would apply this expression to the evolution parameter:

fps=5 // new frame rate

spd=1000 // degrees per second

posterizeTime(fps),  time*spd

this means the new frame rate for this parameter is going to be 5Fps and the speed is 1000 degrees a second.

[David Tessier]

Wow! You guys are amazing!

Rick Gerard​ I tried your three solutions, the ones with expressions rendered something a little bit weird in the evolution (I could not tell you in english —i'm french sorry— wha the result is like), the solution with the fractal noise layer started to seem OK, but sudenly, Roeil Tzoref came… About the swf files, I work on Adobe Animate, and the swf files are really lightweight, and convenient to work with. I don't plan to use swf for the web (anymore) so it's OK for me

roei Tzoref ; your 3 lines solution is TOP! It works really fine! Thank you very much!

Thank you for spending time solving my problem, I'm gratefull for that

[Roei Tzoref]

Great! glad to help. actually discovered this little gem not so long ago so I am passing the code on it's great if you want a stop motion feel but on a parameter level and not a layer or composition. otherwise you could also use the Posterize Time effect.

[ronlee0D4C]

Hi Roei, I am having the same problem, and your solution sounds perfect, although for some reason not working for me. I think I might not be putting the expression in the right way or place.

I'm trying to keep my video at 24FPS but want the displacement map to wiggle at 3 FPS without affecting the animation FPS.

Do you have a screenshot of where you place this expression and how?

I know this post if from years ago, so trying my luck here!

Thanks so much!!!!

[ottodepaula]

Hello, I'm new here

I'm having the same problem but it's different, I'm making a turbulent displacement adjustment layer, and the random seed needs to change when the frames pass, and the distorton stops when there's no motion, and I couldn't find any answer to it.

Can someone give me some ideas?