Video Glitch / Malfunction Effect

[Mylenium]

I've seen this effect used often where a glitch or digital noise effect distorts a layer. The most recent example I can find is in a new 5 gum commercial:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=00cCViJcLWw

I found a couple plugins called Bad TV and Video Malfunction, but both seem to be lacking the extreme distortion I see in that commercial. Does anyone know of a tutorial or the best way of achieving this effect?

It's analog distortions/ magnetic interference, not digital noise. Digital noise refers to something completely different. The effect is so extreme because it's not founded in reality - to get distortions of this magnitude you'd have to litterally plug a 50 kilo Volts cable into your TV or set off a nuke next to it ;).

Having said that, the only solution can be a manual re-creation of the effect using multiple displacements. Shouldn't be to difficult. For the most part you simply need to build some sort of random gradient and a heavily stretched Fractal Noise can provide this. Use it as an input on the conventional Displacement Map effect and animate the displacement values. You can get color shifts using the Invert effect as well as any other tool of your choice. The ghosting can be done using Echo. It's really merely a matter of how to combine them al land get the timing right....

Mylenium

[littlebrittle]

That makes sense. I don't use displacement too often so I never really considered using them to get that effect. I'll give those a shot and see what I can come up with. Thanks.

[yikesmikes]

I've been fooling with your TV Glitch thing for awhile and this isn't bad on text, a four letter word, "Mike". CC Scale Wipe, two expressions and markers:

CC Scale Wipe

To get it to smear out to the left, like your example, set the Center in the plugin to the right edge of the text.

Put this expression on "Stretch"

amp=random(5,50); //amplitude (pixels)
freq=10; //frequency (cycles per second)
decay=30; //decay time (seconds)

// find previous marker

n = 0; // assume haven't reached a marker yet
if (marker.numKeys > 0){
n = marker.nearestKey(time).index;
if (marker.key(n).time > time){
n--;
}
}

if (n > 0) t = time - marker.key(n).time else t =0;
a = amp*Math.sin(freq*t*Math.PI*2)/Math.exp(decay*t);
a

Put this expression on "Direction":

random(-83,-97)

Now drop a marker wherever you want a glitch.
You can always tweak the values in the expression.

As usual these are based on Dan Ebberts expressions.

[yikesmikes]

Forgot to add, I put a mask about twice the size of the text layer on a black solid layer, above the text layer, to limit the glitch-smear to the vicinity of the text layer, otherwise CC Scale Wipe smears it all the way across the screen. And I feather the mask.

[littlebrittle]

I've been trying to use that expression but it isn't working for me. I added the CC Scale Wipe effect, and pasted those expressions to Stretch and Direction, and it doesn't appear to be doing anything. Is there something I'm missing?

[yikesmikes]

Did you drop a marker wherever you want the Glitch to happen?

The Stretch expression is activated by a marker, the more markers, the more Glitches.

The asterisk key (*) on the numeric pad, drops a marker (Layer marker I think they're called) on a selected layer, wherever you have the time indicator.

Also, I created this on a text layer and when trying it on a photo layer, or solid, I noticed you need the Effect Grow Bound to be Above the CC Scale Wipe.

If you're still having trouble, see where the Center is on the CC Scale Wipe, move it around. On my text layer, if the "Center" is to the left of the text's anchor point, nothing happens, over it or to the right of the anchor point, I get glitch.

That said, this works on even if the layers are 3D. To the extent of Grow bounds.

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