OSX aqua effect plugin?

[Mylenium]

Huh? Why would anyone write a plugin to simulate an entire operating system UI in a compositing package? What's stopping you from creating screenshots of the knobs and levers and animate them? If you are looking for the Dock scaling/ popup or Cover Flow effect, please refer to sites like AEnhancers.com (http://www.aenhancers.com). There's any number of threads pertaining to mimicing those effects with expressions and these requests pop up once a week.

Mylenium

[angel]

Ugh, you know, AFX is more than for compositing shots... to answer your question: Simple, because that's what I need it to do! maybe I didn't explain myself properly, I'm not looking to recreate an entire OS ui but the glassy look of Aqua's buttons, easy enough for things that are NOT changing shapes but I have to animate plenty of elements that change their shape so a simple screenshot or even recreating in photoshop wouldn't work; if it was that simple I wouldn't have posted the thread to begin with. I had the crazy idea that maybe someone had written an effect to mimic aqua glassy looking graphics in one single effect node.

BTW, thanks for the link, I didn't know about that site. I guess I should have known about it...

[Mylenium]

Well, not meaning to be too snobistic, but the process is the same - any PS tutorial that illustrates the process of creating Aqua buttons pretty much identically applies to the use of the same techniques in AE. Find attached an age old example project. I even did a tutorial on that style on creativeCOW way back then... These days it's even simpler thanks to AE supporting PS layer styles... Beyond that you can certainly find creative uses for any third-party plugin with "glass" in its name opr tools like ZBornToy. And no, I don't agree that there needs to be a plugin for everything. After all, where would the fun and creativity be in that?

Mylenium

[angel]

Hey thanks for the samples. I know how to make Aqua effects, the main problem comes when it is time to animate these elements, Unfortunately I can not say much about the project due to our NDA. No, I don't agree that there has to be an effect for everything but in this particular case it would be handy to have since it would be a lot easier to manage, I mean, look at your sample and the number of layers it took to create it. Sometimes fun and creativity are a luxury that are lacking in a production environment. This project will be a precomp and layer nightmare. :sad:

BTW I didn't know that AFX now supported PS Styles... that will certainly help a lot making this project go smoother.:cool:

Thanks for the suggestions and the links.

[Mylenium]

Well, i guess you point of failure will be the inability to vary the height of the bevelling/ rounding, so it will look *argh* on thin lines. Still, this would not be different with a plugin. I'm not sure if I understand your concerns about animation, though. Even though I chose to use text layers in my examples, the techniques should work for pretty much any shape, e.g. a set of masks animating or a pre-composition. Ultimately it's merely a matter of interpretation...

Mylenium

[biliousfrog]

couldn't you *cough* do them in 3d?

Once the materials are set up a couple of simple animations for pressing in buttons etc. should be all that is required. Some tweaks to the curves might be needed to get the synthetic look...dunno?... just thinking out loud.

[suztv]

Hey thanks for the samples. I know how to make Aqua effects, the main problem comes when it is time to animate these elements, Unfortunately I can not say much about the project due to our NDA. No, I don't agree that there has to be an effect for everything but in this particular case it would be handy to have since it would be a lot easier to manage, I mean, look at your sample and the number of layers it took to create it. Sometimes fun and creativity are a luxury that are lacking in a production environment. This project will be a precomp and layer nightmare. :sad:

BTW I didn't know that AFX now supported PS Styles... that will certainly help a lot making this project go smoother.:cool:

Thanks for the suggestions and the links.

***EDIT***

Guess what? - Just take Photoshop styles and put them on a layer (shape of course) and then bring them into AfterEffects - totally animate-able!

Get those styles here:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&extid=1040763
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&extid=1042501
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&extid=1040842
:D

[angel]

thx for the suggestions guys...

3d would be my preference but not an option on this one unfortunately.
Styles from PS help (I already have a bunch of styles in PS) to some degree but what I'm trying to avoid is having to control so many different layers of effects in so many elements. Again, the problem is not how to create the effect but how to keep the project manageable... I found a script that might help with the problem if it does I'll post my findings. THX!

[Mylenium]

Mmh, I still don't quite understand. If you do it in a number of pre-comps, you would basically merely be defining shapes by creating a b/w presentation, which then could be re-used over and over to build your layers for the actual shading. You literally would not care about the fancy look most of the time once it has been setup. I could only imagine this becoming a problem, if the multiple Aqua-lized layers somehow needed to interact with blendmodes or you'd require to have some fake refraction inbetween somewhere. then of course things get hairy pretty quickly...

Mylenium

[suztv]

Animate it once - then create a preset. A Script might help but when it comes to fine-tuning, nothing beats the human hand.

As far as making this easy - it isn't. No matter which route you take you are in for a long drawn-out animation process. You might consider a slider? IDK what you want to animate though. I mean - do you want to animate the bevel? Or do you want to animate the reflection and caustics? Examples would help - then I could see what you are trying to achieve.

I played around with the styles in AfterEffects and really it didn't seem that bad. There weren't any more layers than the shape and the PS styles applied to that shape so really it would be a matter of keyframing the styles - and if you are trying for the same animation each time then using a preset is your best course of action.

***EDIT***

You know - it didn't even occur to me that there was a plug-in that would achieve that effect:

http://www.frischluft.com/flair/flair.php

and

http://www.panopticum.com/ae/lens3/lens.shtml

I'm sure there's more out there - honestly though I don't think that they'd be any easier to wield than just the PS styles.

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