Walker Effects Manual
- Installation
- Alpha Tool
- Channel Composite
- Channel Lighting
- Channel Noise
- Channel Offset
- Channel Range
- Channel Viewer
- Color Composite
- Color Fill
- Colorize
- Color Space
- Composite
- Crazy Stripes
- Glow
- Gradient Designer
- Light Wrap
- Stargate
- Super Histogram
Crazy Stripes
Crazy Stripes is a great plug-in for creating abstract backgrounds and styles. It is capable of taking any still image or movie and quickly making abstract stripes from it. Stripes can be rotated and animated to create interesting movement from even the most boring images. There are also built-in presets which offer different styles at a single click.
To enable motion blur, you must turn on the motion blur switches in the Timeline Window. There is a checkbox next to each layer listed under the 'M' column, and there is a toggle button with the letter 'M'. Both must be enabled. Note that it is not necessary to turn on Best Quality in order for motion blur to render.
Presets
These built-in presets offer a bunch of unique looks and are a great starting point. When a preset is chosen, the transform controls will be changed. The mode switches, such as Edge Behavior, are not affected by the presets.Anchor
The Anchor specifies the center point of the layer. You can place this anywhere to act as the hinging point for the transformations. Interesting effects be achieved by moving the anchor point since it tends to distort transformations even more. The Drift controls provide a way to automatically animate the anchor.Position
The Position of Crazy Stripes can be set just like any layer. This is useful for placing the effect exactly where you need it or even animating it.Orientation
There are two ways of orienting Crazy Stripes: Horizontal and Vertical. Choosing an orientation changes the mapping of the Length and Width parameters and will change the direction of the stripes.Length
The Length controls the stretching of the stripes in the long direction. When Orientation is set to Vertical, Length will stretch vertically, and in Horizontal mode length will stretch horizontally.Width
The Width always controls the stripes in the short direction (opposite of length). The Width affects the apparent size of the stripes.Rotation
You can make stripes travel at any angle by setting the Rotation. This works similarly to rotation in the Timeline Window and is centered around the Anchor point.Shear
The Shear transformation skews the layer perpendicular to the orientation. This may at first appear to look like Rotation, however it is actually distorting the image.Spin
Spin is a special transformation for evolving the stripes. The spin actually moves the image through the stripes creating a flowing effect. Like Rotation, one full revolution of Spin returns to the same position.Spin Rate
In order to create an automatically animating effect, the Spin Rate is used to specify how much the Spin changes over time. Spin Rate is measured in cycles per second. For example, with a value of 0.5 the spin will animate 180 degrees each second. Typically the Spin Rate is very low to create a smooth flowing motion, as higher rates tend to create a more chaotic motion.Drift
Similarly to the Spin Rate the Drift parameters allow automated motion for the anchor. This creates flowing stripes that do not spin. Drift is measured in pixels relative to the source image and is pronounced by the Length.Edge Behavior
This controls how areas outside the layer are handled. You can use these modes to create infinitely repeating stripes.None
Areas outside of the layer area will be rendered black transparent.Wrap
The Wrap function will infinitely repeat the layer in all directions. When scaling the layer down, this will produce a tiling texture.Hold
Hold extends the pixels on the edge of the layer out to infinity, most often creating a solid or streaking effect.Mirror
Mirror repeats the image infinitely in all directions, but flips the image with each repeat. This method can be helpful for reducing seams at the edges of the layer.Sampling Mode
The Sampling Mode affects the speed and quality of the render by determining how pixel values are interpolated when the image is stretched and distorted.Automatic
Choosing this mode will cause the plug-in to use Bilinear sampling for best quality and Nearest Neighbor for draft quality. The quality is set in the Timeline Window in the switches indicated by a slash (/).Nearest Neighbor
This sampling function is the fastest but also has the poorest quality. It determines pixel colors by rounding coordinates to the nearest whole pixel. This results in noticeably rectangular aliased pixels. Motion blur can be used in this mode to help smooth it more with less rendering overhead than the other sampling algorithms.Bilinear
This method of sampling uses linear interpolation to generate new pixel values between existing whole pixels. When scaling or distorting an image this sampling mode produces much nicer results than Nearest Neighbor.Bicubic
The bicubic method of sampling looks best but has the highest cost in rendering time. For Crazy Stripes, Bicubic is overkill. Most of the time you can typically get results that are just as good or better using Bilinear with motion blur enabled.Motion Blur Samples
When motion blur is enabled for the layer, this value determines how many samples are used in the blur. The more samples, the higher the quality but the longer the rendering time. The default value of 16 matches the internal rendering of After Effects.To enable motion blur, you must turn on the motion blur switches in the Timeline Window. There is a checkbox next to each layer listed under the 'M' column, and there is a toggle button with the letter 'M'. Both must be enabled. Note that it is not necessary to turn on Best Quality in order for motion blur to render.
Blend With Original
Use this slider to blend the result of the effect with the original input layer. If Blend With Original is set to 100%, the effect will not render.