Reacting Grids in Adobe After Effects

Make a grid of layers react to a single layer. We look at several methods to achieve this effect. First with native out-of-the-box after effects, and expressions. We talk a bit about some 3rd party plugins. Then we have a look at layer maps, a common component of particle systems. And fourthly I show you how Cinema 4d Lite can solve these issues. I hope you enjoy this one technique done several ways.

Jump to any point in the video you like:
0:00 Welcome!
1:57 Expressions Only
6:06 3rd Party Plugins
6:45 Persistent Particles
9:06 C4d Lite

If you have any questions just let me know in the comments.

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[rogerotakufernandez]

Hands down the TRUE MASTER OF "EXPRESSIONS" when it come to After Effects!🙌🏻

[williamlamy]

You sir have a real talent for explaining and visually simplifying complex things. Thank you!

[lakabaka]

var p1 = thisLayer. transform. position;
var p2 = thisComp.layer("Null 1").transform.position;
var ScaleFrom = thisComp.layer("Adjustment Layer 1").effect("Scale From")("Slider");
var ScaleTo = thisComp.layer("Adjustment Layer 1").effect("Scale To")("Slider");
var Hitin = thisComp.layer("Adjustment Layer 1").effect("hitbox Inside")("Slider");
var HitOut = thisComp.layer("Adjustment Layer 1").effect("hitbox Outside")("Slider");
var d = length(p1, p2);
var r = linear(d, HitOut, Hitin, ScaleFrom, ScaleTo);
[r, r]

[hannaisachanka]

thanks for a thorough explanation of the expression, that's rare and priceless!

[trejohnson]

This is insanely inspiring as web developer. My mind is melting from the possibilities.

[Rijckenberg]

Merry Christmas and many thanks for the great tutorials in 2020. Happy new year

[opptender]

Thanks for another great tut.
Merry Xmas.
Regards from Portugal.

[DaveCurrieDesigns]

Love the C4D solution to this - exactly what I was looking for!

[toddlawrimore]

Very helpful. Great work pulling the information together for us

[ashishrandive]

For anyone trying to do this for opacity, simply change the [r, r] to [r]

[Mathing]

Loved every bit of this tutorial! I was wondering of there is a way to do all these on a single shape layer😮

[BienvenidoCruz]

Nice. I think you can also use the sampleImage expression to change their sizes according to a map layer.

[nicolebry]

Still comig back to your videos, Mr. Abrams. As always, thank you so much for the excellent tutorial! I'll be attempting to use this principle to make a reactive faux drop shadow for a bouncing ball I'm having to animate for my 2D Animation I class. Little do my peers know, I've got some AE experience well before I went into the class, so it's time to flex for me if I can pull this off. Haha! Wish me luck. I will surely @ mention you on Twitter when it's all posted up.

[antonfullerton]

This is exactly what I needed, thank you for the great tutorial. 

I do however have one question and forgive me if it's been asked already, but is it possible to have 2 null controllers working as triggers for the shapes?

[dickypbkr]

I love your tutorials,
Plz tell me expressions of advanced or mid level
I get confused and fogot now what i do when i am doing sonthing and that work get to a difficult level

[sdbvisuals]

This is so awesome. I wonder - would there be a way through expressions to have the effector null affect the yRotation of the squares in the grid?

[VitaliYaronskiDOTcom]

This is a great tutorial !
I have a qusetion about how can I make it react to a bigger surface as shape for example? So I can make a custom transition upscaling and downscaling squares as my shape moves from left to right

[nathitappan]

As usual, when I have an AE problem I dig through the decade of wisdom in your channel. I haven't found yet my answer, so I figured I'd ask while I keep searching.
If my grid has to be of hexagons, and I want to very precisely (namely the entire shape at once, not gradually) animate either the stroke of it, or the fill, on a ripple effect towards the outside the comp, how would you go about it? So once a shape is animated, it's very surrounding shapes get animated next.

I'm thinking maybe some sort of gradient map, or manually design/animate it, but I'd hate to go about it manually if I could avoid it.

Next bit of the problem: let's say I start two ripples from different positions and wanted to point out the intersecting parts with yet a different color? That'd be even more important if I could change that efficiently, just in case the client wanted to make it ripple from other spots.

Let me know if your incredible brain has any ideas that I could explore...

Thank you again for all the content we get to explore when we hit a wall!

[dhw]

5:21 hello! I have a question.
why do you use the operator '&&' in the sixth statement?
I think the operator '||' which means 'or' is more proper to use.
Isn't it?

[AzyyyyIV]

Loved this tutorial, I'm trying to tweak the first example to effect the position instead of scale. The problem i'm running into is the position for my grid of dots is all set to 0.0, 0.0 when I apply the expression to it (I changed anything with the word scale to position in the example). Was wondering if anyone knows how to keep the grid of dots in their original place with the cursor moving them slightly as it gets nearby.