Creating a waterfall effect in Nutcracker.

[BundyRoy]

I'm trying to create a waterfall effect on my matrix. Can get it by using bars (blue) with the highlight ticked and down. Was wondering is there a combination that will give me the line of white in a zig zag pattern across the matrix instead of a straight line of white across. Of course the zig zag line needs to be moving down the sea of blue.

Just had a thought that the wave will get me a nice wave pattern, not sure I can get it to move from top to bottom. Will have to investigate it.

 

[Habbosrus]

Have you tried Garland effect? I'm not sure it will work but I used it for something similar last year.

 

[BundyRoy]

Good idea. Will look at that. Will just have to edit out the stacking part at the bottom. Thanks.

I have to say that Nutcracker is a very powerful tool once you get into it. At first I felt a little restricted in what I could achieve but once I got used to it and discovered the new world of using effect 1 AND effect 2 it is just mind blowing what you can come up with. I'm still getting amazed every time I try different combinations.

 

[smeighan]

do you have any video showing this effect? It makes it easier for me to understand exactly what you are looking for

 

[BundyRoy]

I haven't got a video at this stage Sean. The song I am sequencing refers to a waterfall so I thought it would be good to have one. Am open to suggestions on how to best achieve this. My thoughts were maybe a blue back ground with a bit of a ripple effect with a couple of shades of blue going through it. Then have a single line of white lights in a sine wave pattern (not expecting sine wave to move across as it goes down the matrix. Just a set line that scrolls down the matrix) that moves down the waterfall at set intervals. My thoughts were the white line moving down would give the impression of movement.

Happy with whatever I can get though. Very open to suggestions. Will have a look for some video to see if I can find some examples that look good.

 

[BundyRoy]

This is what I have come up with. First of all in effect 1 I used Meteors with two similar shades of dark blue. Maximum number of streaks and maximum trail length. That gives me the "rippling effect" whilst giving the impression of downwards movement as well.

Then in paint I drew a picture the size of my matrix with several sine waves in a slightly different shade of blue. See below.


Used pictures effect for effect 2 and set it to down. Doesn't look too bad on screen, but we'll wait for real life. Haven't put it in the sequence yet to see how much manual alterations are required.

Would be keen to see links to anyones videos if they have done a waterfall in the past. Thanks.

 

[arw01]

What about using the image effect in nutcracker with your drawing, Nutcracker can make it move, can it make it go down?

 

[BundyRoy]

arw01, that's exactly what I did do. The picture effect can make the image go down. The only issue is there seems to be a bit of a gap between when the image finishes and when it starts coming down again. (ie the image doesn't restart coming down until the top of the image reaches the bottom). So there will be a bit of manual cut and pasting to get it going.

Maybe I need to set a series of images and do the movie thing. I've used it before and it works well. Will see how much work the cutting and pasting is first.

 

[Habbosrus]

Make your picture much higher than your matrix. It will just scroll until it reaches the end. How long is your effect? I have a picture that I made as wide as my matrix but 4 x higher. I then just scrolled it (UP in my case). If you need it to scroll longer, just make your picture longer, then you won't get gaps

 

[BundyRoy]

I like the way you think. Thanks for that, will adjust it tonight.