Welcome back to another tutorial everyone.
This week we're going to be taking a look at the new Behavior effects that were added
in the latest version of HitFilm Pro.
Now this is not a comprehensive list, since we plan to add more in the future, but this
should help you get started.
Behaviors can be found in the Effects panel, or in their dedicated dropdown in the Controls
panel.
ACCELERATION causes the layer to constantly be speeding up in a specified direction.
The value that you put in this field determines the rate of acceleration.
So if I set this to one hundred, it means that by the end of first second, the layer
will be traveling at 100 pixels per second.
In this case I have a 3D model of a car, that accelerates past the 3D camera.
The ATTRACT TO Behavior allows you to have one layer move towards another.
Here we have an Earth and a Moon PNG.
I'll add the Attract To Behavior to the moon, and under Target select the Earth.
The Acceleration and the Distance work together.
I'll set the former to 200 pixels per second.
At the Distance I choose now, the moon will be accelerated towards the target object,
by the amount defined in the Acceleration Control.
If it's outside the distance, it'll move slower.
In this case, I want it to start accelerating correctly right away, so I'll increase the
Distance to cover the moon.
Now the Target Radius is easier to understand if I set to 0, which turns it off.
Because of the underlying physics simulation that's going on, the attracting power of the
Earth will eventually fling the moon into infinity, as it becomes too strong.
You want to set the Target Radius to the size of your attracting object.
This just makes the simulation more stable, so it's not exactly something that is meant
to be customized, but you can of course play around with it for different results.
The Falloff setting is pretty simple- Quadratic represents real life in terms of how the acceleration
increases and decreases.
Linear is smoother, so again this setting depends on what look you're going for.
The DRAG Behavior is most useful when it's applied to an object that is already in motion.
It's like putting the brakes on when you're driving, the layer can come to a complete
stop almost immediately or slow down over time.
It can also be used to just add resistance to whatever layer is in motion.
The FOLLOW Behavior might make you think of parenting layers but it's not quite the same
thing.
Here I have an animation with one layer moving around the screen.
The other image is currently stationary.
If I parent the non-moving dog layer to the adult, it'll stick directly to it more than
follow the motion.
Let's undo that and add the Follow behavior to the dog.
Set the Target to the adult and you should see an effect.
The Attraction slider adjusts the strength, and the Target Distance determines the minimum
distance the dog will try to stay away from the adult, if you need that to happen.
GRAVITY is a downwards acceleration, and it's pretty straightforward.
There's only one parameter that you can adjust, and that is the starting Acceleration of pixels
per second for the object.
MIX PARENT POSITION is similar to parenting layers together, but you get to choose exactly
how much of the parent's attributes that the child inherits.
Here's a stationary tennis ball and a basketball that bounces up and down.
If I add the Mix Parent Position to the tennis ball, then select the basketball as the source
layer, you'll see the effect.
The tennis ball is currently taking 50% of the motion of the basketball.
I can raise that to 100%, or take it even lower with the Mix slider here.
It's taking the position of the basketball as well, so you might have to move it if you
make an adjustment to the Mix.
The REPEL FROM Behavior will make one layer move away from another.
The settings are pretty much the same as Attract To, but they just do the opposite.
The Distance is the minimum separation between the main layer and the Target Layer.
Once these two layers reach this distance from one another, this layer will begin moving
away from the target layer.
Next up is ROTATE BY LAYER.
Here I have simple clock setup created using Planes.
The hour, minute, and second hands have all been masked into rectangle shapes, which are
currently not moving.
The Anchor Point has been moved to the bottom of each line after drawing the mask, so that
they will rotate appropriately.
If you want to download this project, click the link in the description.
I'm going to use the Rotate by Layer Behavior so that I only have to animate the second
hand.
The minute and hour hands will follow.
Let's go into the second hand's Controls panel and activate keyframes for Rotation.
Skip to the end of the timeline and set it to something like 25 times over, so that you
can really see it spin.
With that done, I'll apply the Rotate by Layer Behavior to the minute hand first.
Select the Second layer in the first dropdown here.
It won't do anything until you tell the layer which Rotation axis to follow.
Since the second hand is a 2D layer, I'll adjust the Rotation Z Amount.
If I set it to 100%, the minute hand will stick to the second.
In this case, I want it to move slower, so I'll set it to something more realistic, like
15%.
Playing it back you can now see the minute hand moving slower than the second.
Let's do the same for the hour.
Add the Behavior effect and tell it which layer to follow.
Since the hour hand is always the slowest, I'll set the Rotation Z Amount to 1%.
Now we have a clock that is fully in motion.
The great thing about this setup is that if I want to make changes to the speed, all I
have to do is adjust the second hand's keyframes.
Let's double to Rotation and you can immediately see the resulting hour and minute hand positions.
The THROW Behavior is similar to Acceleration, but the layer will remain a constant speed,
which is set here.
So if you want your object to move but not always be accelerating, use Throw instead.
There is an Acceleration Time option, if you want the layer to start a bit slower and gradually
get faster over the first couple of seconds.
But once it hits the set Speed it'll stay there.
Thanks for watching guys.
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