Now that we have applied the effect, we will adjust the effect's settings, as well as use our ramp composition as a gradient layer to customize our effect a little more...
Change the view back to Wireframe + Forces for a little bit while we make some adjustments.
In your Effect Controls window for the Shatter Effect, change the Shape attribute's Pattern from Bricks to Glass, and increase the Repititions to about 30:
Decrease the Extrusion Depth to about 0.05:
Your shatter isn't looking like a brick wall any more:
The blue circle (which is actually a sphere) which you see when in the Wireframe + Forces view mode is called Force 1. It essentially shows you what part of your layer is going to be shattered. Anything that is not inside Force 1 will not shatter. Thus, the corners of our layer stay in place.
here is a "side view" of the Force 1 sphere shattering our layer
In the Effect Controls window for the Shatter Effect, you can adjust the radius, strength, and location (or position and depth) of Force 1. Under the Force 1 attribute, reduce the strength to about 0.50 (which makes the layer crumble more than explode) and increase the radius until the edges of the circle fill the screen. 0.65 seemed the right number for me:
At the start of your animation, your Wireframe + Forces view looks something like this:
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Switch back to the Rendered view and see how it's looking so far:
(80 KB)
BRING IN THE GRADIENT LAYER
From your Project Window, drag the ramp composition into your shatter composition. Turn off the visibility for the new ramp layer (we don't need to see it, and the shatter effect can still use it as a reference).
In your shatter Effect Controls window, under Gradient, change the Gradient Layer from None to ramp:
RAM preview your composition, and you will see that nothing happens. Don't panic. This is perfectly normal.
In order to create shattering once you have introduced a gradient, you have to animate the Shatter Threshold value. A Shatter Threshold of 0% (the default) means that nothing has shattered, and 100% means that everything has shattered.
At 0 seconds, set a keyframe for Shatter Threshold at 0%.
Advance to about 3 seconds, and change the Shatter Threshold to 100%.
Change Wireframe + Forces back to Rendered, and RAM preview your animation:
a gradient layer can control the time at which each part of the layer explodes (208 KB)
When shatter is uses a gradient layer, it shatters the lighter parts before the darker parts. (Remember, it doesn't shatter the gradient layer itself; it uses the gradient layer to tell it in what order to shatter the layer):
shatter threshold at 38% (I've turned on the ramp layer momentarily so we can compare)
shatter threshold at 78%
On the next page, we will play around with various gradient layers....
