Cool features of Geomancy.

You have easy control and tons of options for the look and animation of the lines/shapes created by Geomancy plugins. Cool functions include the ability to avoid keyframes; built-in alpha channels for easy layering; internal 'Blend Modes'; and those crazy 'Randomness' parameters.

No keyframes required.

The sweetest aspect of Geomancy is that you don't need to set many – if any – keyframes. In fact, most of the sample movies on these Geomancy web pages were created without keyframes.

Avoiding keyframes can be a huge time saver, particularly if you just want random, animating background elements. Geomancy particles bop around automatically. With just a few slider changes to direct their movement, the same composition of lines can be used in different ways, as with the two images below.

Thin lines and a Glow filter create a plasma effect [play]

Thickening the lines creates a stylized flowing water [play]

Built-in alpha channels.

All Geomancy particles are automatically generated against an alpha channel. There are no 'Alpha' parameters to turn on; this just happens by default.

This makes compositing a Geomancy layer really easy. Our project (right) easily combines three uses of the GridSquares plugin on three different layers. One layer creates the row and column lines. One layer generates squares. The third is for triangles.

Three layers of dancing shapes create a computer display effect. [play]

Built-in layer modes.

The GridSquares and GridLines plugins each have 25 built-in 'Blend Modes'. Combine shapes with traditional transfer modes like 'Add' or 'Difference'. Others are a bit uncommon, like 'Alpha Premul'.

The Blend Modes give you lots of options in mixing the shapes together to quickly create cool effects. You can, for instance, have new shapes appear in front or behind older shapes.

Blend Modes easily create this layered effect in GridSquares [play]

The value of randomness.

If you're familiar with our animation set Text Anarchy, then you already know about Geomancy's 'Randomness' parameters. Most particle attribute has an associated 'Randomness' slider. Each particle can be told to randomly sample from a range of values for the related attribute.

The 'Randomness' slider provides invaluable assistance in animation. For instance, look at GridLines' 'Line Attributes'. (right) Every behavior that a line make can also be randomized. This allows your animation to be less structured and, therefore, more organic.

You can read more about 'Randomness' on this page.