Filter: Noise Complex.

Noise Complex is, essentially, After Effects' Noise filter with a ton of bells and whistles. It’s designed to do everything the standard filter can do and much, much more.

Change the size of noise blocks. [play]

Create flowing rain droplets. [play]

What does it do?

One big difference is that Noise Complex can use its Rate Of Change (ROC) parameter to control how frequently your noise pattern changes. The Noise filter just changes its pattern every frame. Below, we've shown the options for the After Effects Noise filter and our Noise Complex. Both filters set a Noise Strength or Amount. However, Noise Complex gives a much wider range of noise strength.

After Effects Noise goes to 100, which only covers a topical portion of the image. With a range to 1,000, Noise Complex provides more subtle and complex changes with a wider setting range.

Set the Noise Strength.

Noise Strength sets the opacity and amount of noise. The range is from 0 to 1,000. At its highest setting, the image will be completely obliterated by noise. At lower settings, the image will be partially obscured. At very low settings, the noise effect is very subtle. A great use of Noise Complex is as a source layer for other effects that use grayscale maps. You can generate Color noise for randomly colored noise, or Monochromatic (grayscale) noise for more consistent results.

Shift around glowing noise particles. [play]

Noise Complex at Strength 100

Noise Complex at Strength 10

Control the Noise patttern.

After Effects' Noise filter changes its pattern with every frame because, in theory, film grain changes per frame. Unfortunately, the Noise filter doesn’t do film grain really well. And a constant frame change precludes using the Noise filter effectively with other filters. Noise Complex can very the noise shift. The higher the Rate of Change (ROC), the slower the shift of noise particles.

Noise Complex at Spread 5

Noise Complex at Spread 90

Variable rate noise is a terrific feature. There are many times that you want random pixels, but not rapidly changing ones, especially if you’re using noise with other filters or as a layer for an effect source. You can even use the Spread Control Layer option to tell another image to control the amount of noise.