Randomizing the mosaic effect or scrambling a mask (ie face)

[eala]

Hi AE experts,

I would like to know whther it is possible to access the array of pixel of a mosaic effect mask to randomize them.

I'll explain a bit further : As you know, the mosaic effect allows you to decrease the resolution of a movie by applying a array of x*y squares onto the film and fill the color of the overlaying square with the mean of the pixel's color it covers.

I would like to know whether it is possible :

1. to access the array of the effect and randomize the values to obtain a scramble mosaic effect.

2. Actually what I'd prefer to obtain is a simple scramble effect (without mosaic). I want to keep the same amount of mouvement in my film but want to destroy the form of the overlaid area (ex : a face for instance). The best would then not to mean the squares of the mask, as the mosaic effect does, but instead, simply to have a script that scrambles the matrix elements.

I am quite new to AE6 and have just discovered that it was possible to code something, let's admit ... I have to learn a lot...

Thanks for any help,

PS : I am doing a PhD in cognitive neuroscience in fMRI, so if anyone wants to help me, he or she has to know that the conception of such a script will DREADFULLY help the community of neuroscientists and neuropsychologists. Cheers

[vidpat]

Unfortunately, AE's native scripting capabilities do not provide access to pixels. Of course, a plug-in could be written to achieve the effect you desire or a third-party tool (i.e. Profound Effects' Useful Things) might help.

Based on the description of the effect you wish to achieve, I think that you are describing Effect > Stylize > Scatter. Scatter randomly swaps the values of pixels within the specified radius. Nevertheless, the form of image often remains intelligible unless extremely high values are used or there is a lot of detail in the image.

If you need to completely obscure the original image, you could always mask out the area and apply plain old Noise... perhaps with some sort of blending mode to preserve the underlying motion.