ANR Rain Streaks

Overview

Rain Streaks draws falling rain streaks over Source, or alone on transparency. Each drop sits at a random depth: near drops are longer, thicker, faster and more opaque, far drops shorter and fainter, which gives the rain depth without a camera.

Drops sets how many are on screen at once, Fall Speed and Wind set their motion in pixels per second, and Streak Length and Drop Width set their size. The rain runs by itself for as long as the shot lasts, with nothing to key.

Use it for stylised rain on titles and motion graphics, or as a quick rain layer on a plate, graded and blurred to taste.

Inputs

1. Sourceoptional

   The image the rain falls over. Leave it empty for rain alone on transparency.

2. Maskoptional

   Limits where rain appears: where its alpha is black, Source shows unchanged.

Output. The rain over Source, or alone on transparency with its own alpha, covering the project format.

Quick start

1. Add ANR Rain Streaks after the plate, or on its own.
2. Set Frames per Second to your project's frame rate, so the speeds play correctly.
3. Set Drops for density and Fall Speed for how hard it falls; use Wind to slant it.
4. Set Streak Length and Drop Width for the size of the drops.
5. Set Color and Opacity so the rain sits in the plate.
6. Change Seed for a different pattern of drops.

The panel

The node's panel as Nuke shows it, with the values of a new node. Click any control to see what it does; tabs and sections work as in Nuke.

All controls

Tips

• Stack two nodes with different Seed values: thin, slow, faint drops behind and bigger, faster ones in front, with a slight blur on the front layer.
• To grade or blur the rain on its own, leave Source empty and merge the result over the plate afterwards.
• To pass the rain behind something in the plate, connect an inverted matte of that object to Mask.
• Negative Wind values blow the rain to the left.
• Speeds and sizes are in pixels, so the same settings look smaller and slower on larger formats.

Good to know

• The rain is drawn flat on the frame: it does not react to the camera, to objects in the plate or to the ground.
• Nothing is simulated or cached: each frame depends only on its frame number, the settings and the input, so scrubbing, render order and farm renders all give the same frames.

Works with

ANR Snow DriftAnimated falling snow over your image, with wind, a gentle side-to-side flutter and depth: near flakes are bigger and faster.ANR Bubble FieldFills the frame with rising, drifting bubbles with rims and highlights, for underwater shots, fizzy drinks, backgrounds and playful titles.