If the shot you are trying to track is this one: https://stock.adobe.com/video/thirst-quencher-at-a-concert-a-sleek-metallic-beverage-can-stands-amidst-a-vibrant-concert-scene-a-symbol-of-refreshment-amidst-the-electric-atmosphere-of-music-and-celebration/1679335106   I think Mocha AE is the wrong tool. A simple mesh warp, or exporting a frame to Photoshop and using the tools there to attach the label, would be your best solution.   If that is not the shot you are tracking, you will have to pre-compose the layer with the label, then stretch the label in the pre-comp to fit the frame of the Pre-comp (same as the original comp). Then, when you apply Corner Pin tracking to the pre-comp in the main comp and add Power Pin, the corners of your label will fit the four corners you tracked. It will then take something like Mesh Warp to bend the label to fit the can's curvature.    Maybe this old tutorial I did on Mocha's Corner Prin tracking will give you some ideas:   ... View more

I would also like to see a limit switch on adjustment layers so you can choose how many layers an adjustment affects. Something similar to how you can add masks to a layer's effects.  That would eliminate the necessity to pre-compose and open two comp viewers to make adjustments. We can now put a track matte layer anywhere in the stack. Let's make adjustment layers work the same way.  ... View more

Most plugins that use a comp camera are designed for use on 2D layers. If you turn off 3D and turn it back on on your Particle Playground layer, you should see a warning about the 2D layer. The 3D interaction is calculated inside the 2D layer so making the layer 3D fouls up the math. It's that simple.  ... View more

Try holding down the Ctrl/Cmnd key and clicking the Timeline Display to switch from Time Code to Frames a couple of times to make sure everything switches. ... View more

Yes, you always need some extra area around the object you want to remove. ... View more

Content Aware Fill requires a moving camera or subject. A mask includes more area than you want replaced by about 10-20%, and some clean content in the frames before or after the masked subject. It is not fully AI-enhanced yet, so it cannot reliably replace a static object with a generated background.   Trying to use Rotobrush is just complicating the procedure. I have never reliably used Rotobrush and Content-Aware Fill together because the resulting matte is too close to the subject, and the system's resources are easily taxed. That could be the cause of your crashes. You might want to try just animating a loose mask around the person in the shot.   What is going on in the shot? If the person is standing there or appears in only a couple of frames, you might be better off exporting a frame as a Photoshop file, using the tools in PS to remove the person, then exporting and tracking the replacement layer.  ... View more

I don't have time to go through a thorough explanation right now, but the solution is to set your text layer as an emitter, then pre-compose the comp and use Time Remapping to reverse the particles' motion so they build the shape.  I do not know of any particle system that will assemble a shape from random particles; they only emit from a shape.    ... View more

Here's how to edit posts: Click on More Press return Edit the post. That's all there is to it. ... View more

Try reading this thread I posted in the Puppet Pin workflow: Re: I need puppet pins to stick to object as posit...   ... View more

Do you have Continuously Rasterized turned on? Are there any vector effects applied to the layers in Illustrator? Have you scaled the layers?    Your screenshot shows a magnification of 200%, which means every rendered pixel in the comp is actually 2x2 pixels, so one rendered pixel is 4 pixels on screen. Viewing at 100% to judge quality, or pushing in to 400% or higher to check horizontal and vertical line alignment with the pixel grid, is the best way to judge quality.   Because the background in your screenshot looks pretty good, my guess is that you have scaled up the Illustrator layers without CR turned on or you have effects applied to the layers in Illustrator that generate pixels. ... View more

After Effects lacks the audio tools you need to clean up anything beyond a very basic audio mix. It is an effects and animation tool.   If you cannot record a simple background noise clip, lay it over both tracks and do a little simple mixing, try using the more advanced audio tools in Premiere Pro or Adobe Audition.   Premiere Pro and Audition contain many powerful tools for equalizing, removing background noise, and cleaning up audio tracks. The latest versions also have some good AI-supported tools to speed up the process and level out the recording. If that is not enough to fix your audio problems, you will have to add more tracks.   When I am filming actors or even shooting interviews, I will often record several seconds of Room Tone, Wild Sound, Ambient Noise, or Buzz Tracks that can be looped and added to the final mix to level out the audio. I have also collected a fairly large library of Wild Sound and different room tones (the sound in a room or hall when no one is talking), which I can add to an edit to help balance out the recording. Those sound effects are as important as the music in any feature film, documentary, or other film or audio recording to raise the production value to match what your brain does when you are talking and listening to the world around you.    I hope this helps.     ... View more

It sounds like you are trying to keep the top of the boat in the sky. If that is the case, you can draw your mask so that it keeps the water, go to the Paint Workspace to make roto easier, open the footage in the Layer panel, Rotobrush, return to the Comp in your standard workspace, then reveal all the properties of Rotobrush in the timeline and click the pluss button at the bottom to add in the mask. This is what the workflow looks like:       ... View more

Pressing "uu" displays all modified properties. If the layer has audio, the waveform will show up even if it is locked, and so will any keyframes. You just won't be able to modify the settings with the layer locked. The only real problem is that all of the layers will show all modified properties when some layers are locked. The workaround is then to select all (Ctrl.Cmnd + a) and then press just about any other letter to close up all other layers. ... View more

Copy still works. Try right cliciing in the search field and choose Paste instead of using the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl/Cmnd + v). ... View more

You have answered your own question. If you have keyframes added to the position, the Align tool will add another keyframe. If you need to move the whole layer, parent the layer to a null, then position the null where you want it or use the Align tool to parent the null. If you don't want movement, remove the keyframes. ... View more

The trick to making Rotobrush work is to simplify as much as you can before you start by adding garbage mattes, then increasing the contrast and detail in the shot before you begin running Rotobrush. Here's my workflow.   Duplicate the footage layer Rename the top duplicate Roto Add a. shape layer above the Roto layer named Garbage Matte Apply effects to the Roto layer to increase the contrast, color differences, and edge detail in the shot Select the Garbage Matte and Roto layers, pre-compose, and name it Roto Matte Open the Roto Matte layer (the Pre-comp) in the Layer Panel Run, then freeze Rotobrush If you spend more than about 15 minutes working on the Roto Matte layer or animating masks, consider pre-composing the layer again. Accept the name "Roto Matte Comp", move all attributes to the new comp, and then open the "Roto Matte Comp" and choose "Pre-render" from the Composition menu. That will open the Render Queue and allow you to render the timeline, replacing it in your main comp, thereby saving you from slowdowns or other problems caused by the huge amount of resources required to keep Rotobrush running when rendering your main comp.   I've been considering making a tutorial on this workflow for years. Prepping a shot for Roto, keying, or any matte work, especially one that was not shot and lit with separating elements in mind, is what professionals always do. Once you have a good matte generated, you can then produce a seamless and believable composite.   If you check your shot in the Color workspace and examine the scopes, you'll see that a lot of information is missing. Doing the best you can to improve that detail will help you create a decent matte. That is always the first step you should take before starting to work on the shot.  You'll now have a better chance of isolating elements in the shot and creating a matte. ... View more

Ctrl/Cmnd + Right moves one frame to the right, Ctrl/Cmnd + Left moves one frame to the left. Hold down the shift key to move 10 frames at a time.    The Keyboard Shortcut Editor (Alt/Option + Ctrl/Cmnd + ') will show you a list of all the keyboard shortcuts and allow you to modify or create ones for navigation that don't exist. The list is long. ... View more

I use it all the time on large projects with dozens of pre-comps and hundreds of layers. You can quickly open a nested (pre-comp) and go to a layer with an effect by simply clicking on the flowchart. Here's one that I posted years ago.  There is no easier way to find the Gaussian blur effect on a shadow layer that is five nested comps down in the main comp.  It also helps if you carefully name your layers and your nested comps. All of those layers and nested comps were required to complete a short. effects sequence in Scene 3. ... View more

Seeing the shutter phase and visualizing the duration for motion blur will help you match the motion blur in footage. Pro apps like Nuke also provide a way to view and match the settings to the footage. I like to see the representation of individual frames when I'm zoomed in on the timeline, especially if I'm fiddling with frame rates or doing critical timing of specific events, such as when the keyframes do not precisely align with the start of a frame, like peaks in the audio waveform or an actor's action in a shot.   Here's an example of matching motion to an audio waveform when the peaks and valleys don't precisely line up with the start and end of motion blur: With motion blur turned on and the timeline zoomed in, you can slide keyframes and adjust speed curves to match the start of the motion in the frame. That elevates your animations' visual quality from enthusiast to ILM pro, with 40 years of experience in the business of visual effects.    You could submit a feature request to have a switch to turn it off, but it should not go away, and it is a very useful tool.. ... View more

It is a tool that you can't hide. If you enable motion blur, you see the Shutter Angle and Shutter Phase.  It's important to know where those values are when you are designing motion graphics that match the motion blur in video or film layers.    In the latest builds of AE, turning off motion blur will display a fully highlighted frame when you move the "Timeline Navigator" start or end enough so you see approximately 15 frames in the Timeline panel.  ... View more

Drop the image you want to use for the thumbnail in the timeline, make sure you are in the Extended Graphics workspace, Choose Set Poster Frame, then delete the thumbnail layer. I do it all the time. ... View more

if that angle change is slow and relatively continuous just a few key frames for rotation and scale should fix the problem. If there are jittery movements here and there you can split the layer and use mocha AE to very easily and quickly motion track and stabilize the shot in small sections. I would try that workflow instead of attempting to use the point tracker. It is a very limited tool.   The standard practice for any kind of visual effects work is to trim the shot before you start working on the effects. ... View more

That highlight is showing you shutter angle and shutter phase. It goes away if you just zoom out on the timeline a little way. The visual representation is an important clue that tells you how motion blur is going to work. You adjust those settings in the composition panel. ... View more