Custom view will not render. Only the Active Camera view renders when you create a movie.    The Active Camera view renders when you preview by default because that is the only preview that will render as a movie.   You can make other views render by hovering over the other view, right-clicking, and selecting Preview/Play Current View from the popup panel.   I've never seen the need to take the time to preview anything but the Active Camera view, because that is the only view that counts. I only use the other views to help me line up 3D layers.  ... View more

Try using the rotation properties in the Timeline instead of trying to grab the icon in the Comp panel. You can even hold down the Ctrl/Cmnd key to drag by 1/10 of a degree.    It does not look like you are using the Rotation Tool (keyboard shortcut w). The default usage is Orientation, but I prefer Rotation. Using that tool is much easier than the selection tool (v). If you want to use the V tool, then make sure you click on the axis you want to rotate so you won't be flipping the orientation around all over the place.   I also use Blender, but I think that the controls in After Effects are easier to use and the workflow more accurate. You just have to understand the tools and the settings.   One more workflow shortcut. It looks like you are trying to line up a layer with a Solid you have added using the Camera Tracker. The easiest way to do that is to hold down the Shift key and Parent the layer to the Solid you created. Everything will instantly snap to the same orientation.         ... View more

The easiest way to move an entire motion path is to add a Null to the comp, parent the layer with the path to the null, and then reposition the null. To use parenting, you'll have to reveal the Parent & Link column in the timeline. The keyboard shortcut to do that is Shift + F4, or if you are on a laptop, Fn + Shift + F4.   The other option is to select the property (Position) in the timeline and ensure that all keyframes are selected. Then, you can click and drag the layer to move the entire motion path. You should be able to see the motion path, and all position path points should be solid squares. If any position keyframes on the motion path are not selected, the path points will be an open square and will not be moved when you move the layer.    I hope this helps.     ... View more

I like the Samsung T-7 SSD and use them for most of my portable external SSD needs. I have four 2TB units and four 4 TB units. They are dependable and relatively affordable, and their speeds are adequate for HD and 4K projects. The transfer rates are a little more than 1000 MB/s if you use the right cables. They live in my laptop case and I use them in the field to backup and archive footage and still photos.   If you need more speed and want to stick with a portable SSD, consider the Samsung T9 series. They are also dependable and about twice as fast, with transfer speeds of around 2000 MB/s. I have three T9 4 TB drives, and I use them when dealing with 6K footage from my Red Komodo X or 8K footage. I have tried SSDs from three other manufacturers, and the Samsungs have been by far the most reliable and rugged solutions. The T9 drives are used in the field to create safety copies from my Red camera, and also when I am editing projects on my M4 Max MacBook Pro.   If you need more speed and have the budget for a drive array, I recommend the G-Raid Shuttle 8. It also has transfer speeds of around 2000 MB/s, which makes it compatible with all footage up to 8K. The G-Raid Shuttle 8 has a capacity from 40 TB to 192 TB. I use one of these as my Archival Storage and primary storage for my video projects. If you need that kind of transfer speed and a lot of storage, you must shell out a lot of cash. Far less expensive storage solutions are available, but the speed will go way down. You can still use them, but you'll have to preview at lower resolutions and wait a lot longer to move footage around.   I have had no problems with any of these recommended drives. I hope this helps. Just make sure that you buy really good Thunderbolt cables. A cheap cable can reduce the transfer speed by about 90%, so make sure you get good ones.      ... View more

Here's the most efficient workflow in a couple of rules. Do not use After Effects to edit your video. Do your final edit in an NLE.   A cut on the beat is often less effective at generating emotion than a cut before or after the beat. The timing of the cut depends on the composition of the shot, where the center of interest is, and what comes before and after the cut. A simple example is a two-camera shot of a man and woman talking to each other. Turn off the audio, change the cut from one person to another before the blink, then cut the same scene two frames after the blink, and the mood can quickly change from loving to arguing, from peaceful to tense. Take a lesson from Jackie Chan's technique for cutting fight scenes. Precisely matching the timing and position of the fist from the wide and tight shots of a punch is much less effective than cutting to the close-up a few frames earlier than in the wide shot in real-time. Finessing the timing is incredibly inefficient in an effects timeline with 50 or 100 shots in After Effects.    Use After Effects to create your effects. I've cut many music videos full of complex visual effects. It is not unusual for me to end up with dozens of comps with five or ten-frame handles on each shot so I can fine-tune the edit in an NLE. I almost always pre-render those effects, including transitions between multiple camera angles. I've produced a few where every shot was a separate AE comp. I've never cut an entire video longer than 10 or 15 seconds using After Effects. It's just too difficult to tell the story you are trying to tell with an app never designed as an editor.   I hope this helps.      ... View more

The video looks pretty good, and creating those kinds of effects shots is pretty easy. I do it all the time. It's just layers, masking, and sometimes camera tracking. They have just repeated the process in the top insert shot, which shows the camera operator. It just took some planning, masking, and a few hours.    I produced a similar video using After Effects in 1995 for a presentation at NAB. It took longer because the masking was manual, and we didn't have camera tracking. I also produced a similar movie in 1978 using a 16mm Bell and Howell DR70 film camera and a 10mm lens for the Seattle International Film Festival. It required painting matts on acetate, a homemade animation stand, and sending four synchronized reels of 16mm film to the optical printing department of Alpha Cine to be turned into a single shot that made it look like an actor stepped out of a department store window display to steal a candy cane from Santa. Those kinds of shots just require planning and a bunch of layering. ... View more

When I work on a project with others, we put the project files in a shared Dropbox folder, save the automatic backups to the same master folder, and ensure that the assets (footage) all exist on the file path if we have to share external drives. If they don't have a system setup, I share mine. A published and shared standardized organizational plan is just as crucial to filmmakers as the Brand Standards book is to a corporation. Nobody on the team has to dig for assets when you have that kind of system in place. Unfortunately, most independent producers and contractors I work with do not have any standard system established, so it takes a few days and emails to get things organized. Project management does not seem to be taught anymore because it is so easy to search for things on a computer.   If you don't have Dropbox, there are other network-accessible file-sharing systems out there that will work. File structure, naming, and resource management are common and standardized in every data-sharing industry. My naming and organizing system was taught to me five decades ago when I worked on my first documentary film with a very experienced editor. Every feature film and documentary I have worked on has a similar, published, and shared system, and the organizational structure on the easiest projects to manage goes all the way from the subject lines in emails to the notes you scribble on receipts for lunch for the crew to the Folders where the original footage is stored. ... View more

With a 25 fps PAL Standard comp, set the image sequence to 12.5 FPS using the File/Interpret Footage menu. Problem solved. Your video now has two duplicate frames.    Another option is to interpret the footage at 25 FPS, then use Time Remapping to slow down the footage by 50% and try some frame blending options. The workflow also works if you need to slow down the video. Switching between the two different frame blending options (Frame Mix and Pixel Motion) can also sometimes improve the look of your footage or image sequences.    AE can easily handle all frame rate and playback speed problems by understanding and using AE's built-in tools. If you need to drastically slow things down or simulate motion blur when speeding things up, there are 3rd party solutions that can dramatically increase the ability to create slow motion from normal footage. There are also two force motion blur effects that come with After Effects that can be used to smooth out the action and make shots more engaging. I use Pixel Motion Blur all the time when I'm doing rotoscoping or keying, which is shot at a higher shutter speed to give me a better chance to get clean edges. ... View more

If you want to learn the secrets of good animation, I suggest you purchase and read "The Illusion of Life" by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson. I own a copy and have probably read it cover to cover about 15 times. Those two men were instrumental in developing the craft, and the principles still apply, whether trying to emulate the Marvel Movies full of 3D animation or trying to create something as simple as the examples you posted.  ... View more

Without system, os, and workflow details, pointing you to a solution isn't easy. I'm not having any problems at all right now with AE.   If your AE is up-to-date or you have tried rolling back a build or two using the Creative Cloud app, the only constructive suggestion I could make is to set the amount of RAM allocated to other apps to an even multiple of 4 GB in Preferences. If you do not have lots of memory, use four  GB. Eight or Twelve if you have a lot of memory to spare. Then, when you run After Effects, quit all other apps not needed for your effects work. ... View more

File/Interpret footage/12 fps, drop in a comp that is 24 fps, and you have duplicate frames, so the render is in 2's. That's basic, even in a NLE ... View more

Changing the duration of a layer in a nested comp (pre-comp) will not change the outpoint set of the nested layer in the main comp. It never has.   If you move all attributes and trim the new comp to the layer length, the outpoint of the nested comp will be the length of the longest layer in the pre-comp. Retiming the layer inside the pre-comp will change the timing, but it will not change the length of the nested layer in the main comp.    I can't tell what's going on in your sample video because it looks like you are changing the length of a video layer in two different compositions.  ... View more

If there is camera movement, you need to track the camera. If there is movement in both shots, you must stabilize one of the shots. It is usually the background shot that is motion stabilized. Motion stabilized means that the movement of the surface (building, tree, or horizon) in the shot that closely matches the primary point where the shots match up does not move at all.   Then, a mask must be created on the foreground shot to poke a hole in the background. Sometimes, this mask needs to be animated. It all depends on the amount of camera movement.    The last step is adding the camera movement to the background plate (your second screenshot). Color grading, motion blur, and edge refinements are usually required to make the final composite believable.    I don't have a specific tutorial that will work for your shot, but here is one that shows one approach using Mocha AE for the tracking and a still image for the background replacement. Maybe it will give you some ideas.            ... View more

No plugin is needed if you have Adobe XD installed. Almost everything you can create in Illustrator can be imported as shape layers, if you Create a new XD file, use File/Import to import your prepared Illustrator file, then immediately use the  File/Export/After Effects menu. AE will open a new comp with all of the shapes and gradients, and even brushes will be converted to shape layers. The only caveat is that you have to expand Gradient Stroked lines. It will turn them into filled shapes with gradients.   I quickly assembled three layers in Illustrator with complicated shapes. The bottom layer was a simple path with a gradient stroke, an AI-generated Fish layer was created from the stroke, and a goofy closed shape with a bunch of radial gradients became the top layer. The bottom path was selected, and the Object/Expand menu was used to expand the gradient stroke. I then opened XD, created a new file, imported the Illustrator file, and immediately used the file menu to Export to After Effects. I got many extra shape layers that could be deleted, but the entire file came into After Effects with no problems. If you are careful about arranging your artwork in Illustrator, you can use this technique to quickly create a bunch of shape layers that can be animated using Shape Layer animators. I do it all the time. Most of the time, I create a duplicate Illustrator file that only contains the shapes I need to turn into shape layers, and then I copy the layers and paste them into the main comp.   Here's an Animated GIF showing the workflow. I had to speed up to keep the file size down so you could see it on the forum. In real-time, it took less than two minutes to fix the gradient stroke and open the funky AI file in After Effects.       ... View more

Try downloading the latest version and installing it. I have no problems with my M4 Max MacBook Pro with any Video Copilot plugins. ... View more

You cannot animate transform properties or use any effect that changes pixels or the alpha channel on a layer with Puppet Pin applied. Collapse transformations can also foul things up if the artwork you are animating is in a nested comp (pre-comp). I would have to see the modified properties of all problem layers in your comp to figure out exactly what is happening.   If expanding the mesh does not solve the problem and your artwork is the right size so you do not have to scale up the layer, you can turn off Collapse transformations. That will not affect the quality of the image.     ... View more

It sounds like you are running out of RAM. Try going to the Edit menu and selecting Edit/Purge/All Memory and Disk Cache, then set the Preview Panel to Cache before Playback and set the resolution to Auto. That should give you the maximum playback duration your system can handle. If you want 4 times more playback, set the Magnification Ratio in the Comp panel to 50%. If you need more duration, set the Preview Panel to skip a frame.   AE is not a video editing app; real-time previews are limited to the available system RAM resources. ... View more

Audio Spectrum uses frequency. To create a symmetrical pattern, start by watching the waveform and finding the average loudest frequencies. Then adjust the Start Frequency (easy if you hold down the Ctrl/Cmnd key and drag the value) until you find a good starting frequency for the middle of your display.   The next stop is to reveal the Start point in the timeline (setting a keyframe and pressing U will do it) and the Anchor Point property. Drag a pickwhip from the start point to the anchor point to set the frequency display's anchor point and start point in the same spot.   Next, duplicate the layer, reveal the scale of the duplicate, and set the scale to -100, 100   That's all there is to it. If you tie the start frequencies of the layers together with an expression, you can easily fine-tune the look of your symmetrical display. It took me about 2 minutes to set this one up: That should get you what you describe. ... View more

If you add a simple expression that ties the taper value to the percentage of start or end in Trim Paths, you can easily make a path with a single taper look like it's being revealed.    For example, if you have a path that has Taper/Start Length set to 100%, this expression added to stroke width will reveal the path as if a track matte revealed it: S = content("Shape 1").content("Trim Paths 1").end / 100; S * value Applying the same kind of transform to a path tapered on both ends requires a little more work and requires splitting the path at the halfway point, but it can be done.   ... View more

Here are the basics: Camera Tracking relies on fixed geometry and camera movement in the scene. For example, a hand-held camera walking down a crowded sidewalk will be difficult, if not impossible, to Camera Track. Camera tracking also provides very little useful information from a panning shot, and it does not like camera zooms.   AE's motion and corner pin tracking is also very limited. I cannot recall the last time I used either of these tools.    Mocha AE has very good planar tracking and can also produce good camera tracking results, but to use the tools efficiently, one requires extensive training and understanding of the process.   Mocha Pro, in combination with SynthEyes, can simultaneously camera track, object track, and mesh track some fairly complex shots. It is, by far, the most versatile and effective tracking solution I have used.   If you have anamorphic or non-square pixel footage, remove the distortion before you run motion tracking. This usually also requires you to pre-compose before running the trackers.   Here are some hints to simplify your motion tracking.  To improve the track's accuracy, add color correction and detail enhancement. After adding the color correction, pre-compose, moving all attributes and trimming the shot before you run trackers on the pre-comp. You can turn off the color correction later if you need to. You can mask moving objects that may foul up your camera track before you run a tracker on the pre-comp. Removing the distractions that will foul up the track is always a good idea. Sometimes, you have to break up a shot into sections that will track. If you get a lot of errors, try another approach. If you use Camera Tracker, set an origin and ground plane if you have a surface that represents the ground, then use the same target to create a solid and a camera. Solids are better to add than nulls or text because you can easily see if the track is going to be accurate and the perspective changes are accurate.    I hope that helps. I created a tutorial that shows one of the many tracking options available using Mocha AE. I hope this gives you some ideas. I hope you enjoy it. ... View more

You can step through each frame as it renders by pressing Ctrl/Cmnd + Right Arrow. I'll do this on complex sections.   After trimming the shot, color correcting to improve edge detail, sharpness, and contrast, then Pre-composing with Trim and Move All attributes selected, I usually draw the first paths and clean up on the first frame. I then apply the Refine Edge tool, move the CTI (current time indicator) to the last frame of the layer, and let Rotobrush propagate.    The next step is to go back to the first frame, then step through the timeline slowly and look for any problems. I often do this with the different view options selected and, if needed, step through the shot one frame at a time using the keyboard shortcuts.   When all the corrections have been made, and I am on the last frame, I will freeze Rotobrush, then pre-compose again, naming the comp Roto Matte, then Pre-Render the Rotobatte using the composition menu. It usually only takes a couple of seconds.    If properly shot with roto in mind, adequately color-corrected to enhance the edges and contrast, and then pre-composed, the latest version of Rotobrush is incredibly accurate and quick and usually does not require many corrections. Just three years ago, it took me more than three days to adequately rotoscope a seven-second shot and complete the composite. I could probably do the same shot today in a half a day.     ... View more

Any process that takes a while to render should be pre-rendered. Rotobrush is just one tool of many tools that eat up system resources.   Drastically increasing sharpness and contrast, emphasizing specific colors, and even reducing motion blur when shooting (this also helps with keying/green screen) dramatically improves Rotobrush's accuracy. This is easily accomplished by aggressive color correction and then pre-composing. Pre-composing also eliminates any extra frames from the task.   I rarely use a Rotobrushed layer as a source file; it's almost always used as a track matte. If I spend more than 10 or 15 minutes cleaning up the Roto, I will use the Composition/Pre-render menu to generate a copy with an alpha channel and delete the Rotobrushed layer (comp) from the project. The advantage of using the layer as a track matte is that you can add or remove motion blur, refine the matte, use the matte for light wrap, and do many other things that make the composite look better.    I use Rotobrush, Mocha AE, Mocha Pro, and many other tools in my composites all the time. They are all getting much better. The AI improvements in Rotobrush in the last few builds are amazing, but I don't see any reason to abandon my pre-render and use it as a track matte workflow. It's still the most efficient way to use the tool. Sacrificing a little storage space for the pre-render is far more efficient than having a render fail.      ... View more

Dropbox stores files on the cloud by default. There is an option to make folders and files available online. If that option is not checked, files must be opened, saved, and used through your internet connection. I suggest you try turning on the option for the folder containing the project files and footage.   I have several terabytes and years of project files and renders on Dropbox, but I always enable Make Files Available Offline when working on a project. I have noticed no problems with these projects when the switch is turned on because the files are now on your system drive. When the project is completed and delivered, I will turn off the option to free up drive space.     I have noticed occasional minor problems opening files with After Effects, Davinci, Premiere Pro, and Photoshop when stored on Google Drive, Creative Cloud, or any other cloud-based storage system. If files are not stored on system drives, there is always a potential loss of data as they are downloaded from the internet. ... View more

You cannot use sourceRectAtTime to get the size of a Paragraph Text box. There is no way that I know of to access the size of a paragraph text box.   The easiest option would be to add a slider to the text layer, which you could use to adjust the font size until the text fills the box. Unfortunately, you cannot use scale because that would change the Text layer Paragraph Text Block size. The expression to set the font size from 40 to 300 looks like this: sl = effect("Slider Control")("Slider"); style.setFontSize(clamp(sl,40,300)) That would be your simplest option.   The only fully automatic option I am thinking of that might work would be to create your text box on one text layer, figure the number of pixels inside the box, then add another text layer as a guide layer so it won't render, and use sourceRectAtTime() to determine the size of the text and then use a multiplier to change the font size so that the line of text would always fill approximately the same number of pixels. It would be something like this: //Not a sample expression if (sourceRectAtTime.width < 1200){ adjust font size until it does; } You can then use a simple thisComp. layer ("Guide Layer Text") .text. Source-text expression to copy the text and resize the font to fit in the box. It might take me the better part of a day to figure out if that was even possible.   The other option would be to use multiple lines of text and put them in a small comp that was the size of the paragraph box you need, then use expressions to make the lines fit inside the box. That solution would be a little clunky, but it would get the job done.   Until Adobe adds the paragraph box size to the properties an expression or script can access, you are stuck with some kind of a make-do solution.     ... View more

Here is what I get with three keyframes on a curved path: Adobe After Effects 9.0 Keyframe Data   Units Per Second29.97 Source Width1 Source Height1 Source Pixel Aspect Ratio1 Comp Pixel Aspect Ratio1   Layer Transform Position FrameX pixelsY pixelsZ pixels 02002000 17649608000 365416002000   End of Keyframe Data   The first keyframe on the 2D layer is 200, 200. The keyframe data shows 02002000. The second keyframe value is 900,800. The data shows 17649608000. The third keyframe is 1600, 200. The data shows 365416002000.   If I change the path from a curve to straight lines between the points, the data changes to these figures: Adobe After Effects 9.0 Keyframe Data Units Per Second 29.97 Source Width 1 Source Height 1 Source Pixel Aspect Ratio 1 Comp Pixel Aspect Ratio 1 Layer Transform Position Frame X pixels Y pixels Z pixels 0 200 200 0 1764 960 800 0 3654 1600 200 0 End of Keyframe Data Do you notice the difference? The string of numbers now has spaces just like your example because the path is a straight line. The first digit looks like it is the frame number, the second and third digits indicate position (200, 200), and the last set of digits may indicate the curve. Straight lines would be a zero.   There must be some formula for curves in the last numbers. If I change the curves using the pen tool, the new data changes the last digits. The frame number and the position properties stay the same. I don't know if anything has been published about how to interpret these number strings as curves plotted on a graph, but it's clear to me that if there are spaces between the frame numbers and position properties, the last set of numbers defines the curve.    Here's the last set of keyframe data and an animated GIF showing the curve changes that generated the different values. Adobe After Effects 9.0 Keyframe Data   Units Per Second29.97 Source Width1 Source Height1 Source Pixel Aspect Ratio1 Comp Pixel Aspect Ratio1   Layer Transform Position FrameX pixelsY pixelsZ pixels 02002000 17649608000 365416002000   End of Keyframe Data The keyframe data will be impossible to convert to a motion path in Blender or another 3D app unless you can find the formula or they use the same formula. Maybe you could export a curved shape layer that matches a motion path or even the path of an animated 3D layer in After Effects to a C4D file and extract the path that way. I did not open the graph editor and make a bunch of different speed changes to see how that affects the data.     ... View more

The Trapcide Suite from Maxon would give you better control over the burning maps sections of the sample animation. It's just going to take a lot of layers and a lot of keyframing. It could all be done in After Effects by an experienced professional in a reasonable amount of time.    It could take a beginner a few weeks to figure out how to get all elements working to create the same kind of animated map. ... View more

The first suggestion I would make is to split the footage layer every 5 to 10 seconds, pre-compose each of the shorter layers, move all attributes to the new comps, and trim the layer length. This will give you a dozen or more short layers to run Rotobrush on and create a master comp with an alpha matte you can render and use as a Track Matte for the original footage. When each layer has been successfully completed, pre-compose again, move all attributes, and then pre-render these comps. You can also create a mask on the original footage so that you are only having Rotobrush look at the part of the image that needs work. If you just need to put a graphic behind someone's back, there is not need to run rotobrush on the entire body. Anything you can do to reduce the number of pixels that rotobrush will have to examine will speed up the process and help you finish the project.   The reasons for that workflow are as follows: Rotobrush is a resource hog, and the longer the layer is, the higher the chance of a failure or crash. Running Rotobrush takes time, and Freezing the roto after it is complete is the only way to lock a layer. Pre-rendering (Composition/Prerender menu) a Rotobrushed comp reduces the AEP project size, greatly reduces the chance of a crash or hangup when rendering, and gives you a much more stable workflow.   I am lucky enough to be able to work on what is now the fastest and most capable system you can buy, and I would never consider running Rotobrush on a minute and 30-second clip. A 1:30 shot at 30 frames per second is about 2700 frames. On the latest version of AE, on my machine, a 10-second 4K clip takes about 10 minutes to trim, color correct to improve edge contrast (not for final work, but specifically for rotobrush), Pre-compose again, move all attributes, run, Rotobrush, Freeze, then Pre-Render and replace the Roto as a track matte in the main comp. I'm guessing that on your machine, the same shot would take about 15 or 20 minutes. I would not even try to work on a minute and 30 shot as a single layer. It's always best to break up your comps into the minimum length and even size required to complete the effects.   Here's a short screen capture showing the basic comp layout required to change the color of a crew member's pants so it would match the rest of the crew I recently did for a project of mine. You can see the masked and Rotobrushed pre-comp that was used.     ... View more

Try using the Render Quque/Output Module/High Quality with Alpha preset.    The Animation Codec is deprecated and no longer supported on many platforms. Unless you have a lot of experience with video formats and compression rates, it is always a better idea to use the Presets in the Media Encoder and the Render Queue than fiddle with settings if you don't know exactly what you are doing.  ... View more