After Effects - Precision Dragging

[Nicolas_55]

Hello everyone,

I searched the forum but couldn't find anything. I'm animating a lower third for one of my projects. What I usually do is precompose the animation once done and duplicate it inverting the time so that it moves out of screen with the animation inversed. It has worked with the previous Lower Third but this time there is a gap between the two precomps and I cannot fix it. They are either apart a few frames or they overlap wich is not what I want because the opacity is set to 75% and it shows. I have no clues as to why it's not working this time but I hope you do. Thank you in advance!

[OussK]

can you post some screenshoot to see the gap you talk about?

[Nicolas_55]

This is the little gap   I can't zoom in more than this but you can clearly see it in play back. It either overlays or leaves a blank frame.

[Martin_Ritter]

It either overlays or leaves a blank frame.

Have a check on this, maybe redo the edit and time reverse, because the frame length is indicated with the brighter and darker blocks above your two layers.

Except those 2 pixel offset between layer 1 and 2 - which could be just a graphical flaw - everything looks just right in your screenshot.

Restarting everything, clearing cache, clearing preferences could be a fix to the issue.

*Martin

[Mike_Abbott]

I think this is happening because the lower layer is time reversed and you're using opacity.

Rather than time reversing the entire layer, could you select the relevant keyframes of your animation and : Keyframe assistant > Time reverse keyframes ?

[Martin_Ritter]

Or using time remap - less keyframes to take care of.

You need to enlarge the animation to the whole timing (in, stay and out). Right click > time > time remap. It creates 2 keyframes, one at the beginning, one at the end. Go to the point where the in-animation is ended and put another keyframe there. First and second keyframe is now your in-animtion. Copy both and put them into the layer at some point. Right click on keyframe (both still selected) > keyframe assistant > reverse. Now adjust those 2 keyframes in time, until they fit your wish when the lower third is off screen again.

You can remove the very last keyframe.

If done right, the TC of time remap increased during your in-animation, freezes during the time your animation is present and is going backward during your out-animation.

If your lower third is animated all the time, you can use the same concept but remove the "stay" part. You end up with 3 keyframes in this case.

It sounds complicated, but follow some tutorials if you don't know time remap. It is actual very handy once understood.

*Martin