Fouling the orientation up

[thelor]

Hello

I was putting a time stamp for my orientation and I made a mistake and fouled everything up. So I try to undo the mistake and even though it removes the timestamp everything is still all fouled up. So I close the app (I hadn't saved after making the mistake) and open it again and lo and behold: it's still fouled up.

FYI by fouled up I mean it changed the orientation for parts of the video which I never intended to change at all.

I have no idea how to fix this. I don't even understand why I am in this situation given that I purposely avoid saving any changes until I am sure these changes are correct and good (I even test it in the preview). Any help is appreciated, thanks.

[thelor]

Now I notice that the position is ever so slightly off on some parts of the project as well. Why why why does this have to happen I don't get it. It's beyond stupid.

[thelor]

Is there perhaps a folder with temporary auto save files where I could find a previous save before it got messed up?

[Roland Kahlenberg]

In Adobe After Effects, go to your Preferences Window and look for the Auto-save section. In there, you will be able to see if you've enabled the auto-save feature, its relevant parameters; including where they are saved.

On your issue with property values changing mysteriously, I suggest you use the Lock feature found in the Switches Column, in the Timeline. Your issue is very likely due to user-error - locking layers you are not focussed on will help prevent such issues from occurring.

[thelor]

Hello.

I checked, and auto saves were not enabled. But if you noticed in my original post, i did not even save this change to begin with. I knew from the beginning it was a mistake.

Would the lock feature help me after the fact, or is that only to prevent such things from happening? What can I do now, that it's already happened? The position and orientation of my project is all out of whack.

[Towerguy]

The lock feature is to prevent accidents from happening, not to revert. Have you looked at your position and orientation settings on all your layers to double check that they are properly set to where they should be?

[thelor]

Hello.

Maybe I should describe in more detail so you know exactly what happened.

The camera (using the null object workaround) was stationary. I wanted to changed the orientation and position at a specific point in the timeline, from this stationary position. However, I became confused because of where the timestamp for orientation was in relation to where the timestamp for position was. So when I copied my last timestamp for orientation and pasted it in my desired time, I neglected to leave it alone for the time when I want the camera animation to begin. I hope I am explaining this properly.

So I immediately noticed what I did wrong. So I control+Z control+Z control+Z until the timestamp is gone. But I notice my problem is still there! So I decide to do what I always do when I make a mistake that I cannot undo: close the application and start it up again. (I have a habit of control+S throughout any project but specifically with AE because I have such a hard time with it, I only control+S after I am certain I made a correct action.)

I started it up again and... it's the same issue. Basically, up until a certain point in the project everything is flipped upside down. Also: every layer is a bit too close to the camera, hence some of them are cut off on screen. I have no idea how this happened and what's more: I have no idea why I could not undo it and what's even more: I have no idea why after I closed it (without saving) it kept this!!

I am coming here in desperation. Ultimately I think I will have to redo every. single. timestamp. And I don't want to. It's hundreds of timestamps! I took 60 hours to work on this project and it's a really stupid short project, too. It's torture. AE to me is a cruel and unusual punishment. I feel like it is conscious and does things to spite me. It's really really frustrating so PLEASE tell me there is a way to fix my issue without re-doing every timestamp.

[Mylenium]

The answer is actually quite simple: Never ever animate the Orientation property or change its values unless you really have to. Reading through your text it really comes down to that you don't seem to understand to understand the difference between Orientation (Qaurtewrnion rotation) and the actual rotation (Euler Angles). A simple web search can educate you about those matetrs and how to combat issues associated with this by using parenting techniques to neutralize and separate different rotation operations.

Mylenium

[thelor]

Here's the thing though: I had been changing the orientation value throughout the project, multiple times (dozens) with no hiccups.

The only time everything got messed up was after this one, which was not because of improper use but because of lack of attention.

Also I don't know who marked your question as the "correct answer" but I certainly did not, because it did not answer my question at all. I am asking if there is anything I can do to revert my project to how it was. Whether I am ignorant or whether I should educate myself more, that's not really relevant to my specific question. Now, if the answer to my question is: "No, you're screwed. There's no other way than for you to go re-do all your timestamps," well OK, then tell me that. Throwing a bunch of SAT words at the screen ain't gonna help me.

[Roei Tzoref · Accepted solution]

so I don't know who marked your question as the "correct answer"

there is no "correct answer" to this thread just yet, only "helpful" or "like" which any user can mark. only the original poster can choose which is the correct answer (maybe admin too but they don't get involved so fast)

it's really hard to say how you could save or backtrack your project. you animated the orientation which you almost never should do (rule of thumb is that it is for placement, not animation - there are exceptions but they are rare) and you did not save versions or had auto save. if you changed many parameters all by a variable you can't tell - there is no way around but starting over from the point where things make sense again. if there is an offset that is by chance the same for all the orientation changes, then you try and parent your camera to a null (if the camera is parented to a null than parent that null to another null) - try to find the reverse offset and see if things look like they make sense, then delete the null.

also, not sure what you mean by the word "timestamps" - do you mean keyframes? I am guessing by the terminology and the workflow that you are very new to this software. you might want to take a step back and review some basics before going any further. Ae might look like a software you can just intuitively create a project from start to finish but it is not. you will find yourself in dead ends and frustrated by doing so.

I assume most of us had files corrupted, ruined, and we had to start over. many times it was for a better result. don't get discouraged, it can happen and you just need to learn from it. as Roland said: use auto save and also incremental saving. if you are lucky, this burn as much as it stings will be the last one you have because of not saving or backing up projects.

[thelor]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Roei+Tzoref  wrote

so I don't know who marked your question as the "correct answer"

there is no "correct answer" to this thread just yet, only "helpful" or "like" which any user can mark. only the original poster can choose which is the correct answer (maybe admin too but they don't get involved so fast)

Hello. Thanks for the response.

An admin must have done it, then. (Naturally, I unmarked it which is probably why you can't see it anymore).

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Roei+Tzoref  wrote

and you did not save

I did not save because I did not want to save a ruined project. And yet even so, my mistake was preserved. How does this even happen? Maybe if I understood this I could fix my problem. Do you have any suggestions or ideas as to why this happened? Maybe something to do with what you mentioned: that changing the orientation is for placement. If in fact what I did was change the placement rather than make an animation how can I revert the placement to what is was?

there is no way around but starting over from the point where things make sense again.

That's what I did initially (it wasn't too hard, as I knew what I did wrong from the start). I deleted the keyframes (not timestamps, I don't know where I got that from but thanks for correcting me) but it was still messed up. The issue is that how can I backtrack if my entire project has been completely changed and distorted?

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Roei+Tzoref  wrote

Ae might look like a software you can just intuitively create a project from start to finish but it is not. you will find yourself in dead ends and frustrated by doing so.

I'm not a professional and with most softwares I've picked up I have just learned by doing, and for my limited purposes I feel this is fine, because I don't really do anything fancy (I'm sure for many of you my project would be laughably simple... and it is, really), I don't really want to sit through hours of instruction on tools and features I will never use. I prefer to just get my feet wet and then use google, reddit, forums, etc. when I run into a snag but this time my normal safeguards didn't save me. And I don't know why. I feel like AE is throwing logic onto its head; how can a project retain an unsaved element after being closed without saving?

Somehow I have a feeling that if any of you ran into this issue you could fix it in five seconds. That's why I may seem really frustrated and I really want you to understand exactly what it is and maybe (God willing) you know how it can be undone. I don't really want to start over because there are hundreds of keyframes (thanks again) and it would be very time consuming.

[thelor]

Hello. To you and to everyone who took the time to respond I want to give thanks.

I figured out both what I had done wrong and how to correct it with minimal time-wasting.

Basically I looked at my timeline to see where it had gone wrong (like Mr. Roei suggested). And I noticed that only late in the timeline had I started toying around with orientation (which as many of you alluded to, should be avoided as best one can). I was changing the Z rotation earlier in the project, not the orientation. I guess I had just forgotten. So knowing this, I just deleted any keyframes I had in the orientation and replaced them with Z rotation keyframes and corrected the values there. As for the position, I just made a relative value change to all my precious hundreds of position keyframes so I don't have to re-do them (thanks GOD), which was my primary worry.

But in any case thanks for all the advice. I learned a little bit from all of them.

[Roei Tzoref]

Glad you sorted this out! Thanks for sharing what worked.

[Roland Kahlenberg]

Instead of pressing CTRL+S, press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+S; this shortcut saves your After Effects project file into a new file, instead of saving over the original. So, this provides you with an immediate backup project file and to continue working with another, newer project file. Further, this newer project file will have a number added to the end of its filename. If the previous project file had a number at the end of its filename, this number will increase by a value of one, to signify a newer version.