The AI to AE pipeline can be finicky at times if you don't know all of its quirks. There are a variety of things that don't transfer over, most notably opacity and blending modes. If you imported layers at layer size and made any changes to the original AI file that would alter layer dimensions, the anchor point and position will technically be the same in AE, but will look different. You have to keep in mind that those properties are somewhat relative (position is dependent on anchor point, and anchor point is dependent on the layer size), so changing anything after the fact can lead to undesired results. You said you haven't changed anything in the AI file, though.... If you re-import the original AI file into a new comp (let's go with document size this time, just to be safe), and apply some of the same effects... what happens? If you can get it working as expected like this, you might be able to do a quick rebuild by just bringing in the "broken" parts like this, and parenting them to the old versions (which have the right values, but don't look right any longer - correct?) Do you maybe have another version of the same file (with same name) that AE might actually be linking to? One other thought - if you're using precomps and the Collapse Transformations switch, that can lead to trouble, especially when mixed with certain effects. Is this the case? If so, it might be helpful to turn off all your effects, and troubleshoot one-by-one to see if it's actually one of those that's causing your troubles. If none of these is the answer, would you be able to post some screenshots? ... View more

I'm with Rick. I'm guessing you're running into a problem based on render order, or the specific way the other fx you're using deal with edges. I'd look at stacking things differently, perhaps try moving the Motion Tile to another layer (even just another Adjustment layer) to see if you can find your way around the issue. Try turning the other fx in the stack on/off to see which one is ultimately causing the problem. Also, I see your expressions are still broken? Are you using some kind of preset that you've accidentally deleted the controllers for? This could certainly also have something to do with it, as it may no longer be properly calculating the proper offset, etc. ... View more

FX Console 4 Lyfe ... View more

Which of us are you asking? ... View more

I love using text layers for this kind of stuff, but there are two 3rd party solutions for warping layers along a path. Omino Snake, mentioned above, and then a fairly new plug-in named Bao Boa, which does the same thing as Snake, but is objectively better in every way, IMO. ... View more

Yeah, it's kind of difficult to figure out what you're aiming for. If you can post from screenshots or even your project, I'll be happy to help out. ... View more

Depending on how things are set up, it might also be worth looking at the Set Matte effect. Since you can now specify whether effects with a layer parameter take effects/masks into account, you may be able to solve your problem without precomping. ... View more

Time Remapping is a bit of an oddity. If you have no Time Remapping keyframes, you don't have access to the property. (I assume it's still accessible through a scripting interface, but that's probably beyond the scope of what you're asking.) For what it's worth, it's [otherwise] totally possible to save an expression-only preset, though that creates kind of a catch-22 here. Could you... create the preset using the 0 frame keyframe + expression? ... View more

Is your viewer set to a lower resolution? Are you zoomed way in? ... View more

Heh. Nothing stupid about the question. It's hardly the most intuitive thing.  ... View more

Whoa! ... View more

Agreed. Would love to see it! ... View more

Just a few more ideas. I'm guessing the right answer will depend heavily on how all this stuff actually needs to move. Along the lines of Rick's suggestion, look at putting things into different groups in a shape layer - you can easily duplicate an entire group and even pickwhip certain elements (like the paths) together, etc. You'd still have to toggle the fill/stroke within the group, but once you got it set up, I'm guessing you're set. Since each group has its own transform, it'd be easy to offset, and then you've still got all your art on one layer. If it seems more convenient to have them on separate layers, you might look at "Copy with Property Links" (or ..."Relative Property Links," as appropriate.) A tool like Explode Shape Layers gives you easy one-click selection of ALL the fills or ALL the strokes on a layer. You could build one layer with both fill and stroke, the dupe it, parent it, offset it, then CLICK kill the fills, CLICK the other, kill the strokes. You could manually pickwhip anything that may change often or that you'll be keyframing. Also - Shape Layers are a great candidate for using the timeline's Search bar. select shape layer, type "Stroke" and it'll reveal only the strokes on that layer. Way easier that manually twirling it all open. Re: your original workflow - depending on how colorful the artwork is, you might look at just using black and white (+ 50% gray?) in your animation comp, and then you could potentially use a combo of Tint, Tritone, blending modes, luma mattes, etc. to selectively color and hide pieces of the artwork in your main "build" comp. ... View more

Be forewarned: roto is extremely labor-intensive/time-consuming. Before you start clicking mask points, make sure you figure out EXACTLY what you need to cut out, exactly when, and why. There are a variety of techniques for extracting shapes/edges/etc., and the right one may depend on what you're actually doing with the footage in question. You also don't want to spend 3 days roto-ing an entire person, only to realize you really only needed to mask out their arm. ... View more

Advanced Lightning certainly seems to be at play here. If you have Particular, it has a few presets that might be helpful. Check out VideoCopilot's Saber plugin. It's free, and does a great job with this glowy-lighting-y trail kind of stuff. ... View more

All in one folder, or separate? All unique names? If you're comfortable uploading some of the ones giving you problems, I'd be happy to see if they're troublesome on my system. ... View more

What kind of file formats are you using? Are they individual images, or an image sequence? ... View more

(Any encoding woes aside, nice work!) ... View more

Where is this thumbnail needing to be displayed, exactly? Most online video sites will allow you to choose the thumbnail frame (and/or upload an image). Are you trying to control the thumbnail it displays in your file browser, or...? ... View more

Keeping track of 3d layers can get tricky, for sure. There are a couple of brute force tricks that can sometimes be helpful. If you have multiple layers (without having x/y rotation to worry about) at the same z-depth, sometimes it helps to actually push some of them very slightly towards or away from you to ensure they are "in front" or "behind" as desired. Try adjusting the z position by 1, (or even .1) to see if that helps. As Szalam mentioned, you can also use 2d layers to your advantage if you've got some 3d stuff that just won't cooperate. You can drop a 2d adjustment layer in between 3d layers, and it will break the "3d-ed-ness" between them, forcing them to observe the stacked layer order instead. ... View more

Yup, that's all it is. You'd be applying this to the camera's position property, by the way. Alt-click (option-click on Mac) the stopwatch for that property, and it'll reveal a line where you can type something in (among other things). The wiggle function is, as kalibahlu said, written like this: wiggle(frequency,amplitude) Frequency is how many times per second you want the thing to occur. Amplitude is how far (in pixels) it can potentially move. I usually start with something like wiggle(.5,20) for camera drift. Tweak the numbers to suit your taste. Keep in mind, this will allow the camera to wiggle in all three dimensions. If you find you need more control, the code gets a bit more complicated. ... View more

Is there a specific time in this video you're asking about? Your question is a little too vague for us to really help much. Are you looking for the drifty camera look? ... View more

Mylenium's gray clouds aside, Character Animator is something you should check out. He's right though, this functionality doesn't exist in AE. ... View more

Alternatively, if you think you'll be tweaking the color multiple times, you may find it easier to apply the "Fill" effect to the layer, which will give you an easily-accessible color picker in your Effect Controls panel/by twirling open the layer effects. (Or, depending on your needs, you could also use the "Color Overlay" layer style in the same fashion.) ... View more

If trashing the preferences doesn't make it work consistently, it might be a good idea to file a bug report. Bug Report Form ... View more