If you're looking for a way to evenly distribute the position of the layers based on how many there are... yes, it can be done with expressions, but if you're new to AE, it'll likely be more trouble than it's worth for you. Does each line use the same animation to come onscreen? If so, it might make sense to just make your template for a single line of text, and then you can iterate that in PP for each ingredient. You'll have to manually adjust the Y position in PP for each line, but this will also give you flexibility. Thinking about timing, you'd likely need this kind of flexibility anyway, since some ingredients will take longer to say than others, etc. ... View more

We're going to need a lot more information to be able to offer you much help. Are you manually saving your project, or just relying on the auto-save when rendering? ... View more

Is this a new issue, or one that you've had for awhile/through multiple Adobe versions? If you've found others with the same problem, can you post links? That may help us pinpoint what's happening. It seems likely that something about your hardware/drivers, or how they're set up in your Adobe software, is the culprit. ... View more

(You can see if expressions are involved by pressing EE in a comp. If you do that, and suddenly there are 100 lines of scary code that you hadn't seen there before... you might be in for some major detective work.) ... View more

There's also a decent chance that the template is making use of expressions to make it easier for novice users to edit. (There very well may be locked/hidden layers throughout as well.) These features are great for ease of use, not so much for trying to alter the project. Regarding templates, my advice for most people is "be prepared to use it EXACTLY as it is, or... get ready for some pain." ... View more

The path itself should actually be pretty easy. Fortunately for you, it's segmented already, so you don't even have overlaps to deal with! I wouldn't bother with making it a vector, unless you have another need to do so. [Particular seems WAY overkill in this scenario, though it can certainly be useful for this technique sometimes.] The main chunk of this could be revealed by using the Stroke effect. 1. In AE, bring your logo into a comp. Use the pen tool to trace an open path that follows the loops. 2. Apply the Stroke effect, set Paint style to "Reveal Original Image," and animate the Start/End values to your liking. The "frayed" parts can be accomplished the same way, though you'll want to do those on a separate layer. Depending on the brush size you choose (in Stroke) and how precise this needs to look, you may have to trim those off the main path so you don't see the overlapping bits as they're revealed. Some of these should show you the process exactly: https://www.google.com/search?q=after+effects+stroke+reveal The catch: are you wanting the arrowheads to lead the path as it draws on? That becomes more complicated. ... View more

There are many tutorials online detailing approaches to what you're after. It's often referred to as "write-on," though this may not always involve the AE effect of the same name. If the logo is already a vector, that may make step 1 below easier. If it's not, Live Trace in Illustrator may create more problems than it solves. As Roei said, it'll 100% depend on what the logo actually looks like. The basic steps are: 1. Cut up the logo into pieces, so you can isolate each "stroke" that makes up the logo. 2. Pick the appropriate technique to reveal each piece.* 3. Play with the timing until it feels right. *The most common solutions will probably involve some combination of the following: masking, mattes, Stroke effect, Write-On effect, shape layers w/ Trim Path. ... View more

This seems useful: How do I request a refund? – Red Giant FAQ ... View more

Matthew, I really try to refrain from responding to a question with "learn how to use the program," but I'm not sure there's a much better answer here. This is a pretty basic thing to create, and a couple of us have more or less told you how to do it already. We're here to help, but not to push the buttons for you. I already posted the link above to Adobe's AE tutorials, or you can find countless others around the web. We've named the kinds of layers you might be dealing with, so those might be good places to start your search. You could also easily create this look in Photoshop or Premiere (or likely any other semi-pro video program), if you're more comfortable in those. The approach will be basically the same in any of them. Good luck! ... View more

If you've already tried opening and importing, it might be worth seeing if you can bring it into Premiere? I doubt the odds are good, but you never know. If not... it's either to the auto-saves or... time to start over. I highly recommend auto-saving AND recommend doing increment saves (under the File menu) on all but the most basic projects. AE files are small, and redundancy is good once you start pouring days or weeks into a project. ... View more

It's likely the .aep is corrupted or damaged. Based on the file path, I'm guessing this is a project someone else gave you - might see if they can re-send? Any chance they've got auto-saves? ... View more

Ha, yes! Jake and I actually sat together at lunch at a conference last year, and amazed one another with the techniques we each came up with to get to essentially the same point. They both have their use - I believe his aim was to be able to make this work with Rubberhose, which mine won't do. ... View more

Brian's solution above will work fine, though if you need to tweak your text, you'll now be diving into a precomp to do it, and won't be able to see how the text looks over your background. Alternatively, put your spectrum layer just below the text layer. Set the track matte mode to "Alpha" on your spectrum layer. Now you've got the same setup without having to pre-comp, and this doesn't affect your background layer at all. As Brian said, the Set Matte effect can also do this, though it can have a few gotchas that you have to pay attention to. As I suggested before, spend a little time to educate yourself about Track Mattes and how they work. Instead of just answering today's question, you'll be equipped for tons of similar scenarios in the future. ... View more

As you may have guessed, this is also the secret recipe for a tapered stroke. Just swap in Scale for that first Opacity. "What are the most under-appreciated layers in AE?" ... View more

"Track Mattes" is what you're looking for. I suggest looking them up in the help, or you'll find numerous tutorials by Googling. It'll get you where you need to go with this effect, and will be helpful for just about every project you'll do in the future. ... View more

I think *technically* the "don't use mp3" thing might no longer be an issue with current versions? I don't use them out of habit anyway, and again, since you're on an older version, it might still be the case. In general, if you're feeding your multimedia program a heavily-compressed format, it has to do some work behind the scenes to use it, which might slow you down, and it's possible it may mis-translate something. ... View more

The lack of RAM is what's biting you. If it's possible to get more, your AE experience will be dramatically improved. ... View more

Not sure if this will be the culprit, but... It's also typically recommended that you don't export h.264 directly out of AE. It's better to make a master file in an uncompressed or other high-quality codec, then run that through Media Encoder to create your h.264. (You can also now queue comps directly into AME, but since I see you're still on CS6, that's not an option for you.) ... View more

While it doesn't solve your issue, just in case you're not aware of this hotkey... CNTL+ALT+Home / CMD+OPT+Home will center the anchor point on the layer without moving it. Might be a workaround for the time being, at least. ... View more

Sorry, I meant samples of your work, though this probably depends on your audience, of course. I've done samples of my own stuff when talking to, say, a video production class. They'll be impressed by real-world examples that you actually made, and will be excited about getting to see the hundreds of layers involved if you show them the actual AE project. If talking to people with ZERO experience or knowledge, I've kind of used some more general samples of what motion graphics even IS. "Cartoon" animation vs VFX vs motion graphics", etc. If helpful, here are some slides I created for explaining some of those distinctions to the general public. ... View more

I've been teaching AE for 5-6 years now to college/adults, and have presented to younger audiences a handful of times. My approach for a short one-shot like this has been... 1. Show them some cool stuff so they can say "oooh, ahhhh" and demonstrate that you know what you're talking about. 2. (If they're total newbies) Talk about how keyframes work, basics of how computer animation works, etc. 3. Open up a project so they can see/appreciate the complexity of the software, a "real" project, etc. 4. Re-show your earlier examples, ideally your brief lesson above has helped pull back the curtain on a few spots. Point these out. 5. Q&A ... View more

If your question is actually, "Can I reveal a stroked line using Trim Path and have the trim be a gradual fade instead of a hard edge?" - then the answer is, no, not really. Not directly with a Shape Layer, at least. The solutions above will work, but will be a pain and tough to edit. BUT! Make a text layer with a bunch of periods. On that text layer, draw the path you want your line to follow and set the text to follow it. (Text > Path > dropdown menu) Compress the tracking until it looks like a solid line. Add more periods as needed. Add a text animator for opacity, set it to 0. Set the Shape (Animator 1 > Range Selector 1 > Advanced > Shape > dropdown menu) to Ramp Up or Ramp Down. Mess with Start/End/Offset to get your desired look, and you can make your line move along the path by using the First Margin/Last Margin controls under Path. ... View more