Re: AFTER EFFECTS WISHLIST

Rick Gerard · ‎Sep 20, 2011

TheFosterHouse wrote: • A real 3D coordinate system with a 0,0,0 origin point. • Parenting that doesn't change the values of the child. Just a comment on these two ideas. 0,0,0 at the center of the comp would cause more troubles than it would solve and it would be out of sync with any other compositing and editing app. 0,0 has always been the upper left corner of video and pixel based images. It's always the starting point for vector drawings. 3D apps use 0,0,0 as the center of the world, but it's an easy task to translate those coordinates to the pixel based measurements used in image and video processing apps. When you parent a layer to another the new position is measured from the upper left corner of that layer. This makes a lot of sense to me and it's useful info for a lot of manual positioning once you wrap your head around it because it defines the relationship between the layers. Tying the values to other values through expressions is easy with the toWorld and toComp arguments. Personally I don't think either of these are good suggestions. That's my 2¢. The rest of your ideas are prety good.

Rick Gerard · ‎Sep 18, 2011

J and K keys, but the keyframes have to be visible. These keys also move to the next marker or the next in or out point for a layer. Escentially you are moving between events in the timeline, but only visible events. The rest of the shortcuts are in the links Todd posted.

Rick Gerard · ‎Sep 11, 2011

Thanks, I didn't realize that there was a switch there. My spelling is now easier to check. I don't remember that it was necessary to click the icon before I updated to Lion. At least there's a solution that's easier than switching to HTML where the spell check is automatic.

Rick Gerard · ‎Sep 11, 2011

You need a computer with a capture card and something like DV Garage's Conduit to pull the real time key. There are many products that will do that, but none without some way to capture live video from a camera.

Rick Gerard · ‎Sep 11, 2011

Has anyone elce noticed that the spell check built into Safari (5.1) does not work at all when you're using the full editor. It works fine in the HTML editor. Spell check kind of works in Chrome with the full editor. You have to manually run a spell check. I don't have Firefox on this machine so I haven't checked there. It's kind of anoying.

Rick Gerard · ‎Sep 11, 2011

Anti Virus software from just about every manufacturer has been known to cause intermittent problems, slowdowns, and crashes at various times for many Windows users. The problems have not been limited to Adobe. Any app that writes to disk in the background can be broken by anti-virus software. If a windows machine I was on suddenly stopped working properly or failed to install an app that's the first place I'd look. The second, video codecs. The third, fonts. They all can easily go screwy and foul things up.

Rick Gerard · ‎Sep 06, 2011

Revealing keyframes and expressions select all layers and press the U key. To hide the expressions press the shift key and then hit E twice. If the property that has the expression has keyframes the pressing the shift and EE will hide that layer. I use this all the time.

Rick Gerard · ‎Aug 16, 2011

The gamma shift depends on the codec and the system. What kind of system are you using? Where are you seeing this big difference? Is it with the DPX files?

Rick Gerard · ‎Aug 16, 2011

If you have to be careful switching to 32 bit mode. Blend modes, motion blur, and a bunch of effects look radically different in 32bit. Color management is the key. You need to know the color management settings that will be used through the production cycle and make sure that you match it in AE, PPro and FCP. Maybe this will get you started. There's also some basic info in the help files under color management.

Rick Gerard · ‎Aug 15, 2011

First of all you need to get the exact specs your client wants. The nice thing about dpx files is the lossless compression and color space. The bad thing about them is that you can completely screw up the output settings rendering the files unusable. You also need to be working in at least 16bit color, but you should be working in 32bit. There's a couple of resources for color management, but job 1 is to get the specs from your client. Then your colorspace will match theirs and all will be good.

Rick Gerard · ‎Aug 05, 2011

I'm not sure I follow you but here's one thing you can do. Let's say the null you applied the tracking data was called "trackingNull." You would apply the lens flair to a black solid set to screen mode. Now you position the lens flair exactly where you want it to start. The last step is to add an expression to the lens flair property using the pickwhip but before you use the pickwhip you type "value + " in the expression window. Then you drag the pickwhip to the "trackingNull" position property. That's all there is to it. The value + statement takes the original position of the lens flair and adds it to the position of the trackingNull. BTW - this talk about a lens flair needs to be moved to another thread.

Rick Gerard · ‎Aug 03, 2011

abdulymalik wrote: I think it has more to do with the illustrator file...If I increase the size of the vector file in illustrator and import it, it comes in at a higher resolution. It's as is AE is treating the vector file like a .jpg This isn't right. While it's more convienent to create your Illustrator artwork at about the size you'll want to be using it, size doesn't effect how the file is rasterized. For example, here's an AI file that is scaled up 2000% Here's a huge illustrator file that's scaled to 1%: The only thing that would foul up an AI image for continuous rasterization is an effect applied in Illustrator that uses rastor effects. If you've applied any of the Effects under the Photoshop Effects to your illustrator files CR will be blocked.

Rick Gerard · ‎Aug 03, 2011

PAR of your comp? Your comp window should look like this: The PAR Correction turned on is a likely culprit. The other option you can take a look at is in the File Interpolation rules. There you can set antialiasing to Best for EPS options. You'll find it under the more options in the Footage Interpolation popup. The other thing that may give you problems is OPEN GL Rendering. Try turning OPEN GL off in the Comp window's Fast Previews options or in the Preferences. This is how the Comp Window should look at 100%:

Rick Gerard · ‎Jul 21, 2011

Nothing so far on CS5 or CS5.5 for AE, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver. The only app that I use every day that had to be upgraded was XCode...And it's been downloading for about an hour. I'll go through the rest of the MC in the next few days to see if anything jumps out. So far only installed on my MacBook Pro.

Rick Gerard · ‎Jun 27, 2011

You'll have to use PNG 24

Rick Gerard · ‎Jun 26, 2011

Try rebooting your system. If AME still won't launch try a re-install. Do you have a suite or just AE?

Rick Gerard · ‎Jun 26, 2011

Your biggest problem is that you are trying to compress to H264 directly from After Effects. You bit rate is way too low for HD. H264 is also suitable for Web distribution but it's a lousy codec to send to a DVD or Blu Ray compressor. For that you should be using a lossless output. The best way to go is to open up your AE project directly in Adobe Media Encoder and pick a default setting for your desired audience. If you want HD for the web then use Apple TV or You Tube HD. You'll end up with a variable bit rate between 5 and 7 or 8 and 9, and 2 pass compression. If you want to go directly to BluRay then use that option, but personally I find that compressing for Blu Ray works a lot better if you do it in Encore. If you're wanting to archive the video or use it in another production then pick a lossless or nearly lossless format like Apple ProREZ or Black Magic, or even a PhotoJpg QT or AVI set to 90% quality. You cannot expect single pass compression at a data rate of 3 Mbps to give you a quality image in an HD frame size. It just can't be done. That's barely an acceptable data rate for SD.

Rick Gerard · ‎Jun 18, 2011

This is just an exercise in basic math. If you put a slider control on a null layer and then use the index (layer number) as a multiplier you can fan out the layers by simply adjusting the slider. Throw in an if else statement to count the number of layers and stop the increase in the angle when the circle is filled and you've got the solution. If you put the null layer with the slider control at the bottom of the layer stack this expression should work for you: ctrl = thisComp.layer("Null 1").effect("Slider Control")("Slider"); numSeg = thisComp.layer("Null 1").index - 1; val = 360 / numSeg if (ctrl < numSeg) { mult = (ctrl * (index -1))*(val)/numSeg } else if (ctrl >= numSeg) { mult = (index * val) } value + mult ctrl is the slider control value numSeg counts the number of line layers in the comp by subtracting 1 from the layer number of the null layer (the null must be at the bottom) val calculates the angle between layers when evenly distributed in a circle The if statement says if the ctrl (slider value) is less than the number of segments then multiply the slider value times the layer number less one (so the top layer doesn't rotate) and then divide that value by the number of segments. The else if statement says if the slider value is greater than or equal to the number of layers rotate the layer by the layer number times 360 divided by the number of layers. This evenly distributes the layers around the circle. The value + mult at the end just says take the initial value of rotation and add the new value of the rotation to this layer. This works if you set the rotation angle of the starting layer first. If you want control after duplicating the layers then replace the "value" operator with an angle expression controller. All you have to do to make this work is to put the anchor point on one end of a line segment, add an expression slider to a null, put the null at the bottom, then add the expression to the line layer and duplicate it as many times as you want.

Rick Gerard · ‎Jun 16, 2011

No adjustable rounded corners are available in a mask, however, if you make your mask smaller than you want then you can use the expand mask value to create a radius.

Rick Gerard · ‎Jun 15, 2011

Look in the timeline under the shape layer contents. It's called roundness and it's in pixels.

Rick Gerard · ‎Jun 04, 2011

I'd love to see collapsable palettes (Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator), Uber twril for pre-comps (and I love pre-comps by the way) instead of layer groups like in Photoshop, and in the absence of a true node interface for transformations, masks, and effects I'd love to have the ability to re-arrange the rendering pipeline in the timeline window by simply dragging things around. For example: A simplified form of node editing could also be implemented in the flow chart. For example you could pick a mask from one layer and drag it to multiple layers. This would be especially useful for track mattes.

Rick Gerard · ‎May 30, 2011

So tell me something about your system.

Rick Gerard · ‎May 30, 2011

Yes, It's set to off. This is on. That's all you should have to do. If that doesn't fix the problem then we need to know all about your system and your preferences settings.

Rick Gerard · ‎May 30, 2011

Make sure that you have audio turned on in the Preview Panel. This screenshot shows it turned off.

Rick Gerard · ‎May 23, 2011

The first thing I would do is click the icon in the upper right hand corner of the composition window and select view options. You should find the check box for motion paths. If doesn't fix it, try deleting your preferences file. You may have also hit the shortcut key by accident to hide all of these little helpful options.

Rick Gerard · ‎May 15, 2011

I will have to call you on that. I've done a lot of testing on compression and production workflow. Moving from an 8 to a a 10 codec (ProRez) does give you much better results in the long run. There is more room to make calculations blend things like motion blur, gradients, and do compression. If that were not the case Sony and others would not put 10 or even 14 bit color sensors in their cameras that record to 8 bit codecs. Apple, Black Magic, Grass Valey and the rest would not build 10 bit capture codecs and capture cards for 8 bit streams.

Rick Gerard · ‎May 15, 2011

If you want to go direct to a highly compressed format the workflow is: Create your composition Save your AE Project Open Media Encoder Add the AE project to the Media Encoder Cue (Dynamic Link will start) Pick the composition you wish to render Choose the output format from a preset or create your own Start Media Encoder. There you go. Simple, efficient, high quality compression directly from your AE project. The only way to get a better highly compressed deliverable is to use a specialized 3rd party encoder. If you want to go that way then the best option is to render to a 10 bit minimum lossless codec and use that for your source.

Rick Gerard · ‎May 07, 2011

I think you've hit the core problem. Animation as actionscript doesn't respond to the stop(); command. Neither does the array/tween animation you offered up as help yesterday. I can stop the animation from within the movie by placing buttons inside the movie, but if the movie, in this case movie3, is inside MyMovie in the main scene I can't make it stop. I would think that there are those that build things like walk cycles, or timers, that are created with action script. I would also assume that those elements are embedded in movie clips on separate layers inside the scene. I would think that it would be common to put some kind of controller in the Scene on a layer that would control these embedded actionscript movies. At least that is the way I would do it. Thanks again for your help. You pushed me a long way down the road to understanding how to control an array. Unfortunately I can't seem to get that control to cross the embedded movie barrier.

Rick Gerard · ‎May 07, 2011

Here's my problem. I have a movie on a stage (MyMovie) that I can control with start and stop buttons. Let's call it MyMovie. Inside that movie there are 4 layers. Layer one has movie1 which contains a movie created with a movie clip symbol that has been tweened over 60 frames. Layer 2 has a movie clip which has the movement generated by action script using a simple aray. That movie has start and stop buttons controlling the action script movie. Layer 3 has a movie clip (movie3) that is generated using the built feature copy motion as actionscript 3. I know it's kind of confusing so here's a screenshot of the MyMovie timeline: Here is the Scene timeline: The problem I'm running into seems like it should have a simple solution. The first line in the Actionscript for Scene 1 is stop(). I expect MyMovie not to play. The blue outline around the yellow circle is actually a blue circle below the yellow circle. It is the only component of MyMovie that derives it's animation from a tween. It is also the only part of the animation that is stopped. The yellow circle, motion by a tweening a simple array will play with the stop and go buttons and the orange circle animates all the time. Pressing the big go button causes the blue circle to animate, pressing the stop button causes the blue circle to stop, but all the other animations inside MyMovie keep running. I have no control over the embedded movies. Does anyone have an idea for a solution? I seems to me that it should be easy to start and stop all elements embedded inside MyMovie by simply stopping MyMovie. There's obviously something that I'm missing here. If anyone has the time to help I'd appreciate it. Here's the project file. I thought it would be easier than posting all of the actionscript.

Rick Gerard · ‎May 07, 2011

That's got the array stopped. Now I have another problem.... Look for a new post.

Rick Gerard

Rick Gerard

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