Hi, it's a bit difficult to understand what is happening. Is your composition long enough for the additional 2 seconds? Is it video or are you creating something from scratch? An image of your screen would help. ... View more

Hi. It's preferable to start a new thread so that people can search for it if they have the same problem, however, since we're here: Toggle open your text layer, press the Animate button and select Fill Color/Opacity. Animator 1 will appear and you can keyframe in there. ... View more

Hi. The general term for what you want to do is "Compositing". There are a lot of  techniques that you need to learn, including; Camera Tracking (to keep your explosion/smoke etc in the right place when your camera moves) Rotoscoping (cutting out the things that are in front of your explosion so they stay in front) Color Correction (so your explosion looks believable in the scene). Action Essentials comes with 4 tutorials which you should view, perhaps they will give you a good starting point? ... View more

Hi. Have a look at the Strobe Light effect. Add it to an "off" version of your image, then place an "on" version on the layer underneath(without the effect). Set "Strobe" to "Makes Layer Transparent" and set and keyframe the Duration and Period. Set the Random to a high setting to get variety. ... View more

Hi. Select your footage in the Project Panel and then drag it onto the Make New Composition icon at the bottom of the panel - this should give you a new composition with the correct size, frame rate etc. I should say that if you are simply editing After Effects is not the right program to be using - Premiere Pro is meant for this sort of work and is much easier to work within, especially with sound. ... View more

Glad it worked. Technically you shouldn't need to do that however most people (?) make a rough "garbage matte" (mask) around the figure so there is less green to have to key and if the greenscreen is uneven it makes the keying easier and cleaner. Look up garbage matte and you'll get the idea. ... View more

Hi. I'm a little confused. In your Comp 2 you don't have a blending mode set for your Comp 1 layer. ... View more

Hi. Click somewhere along the clip and drag from there (four little lines appear showing you can drag it). When you place your cursor over the very beginning or end of the clip a double sided arrow appears showing you can shorten (or lengthen) the footage. AE is not an intuitive program so I would strongly suggest that you look at some basics tutorials before trying to dive in or you'll end up driving yourself crazy. These are great: After Effects basics tutorials by Andrew Devis ... View more

Hi. You are right, it makes no sense and is mighty peculiar!? Twirl open the text layer and under "text" you will see a heading "Animator - Hide Last char". Turn off the eye icon beside it - or delete it. Then play the layer and it should do the flashing thing. ... View more

Hi. Not sure what is going on, however: select your video in the project panel and drag it to onto the 'make new composition' icon at the bottom of that panel. It should automatically create a new composition with the correct settings. ... View more

Hi. I would use shapes, simpler and more flexible if you want to animate them. ... View more

Hi. To answer your original question, there are several other programs which will do it (some free) like: Fusion 9 | Blackmagic Design https://fxhome.com/express or these: https://windowsreport.com/rotoscoping-software/ ... View more

Wow, the things you learn! ... View more

Hi, yes FCP is Final Cut Pro (you mention it in your original post). I suggest you look at Premiere Pro and see if it can create the animations you need in it? Otherwise do a sample render from AE (say 1 minute of an animation) and see how long the render takes, then add it into PP. Sorry, I've never rendered anything that long - perhaps you might ask on the Premiere Pro Forum. Were I doing this (I'm an old guy) I would burn it to a DVD with your first image being the Menu Image, then hit the play button and have the one hour animation loop until stopped - for what it's worth (and perhaps it's another  option?). ... View more

Gutterfish beat me to it! ... View more

Hi. Have you placed a white solid under your text (if you have only selected a white background colour when you created the composition it will not render). ... View more

Hi Jordan. I would strongly recommend that you do as much of this as you can in FCP and render from there - particularly the still image. What are the animations that you want to do? Can they be done in FCP (or Premiere Pro for that matter if it has more bells and whistles)? After Effects is a complex beast and your render times would be massive (possibly days if you are doing complex effects and animations). I don't mean to be too negative but as a complete beginner I suspect you will be driving yourself crazy before too long and be in danger of not having a product at the end of it. After Effects is not an intuitive program and it takes a fair amount of time to get to understand even the basics. However, it is possible to do sections in AE and then take them into your editor, but doing the lot would be a very demanding ask for a novice. ... View more

Hi. Your comments are very confusing regarding using the pen tool and rotobrush and not getting the result. The term you are looking for is Rotoscoping- that is what the pen tool and rotobrush should be doing for you. I suggest you might look up some tutorials so you have a clear idea of exactly what to do and how it works. Your layer order should be 1: the girl only (with an alpha background) and no snow effect 2: a copy of your video, including the girl, with the snow effect applied. After effects is not an intuitive program and if you don't have the basic knowledge of how it works you will drive yourself crazy, so it's really worthwhile to start here: After Effects tutorials | Learn how to use After Effects CC ... View more

Hi, go to the Scale properties and click on the constraining symbol (a chain). You can then change the X or Y separately. ... View more

Hi. The first tutorials to look up are Track Mattes, and then Text Animators (Character Offset). ... View more

Hi. Import the video back into AE and double check that it is 24fps. If it is, your player might be playing it back at 30fps. ... View more

Hi. Try using the Displacement Map effect. ... View more

Hi. You need another layer underneath that it can mix (Add) with. ... View more

Hi Shai. Is there anything else happening with the text that you haven't mentioned (why are you using an animation you bought online rather than just keyframing the text position)? It might be possible to go to the first position keyframe and set it so that it comes on from the correct side (?) but what are the offset keyframes doing? ... View more

Mmmmmm? Have you got two keyframes close to each other at each time the blur changes (so you have keyframe 0% blur then keyframe 100%, then at the next change keyframe 100% then keyframe 0%, then next change keyframe 0% and then keyframe 100% etc.) Things like knowing how keyframes work are baby basics which you need to learn and understand or you will drive yourself crazy. I recommend that you look at some basics tutorials such as these extremely good ones: CreativeCOW ... View more

It's not clear what you are doing, however you should be able to keyframe the amount of blur to 0 when it isn't needed. Depending on which type of blur you are using it can be called things like Blurriness or Blur Radius or Amount etc.. ... View more