this "remove previous versions" as default is such a big mistake. I can't imagine why would they do that - this has caused so many problems to so many users and this feature has been there since 2013 and still nothing has changed. somebody at Adobe's marketing probably thinks this is still a good idea. wish we got some sort of explanation as to why is this still there by default when the forums are filled with complaints about this. if someone has a thread that has some sort of response from Adobe - please share. ... View more

My composition is 30fps. I conformed the frame rate of the video using the interpret footage function and set the video to 30fps. I am not sure about the term "conform" - you only interpreted the footage as 30fps so what will happen in your case is that Ae sets that many frames per second and adjusts the duration accordingly - 00:10:00 duration of 29.372 is 294 frames. at 30fps it's 00:09:24 duration. pretty close. anyways rendering the footage at 30fps will give you the same result in this case so no need to do that. not sure if your footage and composition were not the same until now (or that this was the problem) if they are - try to track and tell us the results and let's see. if that doesn't work, show us clear screenshots and make it up to us maybe with a video capture showing your workflow if you can. one last thing. see here see how your tracker is squashed like that? I believe this means that the aspect ratio is not square - make sure that the aspect ratio of your composition matches your original footage. and WELCOME TO THE AE FORUM! where the Ae geeks get to show how amazingly ingenious they are, on the expense of disoriented Ae newbies. ... View more

it is never a good Idea to crop your screenshots. full screenshots with full view of project, composition and timeline window please and press UU while your at it I would check a couple of things: 1. that your footage is at the same frame rate, resolution and aspect ratio as your composition. 2. check for yourself if the data is exact. null position = attach point. ... View more

now that's it's a shape layer, just add a stroke ADD->Stroke you don't need the mask just delete it. and you don't need the Stroke Effect. read here: Create and customize shapes and masks in After Effects ... View more

what Ae version EXACTLY. also, please provide a screenshots with the timeline and composition in plain sight and we will get to the bottom of this. ... View more

the stroke effects only applies to masks. not shapes. there are 2 ways that I suggest to deal with this: 1. convert the vector layer to shape by right clicking and choosing "Create Shapes from Vector Layer" and this will give you hopefully and exact instance of your layer, as Ae shape layer. there you can add a stroke by toggling the contents parameter in the timeline and Add Stroke 2. copy the path from illustrator to Ae by just clicking copy (Ctrl+C) on the Ai layer and Paste (Ctrl+v) on the Ae layer and now you have a mask path that you can add a stroke effect to I support the 1st option. ... View more

I am not exactly sure what do mean. do you have a reference? - photo or video at certain time code so we could give you exact suggestions? if you are talking dust particles there are plugins that can achieve a pretty convincing effect (particular for example) and there's always live footage that is shot on black and superimposed on the video with some blending mode - for example here: Lens Flares / Abstract | FX Elements and here https://lensdistortions.com/video/shimmer/?v=88588bacf0da ... View more

if you are seeing something like this: then it is, as Rick suggested, a trial based Plugin. i.e an effect that does not come with your After Effects install, and is installed on your machine, BUT it is set to a Trial mode and not full. when it's on "Trial" mode - you usually can use most of the features but you get an X. some Plugins don't have X for the trial modes, but eliminate important features instead. more often then not, this X usually belongs to a Redgiant Trapcode Effect: Shine, Particular and a few more. a better shortcut key instead of U or UU to look for used effects in your timeline, is to type E. U will show you properties with keyframes and UU will show you only modified properties but there could be many, and also some that don't include effects, or maybe you didn't even modify the effect so you won't see it at all. on the other hand E will show only Effects property group and it's much easier. you also have this switch of layers with effects to give you an indication that the layer has an effect. Happy searching ... View more

for those who are interested, the mighty John Dickinson just wrote a post about this title sequence, giving a few references. check it out: http://motionworks.net/stranger-things/ ... View more

hey I don't mind getting special treatment, how can I join this group? ... View more

Thank you. I do have in mind to speak about shapes but I am more focused on workflows and tips and techniques that are very specific. so it's not going to be an essential tutorial. just some little tricks and stuff. if you watched  Chris and Trish that's very comprehensive stuff. these are two great courses: https://www.lynda.com/After-Effects-tutorials/Why-use-shape-layers/155266/168359-4.html After Effects Apprentice 14: Shape Layers | Lynda.com you can PM me questions if you have any . if you think it's worth a post then by all means - this way others can contribute and I can see if my methods are worth anything or maybe I am missing something. ... View more

thanks Karenfl you made me smile! about pre-comps and nested: I used to try to explain to students the technical difference and exact scenarios (that's the best way to learn) but found out I should not bother. after some practice you eventually get when and why you should use each. nested means you were smart and prepared before hand, and Pre-comps is just the nature of working in Ae, you put things in boxes and in time you know when and why. the technical terms are just confusing, this is just a way to be organized and achieve a certain effect. I always thought Ae is pretty intuitive and fun - but it is misleading. you can get to 70% intuitively - that's why it's so popular. that's why many users here ask basic questions because they think they can make it with just intuition. 80% requires study. 90% is after 10-15 years with it non-stop and  95% and above are geniuses (some are here) that can make anything with old school effects like colorama and card dance and a few expressions. that can give a killer workflow that solves a scenario in 30 minutes when it would take you 3 days. Ae hides a lot of the complex stuff under the hood but there comes a time when you need to know that. no substitute for essential training even if it's slow, boring, not practical at first. yes the Meyers are not exciting like Andrew Kramer BUT you will get much more if you learn all the basics first. anyone can follow a recipe and make fire, shatter, smoke, whatever. Btw I do get how it can be frustrating. that's why I called my Video Channel AeBlues. you are welcome to follow me on Vimeo/Youtube - just look up the name. ... View more

No Sarcasm! I needed to put a smiley face in there  I need to know how to get lost because I teach students and knowledge is power! when someone comes up to me with a messed up situation, I feel happy when I can help them get out of it. so honestly thank you I was already prepared to write to you that apparently cs5.5 doesn't have too many shapes parameters when you wrote again and it occurred to me you did not see it because you used the shortcut to see the scale and that results in missing parameters. ... View more

You're welcome, Buddy. ... View more

wrote something and deleted it right back. this is what happened - you pressed S for scale and did not see the contents parameter. if you would toggle the triangle up and down you would see all the properties. also UU could get you there. thank you for showing me yet another way to get lost in the software. ... View more

you probably didn't twirl ... View more

I really  don't think you need to re-install . You are probably working in a very short sequence or your frame rate is very low. Please provide Screenshots, and if you can- video capture or send us the project file. ... View more

Good call Mohhamad! Guess Op is zoomed up all the way in the timeline that he sees the actual frames in the upper bar and that caused the confusion.. Hear that Op? Take a step back drag to the small mountains or minus key. ... View more

what version exactly of Ae do you have? so you press Ctrl and on this: and it does not change to this? so you say this is project related? if you create a new project, does it work? if this is project related could you upload the project so we can take a look? ... View more

you do know that if you LIE in the forums you get banned for 3 months right? take a look here buddy ... View more

thank you Rick, sorry did not notice Op actually wrote that he did not find the size. as Rick mentioned - you can see only see the size on some of the parametric shapes: rectangle, ellipse and rounded rectangle. if you choose the others, or draw it yourself with the pen tool, or use Alt as you create a parametric shape - it is now a Bezier path so no size option there. ... View more

no I wouldn't . the Meyers are great. very comprehensive and also welcoming. their book "Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects" is my Bible. and I have watched almost all of their Lynda series. ... View more

you can see the properties in the timeline. just toggle the triangles down: Shape layers in Ae are very powerful but the interface takes time to get used to. you have to work in a small space in the Timeline and learn how to build hierarchies and be smart about your choices because you can loose orientation pretty fast. make sure you read through here: Overview of shape layers, paths, and vector graphics in After Effects ... View more

3 hours? count your blessings my friend! my sympathy goes for you buddy but if you did not save it, and if there isn't an auto-save folder in the project folder: then there's nothing really to recover, right? BTW you have to actually save the project for the first time for this folder to appear, and it has to be checked on in the preferences make it a habit to first save when you start making a project, and work with auto save (easy for me to say - 12 years with the software and still sometimes I only remember to save it for the first time only after an hour or so) if it's lost - take that as a lesson that you really really really did not pay so much to learn make it better than the first version I say! ... View more

I agree with Melissa. also, addressing Terri's Comment - I personally prefer to go over every checkbox and not be project oriented because I want to know everything and I will know for what project to use what.  if I am project oriented then I only know a limited course of action to that type of project. he does give live examples of course from A to B. but I get what you mean - it's not exactly a real-case of common project. also what I love about him is that he encourages the viewer to enjoy and succeed. he loves to say something like "by the end of this tutorial I want you to say 'I can do this!'". as a teacher for students, I am always trying to make my teaching as clear and as positive and encouraging and supportive as I can because I know how it's like to feel lost in the technical details, and things seem impossible when you are not that motivated. ... View more

Hey Ezzo this is how masking works in Ae. you closed the masks so now it's in "Add" mode, meaning it's doing what it's set to do - cut the image.  if you want to edit the mask without seeing the final result you can do this it 2 ways: 1. set the mask to "None" 2. better - click twice on your footage and in the Layer view you can toggle "Render" off and work on your masks with seeing all the footage. BTW I am looking at your masks and it does not look promising there's a lot more to Rotoscoping (cutting masks out of a live video) then just moving the vertices of  the masks, make sure you read through the first part about Rotoscoping here: Managing and animating shape paths and masks in After Effects here's a quickstart tutorial: After Effects CC tutorial: Rotoscoping with paths | lynda.com - YouTube you might consider using Rotobrush for cutting an image. try reading here here Roto Brush and Refine Matte in After Effects quick start tutorial: Adobe After Effects CS5- Rotoscope with Rotobrush - YouTube ... View more

actually this title sequence may seem at first glance like an easy thing to pull off in Ae but if we look who is behind this, we discover that it is one of the lead if not the most famous studios that does this type of work - Title Sequences Netflix Stranger Things Main Title | Imaginary Forces and as you can tell by the credit list: not a one's man job in Ae in 30 minutes time. this design has fine details both in precision of movement and texture and color. more information here: Stranger Things - Fonts In Use Texture I believe this was not done in Ae but in the design process I am guessing in Photoshop - the texture could be a result of brushes with textures, or a texture placed on top of the letters with some sort of blending mode to blend it together. anyways - this was carefully executed to get an organic, book cover feel, kind of Dithering appearance that gives it a retro feel to the letters.(just for fun) Color was probably set in the design App through some color adjustment layers. a good workflow would be to set the letters as a gray-scale colors from black to white and keep the flexibility in adjustment layers that will change the colors by tone remapping. Photoshop has Gradient Map, After Effects has Colorama. unfortunately Ps Gradiant Map is not supported in Ae, so would have to replicate the process through Colorama. but I do believe this was first achieved in the design App before any Animation or Compositing was done, and later replicated. FONT has a great deal of impact on the overall look. a quick internet search found this: ITC Benguiat® - Desktop font « MyFonts Glows these were probably done in the Animation/Compositing stage = there many ways to create Glows in Ae. with 3rd party plugins you will get the result fast and rich effect. just look for after effects glow plugin (or not) and you will see what's possible. setting an adjustment layer with fast blur and on top of it CC Composite effects set to "screen" or "in front" and dimming opacity - can get a cool bloomy effect as well. LightRays could be done with a plugin called "Shine" by Trapcode (though there are ways to pull this off without it) Flickering can be done with either a plugin or setting a wiggle expression to opacity of a color adjustment (like exposure). Depth of field can be done using  2D effect called "Camera Lens Blur" and get wonderfull blurs and mask the parts you don't want to blur out. Movement there are two types of movement here : 1. the letters themselves 2. the scene as a whole. 1. the letter themselves - I believe this was NOT done with after effects text animators, because you can clearly see that the text has texture as it moves. seeing that there is no 3D artist in the credits, I believe this was done in a 2d Compositing App.  as the credits entail, the compositing was done in FLAME which is a very expensive compositing workstation and in my opinion an overkill for a motion graphics project such as this (though this could be just so the studio could charge more money - I heard that too) so anyways - This could be done in AE with perfection. one other thing if you notice at the end - the letter Shapes change their vector information as they move close together - suggesting there is vector information in there that's being manipulated - you can convert Text to Shapes and be able to change the letters shapes paths. 2. the scene as whole - this could be pulled off by adding a camera to easily control the movement of all the layers together. Editing the Sequence you can edit the whole thing in the compositing app keeping the compositions shots in different Pre-comps. this is very short segment and flexibility in the movement between the cuts is key. so you can either do the whole thing in Ae or work through Dynamic link to premiere to preserve the flexibility required. I wouldn't bother with Dynamic linking or Premiere with such a few cuts and I would prefer to keep flexibility in Ae and change camera moves and Cuts at the same time if the cut is not working for me. a few last words: if you want to Really pull this off and not create a cheap copy, you going to have to do the research and not be bound by After Effects alone but give the design process the amount of time and detail it needs. ... View more

I have my favorites in Lynda : Chris Meyer Mark Christiansen for After Effects users these two are a MUST. also the amazing, entertaining, charismatic Deke Mcclelland. his Photoshop series is top notch. Illustrator as well. ... View more

sure there it is: Type Codec Render Time File Size Graphics Jpeg2000 RGB+Alpha 13 Sec 12.2MB Graphics QT Png RGB+ALPHA 19 Sec 6.42MB Graphics JPEG2000* MXF OP1a RGB+ALPHA 26 sec 15.8MB Video Jpeg2000 RGB 7 Sec 11.4MB Video QT Png RGB 6 Sec 11.8MB Video JPEG2000* MXF OP1a RGB 7 sec 4.47MB *these were the settings for Jpeg2000 mxf op1a quality test: all look the same ... View more