On the layer where you have painted, try going to Effects->Paint and change "Paint on Transparent" from "Off to On". Then create a new background layer below that layer. ... View more

I already have that much RAM. I don't want to downgrade to half the amount of RAM. After Effects etc. likes RAM (RAM previews especially, especially with higher-res comps (4K etc.), rendering, caching etc.), plus running multiple programs at the same time. It's better to have enough RAM than too little (where it would start thrashing the hard disk or SSD where it would go a lot slower, plus likely reduce the life of the SSD. I'd rather not be constantly writing to an SSD either as that would make the SSD more likely to fail). I want to upgrade not downgrade and keep the system relevant for current and future projects (where it will work as well as possible no matter how complex, how many layers, no matter what resolution (eg. >=4K)/frame rate etc.). ... View more

Is it the preview or the output that they go really fast? Do they (preview and output) last for the specified number of seconds? Is there any thing different about the preview options for playback? Are there any time effects applied? Are you sure they're not doing what the keyframes tell it to do (maybe the interpolation type makes it move/rotate in a way you don't want it to)? How long is the animation supposed to last and how long does it actually last? ... View more

Keyframe it. Go to the frame where the white line is on the far left and create a keyframe (x position at least) of the glow effect etc. there (if it's an effect with a position - like the beam has (start and end point of the beam) - if it's not - maybe use a keyframed mask with the effect), then go to the frame where the white line is on the far right, and create another keyframe (x pos at least). I assume the effect will then follow the line (though this assumes it moves at constant speed and it might depend on keyframe interpolation type). You might have to more keyframing eg. if it scrolls or something after the line has reached the right side of the screen but there's still more of the audio to play. You could also use motion tracking to track the line but I don't think that's necessary and it would be faster and easier to keyframe it (and tracking might not work, especially if the waveform goes through points of the line you wanted to track and maybe the lines going through the dark area might be a bit of a problem for tracking). Instead of a glow/as well as one you could use a thicker line graphic (or shape?). ... View more

Maybe the "change to colour" or similar effect on an adjustment layer with a mask that is around where the shadow is? ... View more

Thanks for the info about GifyGun. It is a lot more convenient to use than exporting the frames (when those exported frames aren't needed for something else) and importing into another program etc. then exporting from that. The only issues with Gifygun is that it doesn't let you specify a filename (sets it based on the composition name, with a number added if there is already a file with that name), but more importantly, at least for the comp of the last delivery, the edges of things, where they meet the transparent parts of the gif, look more pixelated/less anti-aliased than the output of Easy Gif Animator Pro. Another small thing is towards the end of the anim where a coloured object appears after the previous part of the anim had been grayscale, isolated coloured pixels appear within the grayscale areas of the frame (but this is just a few and isn't really very noticable at normal res, but doesn't happen with the same anim from the other program. Though in GifyGun it seemd to happen less when GifyGun scaled down the comp, but like I said, it's not really noticeable at normal res). So the only real issue with GifyGun seems to be the more pixelated outline of objects where they meet the transparent areas (maybe because transparency was one of the newer updates), eg. things that are round/rounded (circular object, rounded outline of text) look less round and more step-like jagged than the rounder look from Easy Gif... This is when viewed in both smplayer and Internet Explorer at normal (100%) size. ... View more

Thanks, though I don't have photoshop, but I do have Photoshop Elements (I don't think elements has that option). Is there a better quality way than what I've been doing (importing the After Effects frames into Easy Gif Animator Pro when transparency is required. Before, when transparency wasn't required I'd just use VirtualDub) that doesn't use Photoshop and isn't too expensive? ... View more

Thanks. The person liked the delivery. The only real issue with it was the .gif to me looked noisy/artefacty. I created it at 192x108 from a 1920x1080 comp, and I'm not quite sure why it looks noisy (worse than the animated .png of the same size). I loaded the files from After Effects png sequence into Easy Gif Animator Pro and set the transparency+background colour. Maybe what looks like noisy/artefacts is because of the conversion of colours from a couple of thousand used out of a 24 bit pallette to just the 256 of the .gif. Maybe the person isn't planning on using the .gif and will just use the other formats including the .png so doesn't mind so much. But if I could make the .gif look better (less noisy/artefacty) that would give more options. Though the person delivery so maybe it's not a problem (so maybe the person is only going to use the other formats including the full res ones. Though I don't think they've actually tried it in the places they want to yet. And the .gif should work (and show an animation) in more places than the animated png so they might find they need it but that it looks a bit noisy/artefacty when they do). ... View more

Thanks. My animation is using bitmapped graphics (eg. .png) as well as vector (.ai) though they were originally ai., with various AE effects. I think that might be good for in future but it seems mostly about mobile devices too (not sure it would work for email newsletters on PC). Basically the files need to be delivered today (as well as the animation finished). So I'll probably look at that later but for now I'll probably just deliver it as the formats previously mentioned (the person originally asked for a png so if I can find an animated png/apng format program I'll load the After Effects frames/video into that and save/export. But I'll also upload a quicktime png compressed video and maybe a png sequence (maybe different frame sizes - or at least a smallish frame size for the animated png/apng) and also a .gif (smaller frame size than the quicktime png). Hopefully the thousands to 256 colours won't be too much of an issue. If that can look okay that seems the most compatible for everywhere eg. based on the recommendations (at least for now - maybe that lottie exporter might also be compatible - but I'll look at that more in future as it seems more complex). ... View more

Thanks. See APNG - Wikipedia  - APNG uses the .png extension for animated pngs. But it isn't supported in the official Firefox release (according to that wiki link) and also isn't supported in the Microsoft Edge browser (though it is in other browsers). So what format am I best delivering the animation in that will "be easy to place into banners, newsletters, website pages"? Output it as a quicktime png (but will that work in newsletters sent via email?)? Or am I best reducing the colours to 256 and outputting it as a .gif since it will be more compatible than "apng"? Or send it in as many of these formats as I can so the places where a quicktime file will work (eg. web) will use that and email newsletters will use the .gif - and maybe send an apng format version too just in case? ... View more

Thanks. I've delivered that particular video now thanks. But will be working in Premiere Elements for another video edit for him later today. If you go to the program's Edit menu, what is listed on the General page under Project Settings? for that project the settings were: Editing mode: HD 1080i (greyed out) Timebase: 29.97 fps (greyed out) Video: Frame size 1920 x 1080 vertical. Pizel aspect ratio: square pixels (grayed out) Fields: Upper field first (greyed out) Sample rate: 48000 Hz. What is the running time of your video project? Currently 1 min 48 secs approx. It was a bit longer a previously (2 min 30?) but no more than 3 mins. When you first add the clips to your timeline, do you see a yellow orange 'render' line above the clips? This is an indication that you do not have the project set up properly to match the video specs, which can result in poor performance and frequent crashes. I've just tried with a few of the clips. Most of the clips I think show the green line, and most of the sections created by the Instant Movie option show the orange line. Of the 2 additional clips he sent late yesterday, 1 shows the green line and one shows the orange line when placed on the timeline (even though both clips seem to be the same frame rate (30.0 fps), same resolution (1280x720, even though the project is 1920x1080 and the clips he'd previously sent were 1920x1080). Maybe an issue was the "Instant Movie" option created it in progressive rather than interlaced. If the Instant Movie option hadn't messed up the order of the clips that would probably have worked quite well (apart from the aliasing it sometimes added). which can result in poor performance and frequent crashes. Thanks. I'll try to make sure the clips match, but I have to work with what I'm given. Really Premiere Elements shouldn't crash eve even if a clips settings differ from the project settings. Crashing, assuming there's not some other issue with the way things are set up, sounds like there's a bug some where in the software. ... View more

Are you really running 128 gigabytes of RAM!? That's quite a load. Yes,  but After Effects likes a lot of RAM and I use that too (I use that much more often than Premiere Elements). You don't say, but I'm assuming you're  using the latest version of Windows 10 Yes, Windows just says "Windows 10 Home". Meantime, if you haven't already, go to the nVidia site and get the latest drivers for your graphics card. Do not trust the drivers provided by Windows. I'm using the ones from nVidia. I think they're quite recent. I've had quick look on he nvidia site but can't see the driver page for this particular card right now, but the driver is version 388.13. What model of camcorder is your video coming from and what is the video's format and resolution I don't know the camcorder (I'm doing the edit for someone else). The files were in quicktime HEVC 1920x1080, 30.000 fps. I converted them using handbrake to AVC (main @ L4), .m4V, 29.97 fps (just noticed it's different from 30.000 fps). I then used Premiere Elements' "Instant Movie" option and it's that video and audio track that I've then been editing (clip properties 1920x1080, 29.97 fps, 48000Hz stereo) which sometimes crashed (possibly because of cursoring or cutting). It's been working okay for quite a while now but I don't want it to crash again. I've been using "save as" quite a bit so I have enough backups in case it crashes again. ... View more

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Roland+Kahlenberg  wrote The hardware acceleration is done via specific Intel hardware. It's got nothing to do with Nvidia nor Windows. But why does this link: System Requirements | Adobe Media Encoder say "Recommended AMD and NVIDIA video adapters for GPU acceleration" and list Nvida cards under the heading "Windows CUDA". My GPU is an Nvida card that supports CUDA (probably better CUDA capabilities than quite a lot in the Adobe link). As far as I know, CUDA is nothing to do with Intel and is to do with Nvidia (which makes my GPU - see Wikipedia page for CUDA. The wiki page also lists my card, the GTX 1080 - which seems to be one of the best for CUDA), and After Effects allows for "CUDA acceleration". Isn't there a way to force Media Encoder to use a card that isn't in the list? Like in AE there's an option to "enable untested, unsupported GPU for CUDA acceleration...". My GPU has good CUDA capabilities so isn't there some method of enabling it for AME CC2018 (latest update)? ... View more

But how do I get the latest AME (CC2018) (which was recently updated) to use my GPU hardware (Nvidia GTX 1080, with Windows 10) when rendering an AE project, instead of it using "software only" (see screenshots)? ... View more

Codec I'm trying to render to is H264 (.mp4). See screenshot from updated AME CC 2018: See "software only" in Output on the first arrow. See "software only", greyed out (unchangeable) next to "Performance" lower down with the help message "Hardware acceleration is unavailable. Supported hardware not detected on this system." Here's another image from AMECC 2018: Here's a screenshot from the latest After Effects CC 2018 (on Windows 10) showing the GPU info: ... View more

I think it must be a bug in the latests version of After Effects (AE CC 2018). In After Effects CC 2017, clicking and dragging  with the paint brush in a layer window will draw a line, like in a paint package. In After Effects CC 2018, doing exactly the same, with the same settings (as far as I can see) just draws 1 circle at the place you first put the paint brush and doesn't continue when you drag the mouse. So it works in AE CC 2017, it doesn't work in the latest AE CC 2018, so it looks to me like a bug. Also, I don't have a Wacom tablet but I did use a Huion tablet quite a while ago but it's not plugged in currently (had a problem with it). ... View more

Gone are the days for VBR encoding unless you're prepping for DVD delivery. Online/Streaming media works best with CBR encoded media. Blu-ray alo uses VBR as far as I know. Also youtube recommended settings say, for H264, "variable bitrate". So surely that means that they think it is best. Also, wouldn't it only be a problem in VBR if the target bitrate is too low? If the bitrate is reasonable (say around 20-25 Mbps for H264 1080p24-30), wouldn't VBR give the best quality? ... View more

Before the last update that got rid of quicktime H264 from AE it seemed to take hardly any time to render to a high btirate quicktime H264 format (around 260 mb/sec). Then I could render that in AME using 2 pass encoding to a bitrate around 25 Mbps. Now it's taking ages (going to take around 27 mins vs about 41 secs for rendering to high bitrate H264) to render to an uncompressed and huge file (gigabytes) from within AE. Also I'm using Windows 10 so I can't render to all the formats mac users can (eg. ProRes?). I have added quite a lot of stuff to the comp since I last rendered it within AE to high bitrate quicktime h264 but I don't think it should slow it down this much. Is there no better intermediate format for Windows 10 users for rendering 1080p video? Good enough quality for, after re-rendering, delivering a final video of about 25 Mbps average. ... View more

It's disappeared from mine too. Is the now way to keep the latest AE CC 2018 functionality but include the quicktime H264 codec? I can't render directly to Media Encoder because an effect doesn't render properly if I do - I have to render to another (less compressed format) first within AE. Rendering to uncompressed within AE CC 2018 creates huge file sizes. ... View more

It probably doesn't need chroma keying because there is nothing in front of the green screen. It probably just needs corner pinning. Either with tracking the markers or corners or doing it manually. An issue is at the start 2 of the corners are off the screen. You could just use the part of the clip when all corners are on screen. If After Effect's tracker doesn't work well, some people would probably suggest trying Mocha for tracking (though I've hardly used that). If you did the corner pinning manually I doubt it would take that long. I assume you could create keyframes at the start and ends of the camera movement and then additional keyframes where needed. ... View more

Thanks. Though I was using Adobe Media Encoder to render a video composition of a video edited in Adobe After Effects (CC 2017). Maybe you're right and there's no real difference (though I assume it will make about a frame of difference every so often - which may show as an occasional repeated frame or dropped frame). But maybe any difference is only applicable to long clips and it was a clip around 8.5 secs so maybe the short length of the video will mean the difference is not likely to have any affect (though may have a tiny affect if the clip is part of a bigger video). In After Effects CC2017 there's "Interpret Footage" and for frame rate it says I can either "Use frame rate from file (29.970)" or "conform to frame rate" (and it has 29.97 in that box). My guess is if I selected "conform to frame rate 29.97" it would still actually use not exactly 29.97 (ie. I guess it would use 29.97002997002997...) since I assume it would assume you mean that because it's a common frame rate (though I suppose I could try it). Maybe the client won't mind that it doesn't seem to be exactly the same frame rate as his source video. I'm just wondering how I can fix it if he (or a difference client) asks for it to be kept (exactly) the same. Though maybe most people won't mind the tiny percent difference, particularly on short videos. ... View more

I think you are overthinking a problem that is not there. We're talking about 2/100,000 difference. Thanks. So manually set export frame rate to 29.97 exactly if it provides peace of mind to you. How would I do that in Adobe Media Encoder (CC 2017)? When encoding to h264 (.mp4) and uncheck "match source" for frame rate, I can't enter a value for the frame rate - it only lets me select it from a list (ie. ...25, 29.97, 30, ...). If I select "quicktime" (.mov) as the format and "h264" codec, and unselect the "match source" for frame rate, it again only lets me select a frame rate from a list (ie. ...25, 29.97, 30, ...) rather than typing a value for the frame rate. Or did you mean to type it in the composition settings for After Effects, instead of creating the composition from the source video file (where it automatically puts a frame rate for the comp)? ... View more

re: "Where the points start is not really that important" They are important when they start off like in the above screenshot (instead of when they start off correctly in a squareish way with point 2 to the right of point 1) because when they start off like above it's really hard to move them to their correct position because of what seems like AE's validation. ie. you can maybe move one a few pixels and then it just stops moving, as though it is doing validation saying "this point's x/y must be <= this point's x/y" and ">= this point's x/y". When the points are initialised correctly you can easily move them around. So it seems like a bug or something that causes the points to sometimes be initialised like the above screenshot, and when they are they are very difficult to move the various windows more than a few pixels. ... View more