Best way to integrate with AE

Zaxwerks

Best way to integrate with AE

Posted by Fred Clewis on April 17, 2009 at 2:48 pm

Hi,

Sorry for such a basic question,

Config: ZaxPA 4.5.1, WinXP, CS3

I am integrating short PA animations into AE CS3 and need some help.

My AE compositions are typically long with many short PA scenes placed in various places.

I tend to use the standalone PA version instead of the plugin. In many situations, I find I only need a few seconds of animation, then I need the last frame to hang in place for maybe 10 times that duration.

1. I assume for AE inclusion, I should make uncompressed .avi files, is that correct?

2. even though the last 90% of the file has no animation, the rendering still works at the same rate as the animated part. Are there any tricks to get around that? Any tricks in AE to tell it to hang on the last frame? This would save a lot of render time and disk space.

thanks very much, I just started, this is a great product,

fred

Edward Wu replied 17 years ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
3 Replies

Edward Wu
April 17, 2009 at 6:10 pm

Hi Fred,

If you like working in the standalone, you can set up all your scenes in the standalone, and then save the scenes. Then, instead of rendering the scenes out inside of the standalone, set up ProAnimator as a plug-in within After Effects and then load up the scenes. They will still play out the same in your timeline, and you will only need to wait for the rendering once instead of rendering out individual movies and then once more for the final movie.

In addition, once you have ProAnimator applied to the Solid, you can just adjust the length of the Solid to control how long you want the objects to stay there.

Hope this helps.

Best,
Edward
Fred Clewis
April 18, 2009 at 12:35 am

Thanks Edward,

I just need a little more guidance on the “then load up the scenes” part. Attempts to import .zxa files into AE crash AE. Alternatively, when I have created a solid and added the PA effect, I do not see a way to load an existing scene.

thanks,
fred
Edward Wu
April 20, 2009 at 6:37 pm

Hi Fred,

To load a scene into After Effects, first set up your composition, and create a new Solid. Apply ProAnimator to the Solid, and select the option to “Create a New Scene”. Then, enter the ProAnimator interface by clicking the “Click to Edit ProAnimator” button. Once you are inside the ProAnimator interface, go to the top File menu, and select “Open Scene”. Select the scene you saved from the standalone project, and once you click the OK button, the scene will load into your After Effects timeline.

Best,
Edward

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