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  • Extending a 3-second animation

    Posted by Paul Campbell on June 14, 2009 at 1:23 am

    Guys, forgive the newbie question here. I’ve got a quick little animation here that ends with a static logo. It’s about 3 seconds long, but I’d like to drag it out to about 5 seconds to show the logo for a couple seconds more. I looked up “Time Stretch” in the help section, but I think my AE might have a bug, because when I open up this time stretch window, I can’t seem to enter any numbers in. In fact, my time stretch window has some garbage pixels on the lines where I’m supposed to enter in the new time %. Any ideas?

    Thanks.

    Walter Wallace replied 10 years, 2 months ago 4 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Simon Bonner

    June 14, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    Hi Paul.

    If you just want the static frame to last longer, you don’t need to use time stretch at all. Just hit ctrl+k to open up the comp setting dialogue then set the comp to be longer. Hit OK. Then, back in the comp, extend the length of the logo (and any other layers it’s composited over) to the end of the comp.

    Simon Bonner

    youtube.com/simonsaysfx

  • Stuart Elith

    June 15, 2009 at 1:09 am

    This is precisely where newbie questions belong, so no forgiveness needed!

    Time stretch basically stretches an item over a longer (or shorter) period of time, so if you stretch the layer it will play the SAME thing over a longer period. This is most obvious with a video file… a 3 second piece of footage, when stretched to 6 seconds, basically plays at half the speed.

    I can’t entirely work it out by reading your post, but is the static logo on it’s own layer? If the animation ends up just sitting on a still image of the logo, you can simply drag the end point of the logo layer out, and it will stay on screen for longer. Using time stretch on this is possible, but will have the same effect. I usually access time stretch from the Timeline – if you right click on one of the column headings (such as Layer Name) in the timeline, you can choose which columns you want to display, and if you select Stretch, it will show up with each layer. It starts at 100% and as you drag the number up or down, you will see the layer extend or squash in the timeline.

    Otherwise, you could look into the Time Remapping function. You should look at the manual for all the details as it can be a bit of a head-muddle when you first look at it, but it’s very handy for retiming things. In your case, you could enable time remapping, set a keyframe at the point where you want things to stop/hold, and then delete the keyframe at the END. This basically sets a Freezeframe from that point, so that the rest of the layer animation or footage doesn’t play.

    Maybe too much info for you here, but those are some options, and good to learn about if you are planning to become adept at AE.

  • Paul Campbell

    June 15, 2009 at 6:50 pm

    Hi, Simon and Stuart. Thanks for getting back to me on this. Simon’s answer is precisely what I was looking for. Stu, sorry for not elaborating enough with my problem, but I do appreciate what you wrote. I’m quite certain I’ll be applying this effect before too long.

    Cheers!

  • Walter Wallace

    March 15, 2016 at 9:55 pm

    I have extended the composition for the animation is not extending out longer. Am I doing something wrong…

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