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Newbie Needs Help with AE CS4
I need some advice. I have a graphic in AE. There are 4 layers.
Layer 1 – Burlap Background
Layer 2 – Post card over top of of burlap
Layer 3 – Text flying in
Layer 4 – Company logo (which is a psd file)
so everything lands nicely. So to transition out of that I want to fly the Company logo (which is a design type, not a font and unable to reproduce) flies back into the camera. I want the letter “O” of the word to reveal video of the next shot, essentially looking through all 4 layers. I started the painful process of creating an inverted mask inside the “O” and rotoscoping it out as it flies up and out. This is so long to do it. there’s got to be a better way. Any advice? Old school terms, Im trying to cut a hole in the letter “O” which is a jagged textured type deisgn from .psd file (Client logo) and look through it to reveal next video shot.
Marty
Marty N
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3 Replies
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If your parent the video layer to the logo layer you won’t need to bother with rotoscoping every frame. Place the video layer under the logo layer. Find the point in timeline where the O completely fills the frame. Parent the video layer to the logo layer. Scrub the timeline and the minor tweaks you need to make should be self evident.
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[Dave LaRonde]The first thing to do is to find out if this company has an Illustrator version of the logo, converted to RGB and not CMYK (or do the conversion yourself in Illustrator). AE keeps the edges of such logos razor sharp. Very cool.
If you can’t get an vector logo, you can get around this by blurring out the logo as it gets closer to the “camera.” It’s a bit of a cheap trick, and it will make your mask a little bit more difficult to animate because you have to stay clear of the burred edge as you reveal the video underneath, but it will give you something to do if you can’t get a vector logo.
Steve
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If you do it right parenting works like a champ and doesn’t degrade the video image.
I realize I left something out of the original post. Again, park the CTI on the frame where the logo zoom is nearly complete. Drop the video in the timeline beneath the logo, scaled to 100%. Now split the video layer by hitting command+shift+D (Mac) or ctrl+shift+D (PC). Select the bottom video layer and parent it to the logo layer. When you scrub the timeline back toward the beginning of the comp this parented video layer will scale down accordingly. Since you split the layer the top most video layer will never exceed 100%. Meaning the video will not be degraded from over scaling. Once you have the movement working add a simple mask to the bottom video layer.
The good thing about parenting the layer is that if you change your mind and move the starting position of the logo the video layer will move with it. You won’t need to waste time tweaking the animation for the video layer all over again.
Regarding the quality of the logo itself I’ll leave that one alone since Martin didn’t express any problems with the logo degrading. The only thing he mentioned was that it is a psd file. For all we know it’s a 6000 x 4000 pixel psd file.
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