[Bartek Skorupa]

If the motion is created in AE only – just activate motion blur for the comp and for the layer.

If you have the animation created in 3d application without motion blur and you want to create artificial motion blur in AE – activate frame blending for the comp and for the layer and use CC Force motion blur.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

As I said before: I would use a 3D application, but CC cylinder IS 3D with all AE’s 3D limitations.

You can project your image on a cylinder, you can manipulate this cylinder in 3D space, but using the features inside CC Cylinder effect, you can add a camera into your scene and it will react with the cylinder, so in fact you have full control over your cylinder in 3D space.
There is one thing you mustn’t do with your layer with CC Cylinder applied to it:

Don’t make this layer a 3D layer.

This may sound weird:
If you make your layer 3D – it will be 2D. If you leave it 2D – it will behave like 3D.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

Dave LaRonde: “…you win the prize for reading the After Effects manual in detail…”

Well… If it’s something valuable, I will have to give it back, as I have never even opened the manual. I don’t know if I even have one. 🙂

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

Jake Abramson said:
“I created a square pixel 480w x 864 h (720 x 1.2 pixel aspect ratio of anamorphic).”

That’s right. I made a mistake calculating the required size of the “working comp”

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

Bending solids like shown on your diagram is rather simple. Just use CC Cylinder, and you’re done. Remember to pre-compose the layer before and adjust the size of your pre-comp and the layer inside.

Making animations like carpet falling down is rather the task for 3D application. I would never even try to use AE if I’m for some organic look.
Some say that AE is 2.5D application.

It IS possible to hammer in the nail using screwdriver, but it’s easier to use hammer.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

I would do it a bit differently:

I would create “working comp” 540×720 pixels with square pixels. (9×16)
I would do all the work using this comp, so that I wouldn’t have to tilt my head.

When I’m happy with the result I would create “Final Comp” – 720×480 anamorphic, put my “working comp” into it, rotate it 90 degrees and render.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

Select footage in timeline, then select footage in project panel and hit:

“Ctl” + “alt” + “/” on Windows
“Cmd” + “alt” + “/” on Mac.

or if you are rather “dragger and dropper”:

Select fotage in timeline, then select footage in project panel and drag it over the timeline holding “alt”.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

I was just 30 seconds late.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

That means that you did’t try everything.
It is a vector, but you have to tell AE to treat it as a vector by activating “continuosly resterise” button for this layer. This is a little “sun” checkbox

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

I’m not sure if I understand the problem correctly, so at first let me just say how I see it.

You have the text and some animation applied to it. Let’s say you used one of the presets.
The preset does something to the letters, let’s say it moves them all around.

You want this animation to happen to some point in time and then kind of reverse, so that the text appear clearly once again, but it is a different text now. Right?

(Sorry, but English is not my native language, so sometimes it’s tough for me to clearly express my thoughts)

The solution I see is as follows:

1. Put a text layer and apply the animation preset.
2. Expand the text properties and find every animator, expand their properties and find “Range selector” for each animator. You have keyframes there.
3. Place a keyframe in between the two existing keyframes for each animator (There may be only one animator, but sometimes there are more).
4. Copy the first keyframe and paste it where the last keyframe is. Now the animation will go to some point in time and then “go back”.
5. Set a keyframe to the property: “Source text” at the beginning of your animation, and another one somewhere in the middle. Write the other text in the same layer.

The text will change, and the animation will “go back”. Tweak the position of the keyframe in the “Source text” property so that the change of the text is least visible.

Voila.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland