[Ben G unguren]

Alberto,

If you draw the “shape” you want to follow as a mask or path, you can copy the mask shape and paste it into the “position” attribute of your image. That will create two linear keyframes and a series of roving keyframes in between. The roving keyframes allow your image to follow the shape of the mask you “pasted” into the position (really it’s converting the shape of the mask into a motion path) at a constant speed. If you drag either of the linear (diamond-shaped) keyframes, the roving (little cirle) keyframes will adjust accordingly. Look up roving keyframes in AE help; there’s probably a better explanation there.

Incidentally, editing the mask you copied will NOT change the motion path. There isn’t any kind of dynamic link between the mask and the motion path, even if they’re on the same layer (which they don’t have to be).

ben

[Ben G unguren]

You can, but generally you don’t. AE does not work in real time. To edit sound, you need to work in real time. So when you press the period key on the numeric keypad, it “previews” the audio in real time. When you RAM Preview, it will play the sound in real time (because it is playing the video real time). Otherwise, AE takes as long as necessary to create each frame. Sometimes it can do this real time (for really simple), usually not. So it doesn’t even try to play audio while you work.

I believe most people match sound up with their animations in an editing program like Final Cut Pro or an audio program such as ProTools. That’s how I do it, at any rate.

ben

[Ben G unguren]

Yes. I’m still using 5.5. Isn’t that shameful?

At any rate, the project I posted was initially created years ago.

[Ben G unguren]

[Aharon Rabinowitz] “For extra kick add the CC force Motion Blur Effect”

Or, if you don’t have access to that effect, you can render your project out at 99fps, reimport it, drop it into a 30fps (or 24fps, 25fps, 15fps, whatever) comp and enable frame blending.

[Ben G unguren]

[Aharon Rabinowitz] “you can’t time remap it [shatter] without rendering it first”

I’m pretty sure that Aharon is wrong on this (or I’m misunderstanding what he is saying). Just make a separate “shatter comp” that does your 1-second shatter. NEST that in a new composition (your primary comp, e.g.) and enable time remapping. Set your first keyframe where the shatter starts. Set your second keyframe where the last bit of shrapnel has exited the frame. Then move that second keyframe as far down the timeline as you want, and the shatter will slow down.

Animating the viscosity works well for slowing down a shatter, but then you have no way to speed things back up again (if you want matrix-ish bullet-time effects). I like to think of viscosity as “syrup in space”; that is, the more viscosity, the more “syrop-y” the space is, and thus harder for your shards to fly around in. They get “tired” more quickly. If you suddenly remove most of the viscosity, the pieces down’t start flying out again; they just drop.

Here’s an example of time-remapped shatter:
https://homepages.nyu.edu/~bgu201/movies/shatter_timeRemap.mov
And you can download the project file (AE v5.5) here:
https://homepages.nyu.edu/~bgu201/movies/shatter_timeRemap.zip

cheers,
ben