[Bob Edwards]

PS
@Task isn’t supposed to link… it’s a brand name of ticket system
https://www.attask.com/
(apparently they’ve changed their logo since I researched them)

cargocollective.com/bobedwards

[Bob Edwards]

I didn’t, sorry. I’ve had to work a few late nights so I haven’t even set up the comp yet (what a loser I am, I should quite my job and be a CreativeCow forum groupie – I’d be happier for sure).

where I’m at with solving this
Here’s what I was thinking (I think you were already thinking similar as well)… a script that manages line angle so that it always points to a target object (could be a NULL) – however, that doesn’t solve the line-length issue… (was planning on checking Henry’s post here (among others): https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/959171 or this post about eyes that follow: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/227/7436)

I haven’t started thinking about how to fill them in yet… Should have a few minutes to play with this script around 5-6 PST today – let me know if you have any luck!

cargocollective.com/bobedwards

[Bob Edwards]

That makes sense! I’ve wondered about that effect for a while but never had a reason to implement it. I’ll give it a shot and upload my results in a day or two (are you on a major time crunch?)

cargocollective.com/bobedwards

[Bob Edwards]

Clearly I suck at names – lol
Let’s try this for the final time (and sorry for the forum spam)
Joseph and Stephen are right (why did I put Mike? and Steve?).

cargocollective.com/bobedwards

[Bob Edwards]

…sorry, Stephen not Steve.

cargocollective.com/bobedwards

[Bob Edwards]

Just to add my ‘ditto’ to the discussion; Mike and Steve are right.

Also, for fun and to be a fanboy, here are a few of the companies that I would love to get a spot at, maybe you’ll find some inspiration:
digital kitchen (did the intros for Dexter, True Blood, House, Nip Tuck and many awesome ad spots and title sequences among other things) https://thisisdk.com/
Psyop https://www.psyop.tv/#psyop/new/projects/twinings-sea-subtitle
attik https://www.attik.com/

cargocollective.com/bobedwards

[Bob Edwards]

I agree. I’ve noticed that my desire to give the client my best effort (fullest extent of my skill) and exhaustive nature of the software always leaves me feeling over my head to some degree.

That said, the times that I’ve felt the most fatigued are when I work on projects that I know will fail without my help (bad copy, very poor product, wrong motivation to create video, etc) or are projects that are tedious and require little problem solving yet drag on forever. Due to the latter, I’m always trying to automate and script things in AE.

cargocollective.com/bobedwards

[Bob Edwards]

Cool video – is this video the project that you’re working on that you need the mask/solid help with?

If you can be more specific, I might be able to offer some suggestions. I assume that you’ve created the desired solid (CTRL+Y) and that you’ve selected the pen tool from the tool menu (shortcut: “G”) and simply marked out the mask path that way? …or are you talking about something more complicated involving particles or an effect like Trapcode Shine (https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/trapcode-shine/)?

cargocollective.com/bobedwards

[Bob Edwards]

That’s EXACTLY how the Moscone Center in SF is. Since my company is running the conference and we’re not Union they won’t let us film without a Union Rep so if I could join some local union somehow then I’d have a card and they’d let me pass, otherwise my company pays my rate, plus a union guy so it’s actually like triple the fee.

[Bob Edwards]

Thanks!
Very cool and helpful!

I would normally ease in to wiggle (that’s a great call) as artistic decision, but I’m just animating a hand writing on text quickly (and it’s a lot of text) so I’m using simple masks, a stock hand photo and a small amount of wiggle along the very simple motion path.

This is the second in a run of two similar videos for a client (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrTsuAGfD9Y) and if I had a larger budget, I’d use stroke and animate the motion paths to match perfectly. interesting tip: you can create the text in Adobe Illustrator, convert it to a vector and copy and paste the paths into after effects as keyframes in a property (like position). This looked really cool, but would take way to much to make changes and the client is particular about text for good reasons.

Thanks again for the code – I’ll play with linear() some more!