OH, and NEVER put green tape or physical tracking marks on the glass. You want to keep those real reflections so that the end result looks real!

Is it just the screen/burn-in you are replacing?

Use a real phone with a Digi-green on it. It can be as simple as a full-screen image, though there are also apps that can lock the green in place so the finger doesn’t swipe it away… Motion Picture Color Generator is a good one for iPhone.

If your shot is wide enough to see the corners of the pho…

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Pick whip the “linked object’s” scale to the scale of the driver object. Add this to the end of the expression field: *.75

Have you tried:

-Unmult to remove the black BG

-Then use a levels effect to tweak the alpha channel… you can easily clip the transparent areas this way. This can be on an adjustment layer, or you can use an effect mask to localize the adjustment.

Hi, AE people!

I’ve released two new free tools for vfx/compositing work:

-PD Perspective Guide: the fastest way to set up vanishing point guides

-PD Color Match: automatically match shadow and highlight values in your comp

Both available for download at http://www.thepixeldump.com

I hope they are useful!

Definitely use a precomp that’s the correct height and width to wrap around both sides of the building (might take trial and error to get the size right). When you get to the corner, mask out the part that’s hanging off and then move your layer’s anchor point to the corner. Then you can add the other half by duplicating the precomp, subtr…

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I don’t know exactly why this is happening, but AE actually has a built-in method for defining a new track feature. Just hold alt and you can slide the track box to a new area without affecting the previously tracked frames.

Also, you can select a group of track keyframes in the timeline by twirling down the layer’s properties.

Have you tried adding the desired composition to your render queue within After Effects? I normally queue up the comp in AE and then use the button on the queue to send it to media encoder.

Interesting – I have never noticed the issue with Lumetri scopes. For compositing I tend to rely more on the info tool.

Roei,

It’s definitely tough to find good info on this since many Vfx houses develop proprietary workflows to suit their specific pipeline needs. That said, here’s a video that should give you a good idea of how to move forward:

Assuming you have figured out a method for wiggling the transparency already, precompose the text. Split the precomp a few seconds after the start to make a “start clip”. Move the start clip to the end, and animate the opacity so that the start clip is what you’re seeing by the end.

You’ve now got a perfect loop!

I’m a proponent of putting your log source into a linear space using OCIO in-comp (not color management). Then all of your sRGB elements can be converted or graded to something closer to linear, which is less of a stretch than trying to make them look log. Round trip everything back to log at the end with an adjustment layer at the top of c…

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Put all three masks on the same layer. Car mask on top, set to “add”. The window masks below, set to “subtract” (do not check the invert boxes).

Are your render settings above the output module set to “Best Quality”? It’s possible your preset defaults to something else.

Happy to help!

As far as the color management conversation – it’s good to understand it, but for most cases in AE, especially when working with graphics for display on the web, I recommend working in an unmanaged color space. This passes through the actual RGB values of your assets without otherwise manipulating the appearance. You can then make…

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I would guess it’s not a color management issue, but rather an effect or adjustment layer within the psd file that gets interpreted different when pulled into AE. Take a look through the psd layers – if there’s an effect or layer style somewhere, do a save-as and then rasterize/bake the effect into the layer. See if that does it!

Interesting – I do not have the script editor issue on PC. You could try saving the script as a plain text file and then manually changing the extension to jsx. Otherwise, I could send you a download link when I’m back near a computer.

David,

I’m not sure how you are attempting to compile it, but in AE you can go to File>Scripts>Open Script Editor. Paste the code into the editor and then save it as a jsx in your scripts folder (not Scripts UI). Restart After Effects.

To run the script:

-Move the playhead to the frame you want, and then select the layer you want to freeze

-Go to…

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Perhaps it’s a hidden file? You could try enabling hidden files like this: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-access-your-macs-hidden-files

There’s actually a Sample Image Expression utility in newer versions of AE that simplifies that process quite a bit – you can find it in under Effects & Presets.

You could in theory put a bunch of the utilities on your gradient layer (precompose it first if your gradient is created using effects), and then tie each utility to one of the flower’s…

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David, if it helps, here’s a script you can run to quickly duplicate the selected layer and freeze it at the current frame. It also puts a checkbox on the frozen layer that allows you to quickly toggle it on/off (if you prefer that over the layer switch).

app.beginUndoGroup("Freeze Layer");
var activeComp = app.project.activeItem;
var activeLayers =…

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The newer Javascript expression engine is more strict than the legacy extendscript engine. if/else statements cannot be on a single line. Try this instead:

if(thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider") ==  5) {
100;
} else {
50;
};

I’ll note that you can change the expression engine you’re using by going to File>Project…

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Was there any helpful info in the bug report? Maybe an error code?

It’s worth browsing stock image websites like istock, shutterstock, etc. If you don’t find what you need, turbosquid also has 3D stock of wrecked cars.

There’s also this tool from AE scripts that might help out: https://aescripts.com/automatic-whiteboard/

Mocha AE is built into after effects… that should do the trick for tracking the plate for replacement. I also posted a free AE script that helps make tracking even more precise: https://www.thepixeldump.com/single-post/pd-hipass

I’ve not used Motion Array, but Digital Juice has a large library of templates, stock footage, fx elements, music, etc. They have a $299 “standard” lifetime membership, and $499 “pro” lifetime membership. It’s basically lifetime unlimited access to everything they have, and I’ve used it a million times over the years when I need a random element…

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You could certainly do that if your video will only ever be in an 8 bit environment (or if the source material is all 8 bit).

In general, I tend to work in 16 unless there’s a specific reason to do 32. High end footage is usually 10bit or 12bit, and AE was not really designed for a 32 bit workflow, so many features work differently or not at…

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Exr and tiff can be used to export 32 bit image sequences with alpha. When you import to premiere, just pick the first image in the sequence and make sure the image sequence box is checked. It will come in just like any other video clip.

I will note that if you are displaying this on the web, your resulting format will inevitably be 8bits, and…

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What’s your working color space in AE? Pngs are 8 bit, so if your AE work is being done in 16 or 32, you will lose info no matter what. Try exporting with higher quality formats that support alpha channels and more than 8 bpc. For instance, tiff, exr, prores 4444, etc.

Also, if your shadows in-comp have blending modes, you will need to export t…

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Your documents will need to be in RGB space, not CMYK.

Totally possible:

1. Put the same background into both comps

2. inside the smaller “framing” comp, add this expression to the position parameter of the background image

ogPosX = comp("framing Comp1").layer("background").transform.position[0];
ogPosY = comp("framing Comp1").layer("background").transform.position[1];
adjustPosX = comp("framing…

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For anyone interested, I have launched a website with some rad, new After Effects scripts:

https://www.thepixeldump.com/

The tools are mostly free, designed specifically for vfx work. I often hang around this forum, so let me know your thoughts and/or requests!

-Brendon

I agree – definitely edit in Premiere and then prep your graphics in AE. For the lower third and transition, just create them in AE and then export in a format that supports transparency. Then bring them back into premiere. I often avoid using the dynamic link because things can indeed break… you can just export a draft of your premiere…

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Oh, I may have actually misunderstood your post. If you are trying to make unique precomps when the main comp is duplicated, take a look at this:

https://aescripts.com/true-comp-duplicator/

If you want to automate everything, you could also create a script that:

1. loops through files in a a folder named “Images”2. Creates a new comp for each one inside a folder named “precomps”

3. places the file within the new comp

4. adds the new comp to the main composition.

5. Makes the layer (new comp) 3D and distributes it on the Z axis accordi…

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Your images are not loading for me

You tried this?

I haven’t tested these out, but my guess is that “value” can return numbers, but not text strings. You might try dropping the “.value”,and/or using a toString conversion.

Hard to tell exactly what your situation is from the description, but bear in mind CC Force Motion Blur is a special effect that’s used in conjunction with other effects. Pixel motion blur is what’s used to add fake motion blur to a comp. If that’s what you need, I recommend precomposing everything and then placing the effect on the preco…

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You always should do Vfx work before any color work is done.

If the footage is in a log format, put it in a linear space before keying. I recommend using the free Open Color IO plugin. Then covert back to log after the comp is done for export. You can also use the Color Profile Converter effect, but double check to make sure you are not losing…

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I don’t believe that’s an issue. I run several versions of CC on the same machine (occasionally at the same time).

You can use a particle system like trapcode particular to send the images flying. Another way is to simply make all the layers 3D and then spread them out on the Z axis. Then fly your camera through the images.

The Sample Image utility is what you seek. Dan Ebberts had a tutorial for this back in the day, but it’s now included as an animation preset inside AE. Just type “Sample” in your effects panel and it should come up.

This may be best suited to a script instead of an action. Photoshop scripts are generally written in javascript. The ScriptingListener photoshop plugin may help if you are not too familiar with coding; it writes out the javascript code for whatever action you perform.

It would be best to write a script for randomizing the fill. The steps it executes could be:

-Use a loop to cycle through all shapes in the selected layer

-For each one, add a fill property if it doesn’t already exist (to the shapes, not the layer)

-Pick a random fill color from an array of predetermined colors

That last step would include something…

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Sometimes things like this will happen when there is a 2D layer (such as an adjustment layer) between your 3D layers. For instance, between your shadow catcher and the text layers.

I don’t quite understand the role Mocha is playing here. Are you tracking pre-rendered 3D?

If you have each state as a path (which can be drawn with the pen tool in AE or pasted from illustrator), you can extrude the path by using the cinema 4d renderer. Just go to Composition>Composition Settings. Under the “3D Renderer” tab, choose CINEMA 4D…

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