[Brian Charles]

In some cases the Alpha Add transfer mode helps hide the edges. Often the real issue is After Effects cannot resolve an edge that is less than 1 pixel.

[Brian Charles]

Precompose the particular layer.

[Brian Charles]

Using another layer as a texture layer you can do it. See:

910_wordparticles.aep.zip

[Brian Charles]

I can’t contribute any information regarding the authenticity of the wing flap of an American Robin, however there are several tutorials on-line about animating butterfly wings.

The method requires a minimum of 3 parts for the animation: body, left and right wing.

Make all 3 layers 3D.

Move the anchor points of each wing to the appropriate edge.

Animate a single wing’s Y Rotation with the following expression: 60*Math.sin(10*time)

The numbers refer to amplitude (60) or the height of travel of the wing, the other number is the frequency of the wing flap.

Use the pickwhip to tie the Y Rotation of the other wing to the Y Rotation of the animated wing and add a minus sign in front of the expression so it reads something like this:

-thisComp.layer(“right wing.psd”).rotationY

Now parent both wings to the body and you’re done.

To control the wing flap you can use expression sliders for amplitude and frequency rather than hard coded numbers.

[Brian Charles]

887_togglezoom.wmv.zip

Works for me.

[Brian Charles]

1 – What about adding / removing keyframe of a effects parameter, like, for example, “Blurrines” in FASTBLUR?

No shortcuts for individual effects parameters.

2 – About Expand/Reduce Timeline (Zoom In/out) I mean timeline and not Comp view; I’ll tried with ; and : but they make Zoom in/out in Comp view…

Timeline must be active i.e. selected

3 – What do you mean with “CTI”?

CTI = Current Time Indicator – the vertical line in the Timeline.

[Brian Charles]

The Help section has an extensive list of keyboard shortcuts.

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103a9d3c597-7987a.html

Adding / removing a transform keyframe at the CTI can be done with the following:

Position: Option + P
Scale: Option + S
Rotation: Option + R
Anchor Point: Option + A
Opacity: Option + T

Zoom the timeline to the CTI: ;

The last one toggles back and forth to single frame or the entire timeline.

[Brian Charles]

Fast depends on what you are trying to accomplish. OK, so the 8 core is reasonably fast, still renders can take time depending on their contents, effects, number of layers.

I just finished a NTSC DV Widescreen 3 minute render that took 2.5 hours in CS4 using Nucleo Pro fast render settings.

If its just a simple text animation, that can render faster than real time. YMMV.

[Brian Charles]

It depends on the sort of work you intend to do, what you are accustomed to, the version of AE you are using and many other factors.

In general a laptop will not provide the horsepower or memory to work efficiently. However there are many who use laptops and comfortable with their performance, I’m sure you’ll hear opinions on either side of the question.

The new MBP’s can be configured with 8GB of RAM which helps previews, the i7 processor is fast and can be used for multi-processing.

You mention C4D, you can download CineBench from Maxon and test the speed of the machine before you buy.

I find AE slow on an 8 core Xeon with 16 GB of RAM.

[Brian Charles]

Have you tried the Persistent Property Mapper? You can use a gradient to control the speed in either X or Y.