[Cal Johnson]

You can do this easily in After Effects by applying the “Path Text” Effect to a solid layer, and then animating the “Visible Characters” value under the “Advanced” options. You’ll probably want to switch the default path from Beizer to Line.

[Cal Johnson]

Keep in mind that the best result will be achieved, of course, using a real 3D model that you could composite (like a targa sequence with transparency). This might sound glib, but think of why the 3D earth works so well. If you were really seeing earth from space, you would only be able to see one half of the sphere at a time, with the sun’s shadow defining light and dark (day and night), which After Effects is able to do. So when you create a “3D” Earth, you kind of go, “oh wow, that looks awesome!” because After Effects is able to make it look very realistic in this instance. However, as soon as you want something else like a satellite, the play of depth and shadows are much more complicated, and the eye readily recognizes it as not quite right. As a satellite moves, your new angle of vision should allow you to see parts of it that were hidden before, and some parts should start to disappear from view.

With the earth, regardless as to wether you rotate around it, or stay static as it rotates, your prespective of it would never alter, only the way in which you see shadow on the earth’s surface. This is why After Effects can make a realistic earth, or any “ball” shape, but not complex 3D images like a satellite.

[Cal Johnson]

“Creating Motion Graphics in After Effects” by Chris and Trish Meyer. It covers version 6.5, but don’t let that stop you. Probably one of the best texts that you’ll find for After Effects. Loaded with tutorials, extras, etc, and the book is in full color. Its two volumes now, by the way.

The tutorials here are great, but the book will help you understand the how and why of After Effects to a much greater depth.

Good luck, you’ll love the program.

[Cal Johnson]

I forgot to mention, if you do the typing in of number of frames or whatever that you want to move forward or back, you can type “+18” to go forward 18 frames, but to go back, you have to type “+-18” frames, because After Effects recognizes negative time, and therefore would see “-18” as “Go to -18 frames on the time line” instead of just go back 18 frames.

[Cal Johnson]

I’d recommend that you just buy Chris and Trish Meyer’s books “Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects” which are now a two volume series. They are written for After Effects 6.5, but still a great resource, and I’m sure anything you want to know about you’ll find covered. That way you’ll have a great reference text as well.

[Cal Johnson]

Chris & Trish Meyer’s books “Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects” Volume 1 and 2 are a great way to learn the program inside and out, if that’s your intention. To really get your’s money’s worth out of them though, you should go through both texts, start to finish, cover to cover. Right now their books cover the 6.5 version of After Effects, but they are still worth every penny. Andrew Kramer totally knows his stuff, so anything from him will be excellent, and he also has some good tutorials posted here on Creative Cow. The Meyer books are a serious time committment, but worth it if your goal is to master After Effects.

[Cal Johnson]

Chi-Ho, pressing the “Page Up” and “Page Down” buttons move you back or forward one frame at a time. Holding the Shift key down while you use the Page Up or Page Down buttons will move you 10 frames at a time. If you need to go a specific time, you can hit Ctrl G or click on the comps time code display to open the “Go To Time” dialog box, and type in the exact time that you want to go to. You don’t have to type in all the zero’s or colons in front of the time code, so for instance if you want to go to two seconds and twelve frames, type “212” not “00:00:02:12”.

Another neat feature with the “Go To Time” dialog box is that you can just type in the unit numbers you wish to advance or go back. So you could type “+18” to move forward 18 frames, “-18” to go back 18 frames, but also “+45” to forward 45 frames, and so on. Oh, by the way, this is all on the PC so if you are on a Mac you’ll just have to translate the instructions to that platform (basically command instead of Ctrl).

[Cal Johnson]

Steven, thanks for the reply. I agree with you that the way the Program Panel works is probably more practical, particularly when performing an edit over multiple clips. I think I may be mis-interpreting Jacob’s instruction, as a note a few pages later says “For Insert and Overlay edits, the Program Monitor’s two-up display tells you the last frame before your cut, and the first frame after your cut.” which is exactly what I have. I must be confused about what he’s talking about earlier:
“All Insert edits place the media based on the location of the inserted clip’s first frame. To find this spot, look for the dotted line that displays as you hold down the Ctrl key. The dropped clip will begin at the point on the timeline under the this dotted line. You can also see that the Program Monitor has a two-up display that shows the start frame of clip being added and the exact frame in the timeline where the clip will be edited.” Not sure what he means, but no big deal.

Its an excellent text by the way.

[Cal Johnson]

Cool Roach, I guess my version of Premiere is jinxed. If I try to bring in an After Effects project into Premiere, its says “error, importing project requires Adobe Production Studio”. Glad its working for you though.

[Cal Johnson]

Well, hopefully someone will chirp in and tell me I’m completely wrong, but in the mean time, I wasn’t aware that you could in fact export an AVI file with an Alpha Channel. For what you’re describing, I use After Effects, and export as a 32 bit Quick Time file, which supports an Alpha Channel. I then import the Quick Time file into Premiere, which recognizes the alpha. I’m new to Premiere Pro 2, but have never heard of being able to export files from Premiere with alphas (so that the transparency will be recognized). That doesn’t mean its not able to do this, as I say, I’m new to version 2.0.

In the meantime, a possible remedy if you don’t have After Effects, might be to create a single “lower third” project, and then when you need it, import that project into the one your working, and drop your lower third sequence onto your new timeline.

Sorry couldn’t be of more help.