[Christopher R. green]

Dan,
Sorry to hear you’re having problems with globat. I also use them. And yes, I have had some serious problems with them [long boring story not included].
Have you been able to get in touch with anyone there? If you do, ask (demand) that they put you on their caicos server — apparently it is up (since my site is up).

best of luck

Chris G

[Christopher R. green]

Dan,
Sorry to hear you’re having problems with globat. I also use them. And yes, I have had some serious problems with them [long boring story not included].
Have you been able to get in touch with anyone there? If you do, ask (demand) that they put you on their caicos server — apparently it is up (since my site is up).

best of luck

Chris G

[Christopher R. green]

Couldn’t help posting some arguably useless info on this subject.
Depending on what your doing, that is, how/if you’re animating stuff, and what you’re animating, there is a kludgey way to get dimensions of text. There are some serious caveats, though, like it doesn’t really work as an expression problem unless you use a script. I’m not going to lay out the whole procedure (I’m dang busy right now), but I will say this:

When you do a (in mac language) command-shift-n to a text layer the default mask works as a bounding box for your text. If you plan things out right and animate just layer transformations you’re golden as far as the mask giving you dimensions of the text, which you can get the values of using a script. What you do after that can be more script stuff or expression stuff (if you apply those values to an expression-able property). If you animate actual text stuff, you’d have to make new masks for certain frames, then copy that mask shape into a keyframed main one and remove the new mask, then do some sort of script thang. And of course changing things like font and font size after the fact potentially screws the whole thing up.

that is worth exactly two cents, if you ask me.

-CG

[Christopher R. green]

Couldn’t help posting some arguably useless info on this subject.
Depending on what your doing, that is, how/if you’re animating stuff, and what you’re animating, there is a kludgey way to get dimensions of text. There are some serious caveats, though, like it doesn’t really work as an expression problem unless you use a script. I’m not going to lay out the whole procedure (I’m dang busy right now), but I will say this:

When you do a (in mac language) command-shift-n to a text layer the default mask works as a bounding box for your text. If you plan things out right and animate just layer transformations you’re golden as far as the mask giving you dimensions of the text, which you can get the values of using a script. What you do after that can be more script stuff or expression stuff (if you apply those values to an expression-able property). If you animate actual text stuff, you’d have to make new masks for certain frames, then copy that mask shape into a keyframed main one and remove the new mask, then do some sort of script thang. And of course changing things like font and font size after the fact potentially screws the whole thing up.

that is worth exactly two cents, if you ask me.

-CG

[Christopher R. green]

oops. i was due for a dumb post.

thanks!

[Christopher R. green]

oops. i was due for a dumb post.

thanks!

[Christopher R. green]

[Dan Ebberts] “sometimes the bottom of the bounce occurs between frames”

Yeah … that’s what I was thinking, but I kept doing variations and looking at it over and over (probably looking at it too much … hmmm … my eyes hurt) and was convinced that it wasn’t really doing this. Am I madder than a hatter? Perhaps.

This just in: I just made a project that has a very odd error trying to ‘compile’ that expression. Here’s a link to the project file:

https://www.crgreen.com/nicebounceexp2.aep

If you want (oh, please do), download this proj and see if this gives you the same error it gave me (“After Effects warning: Timeout waiting for the engine.
Error occurred at line 16.
Expression disabled.”). And sometimes, it says line 18! No kiddin’. Now, this is the expression copied and pasted from another comp that works perfectly. No kiddin’ again!

This is in ae v6.5.1, OSX 10.4.6

-cg

[Christopher R. green]

[Dan Ebberts] “sometimes the bottom of the bounce occurs between frames”

Yeah … that’s what I was thinking, but I kept doing variations and looking at it over and over (probably looking at it too much … hmmm … my eyes hurt) and was convinced that it wasn’t really doing this. Am I madder than a hatter? Perhaps.

This just in: I just made a project that has a very odd error trying to ‘compile’ that expression. Here’s a link to the project file:

https://www.crgreen.com/nicebounceexp2.aep

If you want (oh, please do), download this proj and see if this gives you the same error it gave me (“After Effects warning: Timeout waiting for the engine.
Error occurred at line 16.
Expression disabled.”). And sometimes, it says line 18! No kiddin’. Now, this is the expression copied and pasted from another comp that works perfectly. No kiddin’ again!

This is in ae v6.5.1, OSX 10.4.6

-cg

[Christopher R. green]

Sorry about the lack of reponse, Arie.
I’m also sorry that I probably won’t be able to give an adequate answer.
The thing is, I haven’t used an arbitrary map since Star Trek VI (1991). As I recall, these are created usually by using the curves editor in Photoshop. Presumably AE at one point supported the loading of such a map file for use in the glow effect as well as the PS Arbitrary Map filter. I am working in AE 6.5 still, and these functions are totally dead. When “Arbitrary Map” is selected in the glow effect, you are supposed to be presented with a file open dialog. But no. Though it could be argued that this is an ‘outdated’ technique, this is pretty inexcusable. I guess you’ll have to do something like double up the image and use the curves adjustment filter, then the glow, then composite that over your original.

hope this helps …

cg

[Christopher R. green]

Actually, PFHoe is the most affordable one …

https://www.thepixelfarm.co.uk