[Dan Mcgarry]

Thanks Kevin. I did as you suggested and changed the file from h264 to photo jpeg. At first the problem remained even after I redid all the keyframes. Then I think I discovered what the problem actually was although I still don’t understand why. It seems that because I was animating the masks in the composition view rather than the footage panel one mask(subtract)kept disappearing from the composition when 2 masks were not overlapping. I was creating more masks whenever my subtract mask disappeared and for some reason by animating the subtract new masks I was changing the keyframes of the old subtract mask that was not visible. I don’t understand why but was able to solve the problem by deleting all the new masks and keeping the original subtract mask, when the 2 masks no longer overlapped in the footage panel I made the correction there and the composition was unaltered but the subtract mask was now visible and the keyframes stayed as they should be. Does anyone know why adding new animated masks would change the keyframes of old masks? And how can someone animate a mask in the footage panel when you are only able to see one layer at a time and you need to see the other layer as reference for your mask?

Sorry for the long winded explanation I hope people can understand what I’m on about.

[Dan Mcgarry]

Thanks man, in my desperation I actually tried using premiere pro using a rudimentary mask from the title tool and exactly the same thing started to happen with the keyframes coming out of synch, maybe it was the video codec or something weird but it seemed not just to be an AE issue.

[Dan Mcgarry]

Thanks Johnny, it’s appreciated but unfortunately I’ve run out of time and we’re having to do a work around by building our own ipad mask and animating everything, deadline is fast approaching so that seemed the quickest way in the end. Thanks for offering your help.

[Dan Mcgarry]

I found this video by Greyscalegorrilla which seems to relate to my problem but I have switched all keyframes to linear and the problem still continues.
https://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/tutorials/most-common-animation-mistake-in-after-effects-and-how-to-fix-it-wobbly-keyframes/

[Dan Mcgarry]

Here is a screen shot of my problem, you can see where the mask has slipped. I am key framing Mask Path and also the layer position to manually track the ipad screen. I have gone back and keyframed frame by frame both Mask Paths and layer Position locking each mask and layer as soon as keyframing was finished but again the problem returned once I had completed everything and had it all lined up correctly. I’m sure I’m doing something really simple wrong but for the life of me I cannot figure out what the issue is.

[Dan Mcgarry]

Great, thanks Walter!

[Dan Mcgarry]

Thanks Walter, do you know if dnxhd is avaiable for premiere pro cs5? I can only find references to CS5.5 online.

[Dan Mcgarry]

Thanks for the tips Eric.

[Dan Mcgarry]

Ok thanks anyway. I did manage to get the time down to around 15hrs although in reality it was exporting for 18hrs. I made sure the timeline was completely rendered and selected “use previews” in the export settings, I also deselected “maximum render quality” but not sure if that made a difference, edges do look a bit rough on the resulting clip. I guess it’s time to buy more RAM and maybe a new graphics card. I have a GTX 285 but it seems to struggle with the Mercury Playback Engine.

[Dan Mcgarry]

Hey Tero

No, how would I go about doing that?

Cheers