[Darby Edelen]

This isn’t as straight forward as you might like it to be. The loopIn() and loopOut() expressions are really intended to take over all of the animation before the first keyframe (loopIn) or after the last keyframe (loopOut). If you only need to be able to create your own keyframe animation after the looping portion then you can use loopIn (not loopInDuration) and specify the number of keyframes after the first that should be included in the loop, for example:

loopIn("cycle", 3);

This would include the first through fourth keyframe in the loop, your non-looping animation would start after the fourth and continue for the remainder of the timeline.

Otherwise your simplest option for transitioning from a looping to non-looping animation might be to split the layer. Leave the original to loop and remove the loop from the duplicate. Lining up the state of the loop and non-loop might be challenging. You could use a linear() expression to transition from the loopOut version to the non-looping version but that’d be a bit more complex.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Are all of the layers 3D? Were any keyframes accidentally added to the shape layers? You can select them and press ‘u’ to check for animation.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

You need to not round your slider at the beginning.

Then I think you could work with Math.floor() and Math.ceil() to get the results you’re after:

v0 = footage("04_2_YourCSV.csv").dataValue([Math.floor(slide),0]);
x0 = (v0/vMax)*100;
v1 = footage("04_2_YourCSV.csv").dataValue([Math.ceil(slide),0]);
x1 = (v1/vMax)*100;
end = ease(slide, Math.floor(slide), Math.ceil(slide), [x0], [x1]);

It’s also possible I’ve misunderstood the goal 🙂

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Setting the first vertex is a good first step, but for interpolating between complex paths I highly recommend looking into the Mask Interpolation window and it’s options:

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/animating-shape-paths-masks.html#animate_a_mask_path_with_smart_mask_interpolation

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

It’s difficult to know without seeing more, or a simpler comp that shows the same problem, but one thought would be: do you have a black solid at the bottom of the comp? Blend modes on transparency work unpredictably.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

I’d try to use the mosaic effect to create sharp edges. However, this does add another layer of grid-ation (grid-izing?) to your visual.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

You’d need to replace ‘index’ with something like:

thisProperty.propertyGroup().propertyIndex

This is somewhat complicated by the fact that if the property you’re applying the expression to is inside multiple ‘property groups’ then you may need to put a different integer inside the call to propertyGroup(). If the property sits directly under the effect then the above will work, if it’s inside another property group on the effect then you’d need propertyGroup(2) and if it’s two groups down you’d need propertyGroup(3).

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

What do you mean by bouncing around in space? The footage layer should not be 3D. The camera is used to create the correct perspective motion in the particle rendering. The depth pass allows Particular to know whether the particle currently being rendered is nearer (visible) to the camera than the rendered surface or farther (hidden) from the camera.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Try using the advanced spill suppressor to remove the green. This may result in a gray color instead of black, but you could also create a spill map using Channel Mixer in monochrome mode, set the Red-Green to something high like 200 and set the Red-Red and Red-Blue to negative numbers. I usually start at -100 and adjust as needed from there.

Or you could use keylight to create this matte for color correction.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

You might be able to get away with doing a Channel > Minimax in the ‘Minimum Then Maximum’ mode. This will reduce some detail in the shot, but you might be able to do this to a duplicate of the layer and selectively blend it back on top.

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/channel-effects.html#minimax_effect

Darby Edelen