[Darby Edelen]

[atomicrabbit] “How can I make one mask for several layers? OR duplicate an identically sized mask over several layers.”

I would look into other options for generating alpha for your layers. I don’t know the specifics of what you’re trying to do, so I can’t suggest the best solution, but here are some options to explore:

1) Track Mattes, see After Effects help for more information (F1)

2) Preserve Transparency, if you set a layer to Preserve Underlying transparency it will take its alpha from the combination of all of the underlying layers. This is a toggle switch accessible in the Layer menu or between the Blending Mode and Track Matte drop downs in the timeline.

3) Stencil Alpha, this is a blending mode that applies the alpha of the layer to every layer beneath it (similar to an Alpha track matte, only it affects every layer under it in the stack, not just the one directly under it).

4) Silhouette Alpha, the inverse of Stencil Alpha, it punches a hole in the alpha of all of the layers beneath it.

Masks might work as well, but it sounds like there might be a better approach for what you’re trying to do.

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

[Racinghearts] “it still seems as though I’m not getting any results from RedGiants plug in…thats why I asked if the effect was that subtle, I’m sorry I was refering to Instant HD”

I’m not familiar with the plug-in. I would recommend getting in touch with Red Giant or checking the manual. Sorry I can’t be of more help there, I was just trying to help you get progressive footage =)

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

Well, after sitting here with Activity Monitor and AE open I can safely say that AE keeps the necessary processes open between RAM previews (‘aeselflink’ in case you were curious). There was very little noticeable slowdown in between RAM Previews after the first time they booted up on my system (during which time another process ‘ATSServer’ was active).

There is still a small slowdown, but my guess would be this is just AE handing off the render to the other processes. The ‘Adobe After Effects’ process doesn’t do anything while RAM previewing if you are rendering multiple frames simultaneously, if you have this function disabled then ‘aeselflink’ disappears and the ‘Adobe After Effects’ process does all of the… erm… processing =)

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

[Ultimate Bart] “you can also do a trackmate if you have a something to track..”

You don’t need something to track to use a track matte (;

[Ultimate Bart] “keyframe your mask shape at the beginning were you want. let say your round mask is in the left top corner. now go to the end of your comp and simply position it to for example the right under corner.”

Uh-oh, this is where he got upset about people not reading his post =O You can’t set spatial interpolation or other nice positional properties for the Mask Shape property, meaning that, in your example, the mask would move in a straight line… Not very floating bubble-like. There’s no way to animate the Mask Shape into smooth curves without keyframing every frame… and why do that to yourself? (;

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

[Racinghearts] “Any suggestions?…is the effect that subtle?”

The effect is that you will not have fields in your footage…

…This can be subtle if there isn’t much motion in your footage or it could be very obvious with fast pans or motion through the frame. Are you sure your footage was interlaced to begin with?

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

You must set a keyframe for the Mask Shape and for the Position of the layer.

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

[Racinghearts] “How do I render it out without fields?
Thanks”

This is the default setting for most renders in AE. One step that I would add to Roland’s suggestion is to check and make sure that AE is interpreting the footage you import correctly. Check the field order of the footage in Interpret Footage (select the footage in the project panel and press cmd+F). If it’s not set properly then you should set it and AE will de-interlace your footage.

Then when you render out click on the Render Settings and make sure that Field Render is set to Off. If it’s on you will see the fields rendering in the render queue instead of frames (i.e. 1L, 1U, 2L, 2U instead of 1, 2).

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

[atomicrabbit] “1) How can I get a layer a slightly curved effect… like a curved photograph? Not totally curled.. just a slight curve to it.”

You can sort of do this with Distort > Bezier Warp, but it doesn’t curve the layer in 3D space… that is to say that it appears to be curved but it is still a flat 2D plane. AE cannot do anything but flat planes, Zaxwerks 3D Warp is a plug-in that is much more powerful than Bezier Warp (it takes the composition camera into account as well) but it’s still faking the 3D look.

[atomicrabbit] “2) How can I move an image within it’s own mask. This might be a stupid question as well, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it.”

Use the Pan Behind tool (Y).

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

[crea3552] “The resolution for the camera icon has shrunk so now you are forced to move one axis at a time which then requires you to do alot of nudging about to get the camera angles right. When you have complex scenes this can become laborious.”

This is not the case with individual keyframes though. Create 2 keyframes for your camera, one start and one end. Then go in with the pen and arrow tools and create as many more keyframes as you want dragging them around in two dimensions is easy as pie. Don’t drag the camera itself, drag the keyframes.

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

[beenyweenies] “The goal is not necessarily a strong green background, but a strong difference between its color and that of the foreground.”

I thought I should also mention that the goal is a strong difference in the HUE between the foreground and the background =)

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA