[Darby Edelen]

Everything about your set up looks pretty great, except for the RAM. You should probably have about 4GB to work at maximum efficiency in AE, and even more if you’re going to upgrade to CS3.

AE is able to use up to 2GB of RAM in Windows (or 3GB if the right switch in your boot.ini file is on, or if you’re on Mac OS X).

Generally the OS will want to use around 1GB of RAM or so for its own purposes, meaning that if you want to have any other applications open while you work in AE it’s a good idea to have around 4GB of RAM.

This changes slightly with CS3 because CS3 is able to create multiple instances of AE using the processing power of separate processors/cores in your system, so with CS3 the best you can do is to have 4GB per-core (although I think with a 2 core system 6GB should be plenty).

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

Thanks Aharon, I’ve actually learned a great deal as well. This forum is one of the most valuable sources I’ve found for real world creative and technical advice from AE pros. I just like to try to give back when I can =)

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

As you now know, you can get some pretty decent results from using different blending modes at different opacities. I usually like to use Screen, Add and Soft Light (in that order). Screen generally looks a little muted, which is where Add and Soft Light come in. Add is a little blown out so I usually lower the opacity some, but it gives a nice glowy feeling to the explosion. Soft Light adds some contrast to the underlying layers.

However, the ‘proper’ way to do this is to linearize the working space and work in at least 16bpc. In AE7 you can do this in the project settings, there’s a checkbox under the color profile selection for Linear Blending. Then just use the Add blend mode.

[Darby Edelen]

Also, Premiere is available for Mac in the latest release. In addition you can upgrade from a previous PC version of CS2 to a Mac version of CS3. Just trying to confuse you with more options (;

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

Well, you inherently need something in the video to track, so there’s no way to use a feature outside the frame of the footage. But if you examine the help documentation on motion tracking you should find that you can have your track feature and your attach point in different locations (see the help if you’re not familiar with these terms).

This can cause problems if the feature doesn’t move at the same rate as the location you’re trying to attach to (due to parallax or other optical phenomenon), but if you can pull it off then it’s really one of the better options.

The only other option I’m aware of is animating the beginning and ending keyframes by hand or using an expression on the applied position data:

keyTime = position.key(1).time;
if(time > keyTime) loopOut("continue");
else loopIn("continue");

This will cause the layer’s position property to keep changing linearly based on the first known speed/direction and last known speed/direction. Since it’s linear it often doesn’t give great results, but it can be enough to fake the layer entering and exiting the screen.

Note: I didn’t get a chance to check that expression for syntax, if it causes problems let me know.

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

The quickest way would definitely be to apply wiggle() to your camera. I haven’t done this myself, but you probably want to wiggle the point of interest more than the position of the camera. People tend to have a harder time keeping cameras pointed at the right thing. A shift of half a degree in orientation is very noticeable, where as the camera moving half an inch isn’t nearly as noticeable. I think you’ll probably want to parent your camera to a Null to move it around so that the point of interest maintains a constant distance from the camera (otherwise the wiggle would be exaggerated when the point of interest gets closer to the camera).

I also like your idea of motion tracking some hand held footage, but that data would also need to be interpreted some how.

[Darby Edelen]

Where did you get the AVI?

I have less experience with AVI than MOV, but if it’s anything like the WAV and AIFF relationship you could try changing the extension of the file to .mov and see if that works for you.

[Darby Edelen]

A question Kevin, I honestly don’t know the answer:

If the footage on the tape is upper field first, and you capture it as lower field first, what sort of problems will this cause?

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

My only thought is that you shouldn’t be working with HDV in AE, and you probably shouldn’t be rendering out to HDV (although that’s probably less of a problem).

AE doesn’t like codecs with temporal compression. HDV uses the MPEG-2 codec, and if you’ve ever tried to deal with MPEG-2 in AE before you know it’s like watching molasses make a run for it down the inside of your freezer.

The problem is that, generally, only 1 in every 15 frames (this varies) actually contains a full frame of video, the frames that follow that frame contain only the changes in the video from the last frame.

I recommend using a codec that has no temporal interpolation. There are a few to choose from, but I like Photo JPEG as it renders very quickly in AE and takes up less space than a lossless file.

When you render out I recommend using a lossless codec.

A couple of follow up questions, do you experience the problematic playback when viewing in FCP? Does the footage need to be rendered on the FCP timeline? What about QT Player?

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Darby Edelen]

First off, if the ‘box’ is animated inside of AE then you won’t need to animate your other layer, you can just parent it to the ‘box’ and it will follow it around.

Now, on to your specific question. What easy-ease will actually do is cause your layer to slow to a stop at each keyframe and then slowly begin moving again. The slowing is smooth, but very noticeable with the default values for the keyframe’s influence.

If you want the layer to move at the same speed across the entire animation you should try using Roving Keyframes. Select all the keyframes but the beginning and ending ones, right click and choose Rove Across Time.

If you’re feeling very adventurous I recommend reading up on After Effects’ “Graph Editor,” which allows you to tweak the temporal interpolation of all your keyframes very precisely and visually. It’s a complex feature to get your head around. There may be some tutorials you can look into. I’d also recommend searching this forum for ‘graph editor.’ Honestly there’s no way to get the exact motion you want out of keyframes without using the Graph Editor, you’re at the mercy of AE’s default keyframe interpolation.

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA