[Darby Edelen]

Well I think there’s an animation preset for this using Trapcode’s Particular. If you don’t have access to that then I’d recommend playing with fractal noise using a pre-comped text layer as an alpha matte and a stroke effect to reveal it. This will take some definite tweaking to get a decent effect though. I haven’t tried it myself so I don’t have details for you, but it should give you an idea.

[Darby Edelen]

It stops for a very good reason: there isn’t enough free RAM to hold any more frames in your Image Cache. This can happen a lot if you don’t have very much RAM on your system or if you’ve RAM previewed in a lot of different comps or if you’re doing anything that limits the amount of RAM available to your Image Cache. You can go to Edit > Purge > Image Cache to delete all of the images cached in your RAM and start fresh.

Also, you can make your RAM previews longer by using Shift-RAM Preview (Shift-numpad 0 by default) to skip every other frame (I also like to set Shift-0 to render at half res). If you’re rendering at a lower resolution you’ll be able to fit more frames in your Image Cache and if you’re skipping every other frame that will effectively double the length of your RAM preview. The downside is that you’ll only get a rough motion preview without all the detail that will be present in the final render.

I recommend setting your RAM Preview and your Shift-RAM Preview to render from the playhead. This way you can preview your comp in sections, using Shift-RAM Preview when you only want to see the way things are moving and RAM Preview when you want to check for details.

[Darby Edelen]

I’ve only ever installed versions of AE off of the stand alone AE discs. I know that depending on your OS and the version of AE you’re installing the location of the effects will vary. For example, under Windows XP for AE 7 I believe there is a button on the main splash page for the AE 7 Installer that allows you to install the 3rd party effects. For AE 6.5 on the Mac there was a folder on the AE disc that was named something like “3rd Party Tools” that had the installer for CC. I would be surprised if there weren’t some information either in your user manual or online about where to find these effects for your particular version/OS.

If it comes right down to it you can try inserting the AE disc and searching it for ‘Cycore’ or ‘CC’.

[Darby Edelen]

I’m not familiar with IGES files, but a short bit of research online shows that they can be imported into Adobe Acrobat 3D:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?event=view&id=KC.329371&extid=329371

(I couldn’t find any information on Illustrator’s support)

You could try Acrobat 3D preview version 8 from https://labs.adobe.com/technologies/acrobat3d_version8/ and perhaps it will import an IGES file that you can then export to something Illustrator will be more comfortable with? Or maybe Illustrator is capable of handling IGES files… Like I said, I’m not very familiar with the format!

[Darby Edelen]

I don’t think you want to bother with DPI when you’re going to video, I’m pretty sure that most video applications expect 72 DPI. If you want the text to be larger than the NTSC Frame (720×480) then try changing the canvas size of your document to 1440×960 and scaling that down to 50% inside of Premiere (or whatever else you’re working in) but leave the DPI at 72.

Have you tried importing the PSD file directly into Premiere instead of exporting from Photoshop? Also, what ‘export settings’ have you tried?

[Darby Edelen]

Well the problem with going from Square Pixels to 0.9 Pixels is that you’ll lose resolution either way you go. That said your options are as follows:

1) Change the Image Size of the document to 111% width and 100% height. At a 0.9 Pixel Aspect Ratio your document will appear to be 111 * 0.9 = 99.9% of its original width.

2) Create a new Photoshop document using the NTSC DV preset (720×480 0.9 PAR). Make sure Pixel Aspect Ratio Preview is on. Shift drag the layers from your Square Pixel document into the NTSC DV document, they should automatically adapt to the new PAR.

[Darby Edelen]

[charlesb] “How would you go about compositing this alpha channel in photoshop?
Could I remove the black?

Or to the opposite:
If I was to put an image behind this alpha, would it be possible to see it while retaining the shadow information?”

I’m not sure what the goal is, but if you just want to recreate the shadow you had in your 3D program in Photoshop then you could make a selection from the alpha channel (ctrl or cmd-click it) and use Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection on a new layer. Then fill that layer with whatever color your shadow should be (black probably?).

I hope that’s what you meant by compositing. An alpha channel can be used for effects as well (such as using one as a height map in Lighting Effects or to control a Lens Blur). Let me know if there’s a more specific effect you’re trying for.

[Darby Edelen]

[Will Martindale] “the cartoonifacation process”

I’m not familiar with the process, so that might be part of the problem =)

I forgot that it’s Live Trace in Illustrator, I was thinking of the Auto Trace feature in AE.

[Darby Edelen]

[bliesvm] “I have just a little trouble: with your explanations I got something like a mill and 1st and 10th layer are too narrow (2 in 1). Where I was wrong ?”

Check this article out, it may help you understand polar coordinates a bit better:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Coordinates

Now, here’s a new workflow that might work better for you. For my sake I’m going to assume a comp size of 720 x 480, but I’ll give you other info in case you’re not working with that resolution:

1) Create a new composition, we’ll be doing all our work in a ‘pre-comp’

2) Create an adjustment layer the same size as the comp, all the solid layers will go below this.

3) Create a solid in your new composition that is 36 pixels wide (comp width divided by 20) and 480 pixels tall (comp height).

4) Set this solid layer’s anchor point and position to [0,0]. It should be on the very far left side of the comp.

5) Apply this expression to the position:

x = (index - 2) * (thisLayer.width * 2);
y = 0;
[x,y]

6) Now duplicate the solid layer 9 times for a total of 10 layers, each 36 pixels wide. The expression spaces them evenly across the comp with one solid on the left edge and empty space on the right edge (this empty space is important).

7) Apply the Distort > Polar Coordinates effect to the Adjustment Layer and bring Interpolation up to 100%.

You will have to adjust the layer’s original width depending on the comp size and how many solid layers you want to fit in the comp. You can use this formula to determine your solid width: composition width / (number of solids * 2).

Hope that helps!

[Darby Edelen]

[westerly] “I need to keep these at a great quality for the video- but is there a way I can make the size of each file smaller? I just rendered out an animated logo in another program (same video size) and its only 15 megs! Is there a codec or something I can use to lower the size of these files?”

Well the codec you want to use will depend on the footage’s final destination. What codec did you use for the render from the other program? If you’re working with 720×480 footage for NTSC output then you can probably use the QuickTime NTSC DV/DVCPRO codec.