Darby Edelen
Forum Replies Created
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Both of the provided solutions work, but I’ll offer a third anyway!
1. Copy the layer’s scale
2. Create a new null
3. Parent the layer to the null
4. Unlink the XY dimensions on the null’s scale property
5. With both the null and the layer selected, scale the null down in the y dimension only
6. Unparent the layer and paste its scale back to the pre-parented valueThe disadvantage here is that it’s a one way street, but you can re-parent it to the null and make further adjustments if necessary. The advantage is that it shows you the motion path live while you change the scale of the parent null and it doesn’t involve any expressions.
Additionally, you can move the null to a new location before parenting the layer to it and scale toward a different point in the composition. The null essentially works as the anchor point for the motion path’s scaling.
Darby Edelen
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The polygon reduction deformer triangulates the mesh even with a strength of 0%. If you want the object without the polygon reduction deformer to appear the same as the one with the deformer at 0% I think you’ll have to triangulate the mesh.
In R13 this is located here: Mesh > Commands > Triangulate
Darby Edelen
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You’ll have to use a front and a back layer. You can parent the back layer to the front layer, rotate the back layer 180° and apply this expression to the opacity of both layers:
https://motionscript.com/design-guide/invisible-facing-away.html
This will hide whichever side is facing away from the camera so you won’t get that z-buffer interference pattern.
Darby Edelen
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Lights only affect 3D layers that have their “Accepts Lights” property set to ‘On.’ Once your layer is a 3D layer you can press ‘aa’ to reveal the material options where this property resides.
However, you might consider using color correction effects to lighten up your footage instead. These are generally better for changing the overall look of footage. Read up on the Color Correction > Levels or Color Correction > Curves effect.
Darby Edelen
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[Shane Sackett] “I have heard two answers from friends, I’d like to get second opinions as well. One says that upgrading to an SSD drive would greatly improve speeds. The other says that upgrading my graphics card would helps speeds. Is there any validity to either of these suggestions???”
Graphics card won’t do squat unless you’re dealing with the new raytracing feature in CS6.
An internal SSD would improve your system’s strained relationship with AE. However, there is no silver bullet.
To get the most out of AE you’d really have to remove as many of the potential slow downs as possible. While the current MacBook Pro does have impressive specs (for a laptop) it’s really quite wimpy next to a current workstation.
If you added an SSD you’d probably experience a speed up, but still be at the mercy of the relatively weak (speaking as a professional/nerd) CPU.
Also, Todd kind of hinted at this, but try transcoding your footage to a codec that AE can decode faster. Depending on your other criteria for codec I might suggest ProRes HQ or Photo JPEG.
Darby Edelen
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Very vague question my friend. Could you provide some examples?
If you just want any old abstract run the Filter Gallery and play with the filters until you’ve significantly fudged up your image.
Darby Edelen
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Well, one thing that jumps out at me is that you’re using the ^ operator, which doesn’t do what you want it to. The ^ is a bitwise XOR operation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitwise_operation#XOR
What you want to do is probably closer to:
x = effect(“X”)(“Slider”) – effect(“X”)(“Slider”).valueAtTime(time – framesToTime(1));
Math.pow(x, 2);Also I’m not sure that all of your expressions are necessary for your stated goal. If you want the rate of change of the null’s position have you tried:
thisComp.layer(“End of Shot”).transform.position.speed;
The result is in pixels/second. No need to get Pythagoras involved 🙂
Darby Edelen
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[Ridley Walker] “I’ve found those times wildly inaccurate since AE seems to guess based on the time it takes to render the current frame and assumes that all future frames will take as long.”
I believe it’s based on the current average frame render time rather than the current frame only.
Render time of all previous frames / the number of frames currently rendered * the number of remaining frames = your estimated time remaining.
Still not entirely accurate, but close if your render has a relatively constant render load across its duration.
Darby Edelen
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[Chris Shaw] “The camera pan’s through hundreds of particles and I want it so that the sprite particles start playing at different times but I can’t seem to get it to work.”
I’m pretty sure you need to change your Particle Texture’s Time Sampling method. Try either one of the Start at Birth modes or one of the Random modes.
Darby Edelen
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[Dec Gallacher] “I have an out of focus object which I’m obscuring with a blurry solid, but as the camera moves, an object in the foreground crosses the desired object’s path. I’m struggling to blur out the solid adequately while not bleeding into the sharp object in the foreground.”
This is a little confusing. You refer to a camera moving, an out of focus object, a blurry solid and a foreground object without ever telling us whether you’re talking about real world objects or AE cameras/layers.
Based on the question I’m going to assume that you have a video with the out of focus and sharp foreground objects in it and the blurry solid is the only other AE layer. If that’s the case your solution will likely be duplicating your footage, separating the foreground object and placing this copy above the blurry solid.
There are several ways to separate the foreground object from the rest of the shot. You could use masks, try the rotobrush or maybe even key if the foreground object has distinct colors.
The blending mode will be normal.
Darby Edelen