Darby Edelen
Forum Replies Created
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[Sam Beesems] “check off straight alpha channel.”
This was your problem.
Darby Edelen
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[Jeff Hinkle] “Ah, I see the problem. Try turning off your Gradient Overlay effect on your blue rectangle layer. That effect is being applied to both layers in the clipping group. Turn off the effect and your highlight layer should pop back into existence.”
You could also leave the Gradient Overlay on and in the Blending Options section of the Layer Style dialog disable “Blend Clipped Layers as Group” and enable “Blend Interior Effects as Group.” Then any layer styles you apply to either layer will not interfere with the other.
Darby Edelen
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You could use the eyedropper to sample the colors.
Darby Edelen
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The Edit > Transform > Warp tool might work for you (I believe you can do this to smart objects in CS5 and up). Alternatively Edit > Puppet Warp (like the Puppet Tool in After Effects) or Filter > Liquify.
Darby Edelen
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[vipati hitesh] “1. What is Xpresso and Thinking particles?
2. Difference between simple particles and thinking particles
3. What can I do with them? I mean what are uses of them?
4. How can I learn about them ? Beacause I am learning online, no one is here to help me
5. Is there any website from where I can learn from begaing?”
At the most basic level Xpresso takes inputs, performs operations, and gives outputs. It uses a node based system to do this where the left side of a node can accept various input data then perform some operation on that data and output various resulting data on the right side of the node.
Thinking Particles can be controlled using Xpresso. There are several dozen Xpresso nodes that are specifically for creating, modifying and killing thinking particles. Values from all particles (as well as each individual particle) are open to modification through Xpresso.
Xpresso is useful far beyond just Thinking Particles and I’d generally recommend becoming familiar with Xpresso before Thinking Particles.
Here’s a great site for getting started:
https://bonkers.de/xpa/index.html
Here are some more advanced resources for both:
https://motioneers.net/tag/xpresso/
https://www.helloluxx.com/category/cinema4d-thinking-particles/Darby Edelen
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[Ashton Rosendahl] “I am primarily a 3D artist and both maya and 3ds max have tools that allow you to do this (freeze transformations (maya), reset transforms (max)). Is there anyway to do this in after effects?”
The only similar solution would be to:
1) Create a new Null object.
2) Hold shift and parent the null to the object you want to zero out.
3) Unparent the null.
4) Parent the object to the null.
It’s not a pretty solution but it will effectively ‘freeze’ your layer’s transforms. Generally this isn’t something you’d do on the tail end in After Effects seeing as it’s a bit of a pain. Most of the time I’d either start with a parent/child set up or write my expressions to take the layer’s transforms into account.
Darby Edelen
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[Max Jackson] “Ah! Thank you!!! This roto’s been driving me crazy.”
If you’re doing roto work and don’t want the adaptive resolution to kick in you could turn off “Live Update” instead of turning adaptive resolution off. The difference would be that the comp won’t re-render (or update) until you let go of your mouse. Might be easier to make fine adjustments to your mask path without waiting for the full quality preview to render.
Note that this switch is one of the major “gotchas” in AE in that if you accidentally turn it on or forget that you turned it on it can be a pain to remember to turn it off 🙂
Check it out in the Help.
Darby Edelen
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[Travis Dao] “To clean up the spill do you mean to use spill suppressor?”
I find AE’s spill suppressor very limiting.
Here’s a sure fire way to get rid of spill. Duplicate the keyed footage, remove any other effects so you have the source, add Channel Mixer and set the Green channel to a 50/50 split of Red and Blue. Now put this layer above the keyed footage and set it to the Darken blend mode. You’ll also need to clip the layer to the keyed footage either by using a track matte, set matte or preserve transparency.
Here’s an image that shows a simple set up.
Darby Edelen
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[Christopher Dreger] “Thanks. I have tried this in Trapcode and I get some good smoke, but AfterEffect’s lights don’t affect it as a 3D form.”
The latest versions of Particular do allow you to light the particles with standard AE lights and even cast shadows. With older versions of particular I believe you could use the ‘Smoke’ particle type and have shadows.
These operations are not volumetric in the classic sense but it’s usually a good enough approximation and it’s faster than trying to do it in a 3D package 🙂
Check under the “Shading” section if you have Particular 2.0 or later. I’d read up on it a bit online as well.
Darby Edelen
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Not terribad but a little light on RAM. Honestly any computer will suffer from super slow render times if you throw enough at it. Are your compositions fairly simple? Are you using “render multiple frames simultaneously” and if so: what are your settings? Have you checked out Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor while the render is in progress?
Darby Edelen
