[Dave Johnson]

Christopher Wright – “Discreet edit had crystal clear slo-mo and speed up over 10 years ago that didn’t ripple the TL and would work in Real Time beautifully at any speed, even fractionals. … Discreet edit could do two layers of alpha in real time. It seems as the processors get better, the performance gets worse.”

I too worked on Discreet Edit and can confirm that you’re exactly right … I often wonder why it’s so difficult for today’s NLE’s to do things the NLE’s of 10-15 years ago could do easily. It seems that as everyone and their brother got into the video editing and NLE software games, and the NLE’s became increasingly designed to be all things to all people instead of just good NLEs, the various technologies/advantages were increasingly dispersed amongst more and more competitors so there are no longer NLEs that do all the standard things any editor needs (like time remapping, alphas, etc.) and do them all well. Perhaps we should just all have one NLE for time remapping, another for keying, another for mastering, etc.!!

[Dave Johnson]

This question seems more appropriate for Trapcode (or Red Giant) software support or, at the very least, one of the forums dedicated to that software, but you should be able to uninstall it like any other software … via the software’s uninstaller or through add/remove programs (if on a Windows machine … if on a Mac, just delete the folder the plugin installation created within AE’s plugin folder).

[Dave Johnson]

Which method will work best depends on the footage and how extreme of an effect is desired and it sometimes takes a combination of all of them to get the desired effect:

1. Max out the motion blur settings in the comp settings (keep in mind that a layer has to move in order for motion blur to have any effect) and sometimes render, re-import and add additional blurs.

2. Use a duplicate layer of the footage on top of the main layer and use a directional blur, some other smear effect or a combination of several.

3. Use a “motion trails” plugin like the one in the BCC set

Depending on the details of the footage and desired effect (whether the trails/blur should be on just the subject moving through the frame or the entire frame), more advanced techniques rotoscoping and keying may be necessary in combination with the methods above.

[Dave Johnson]

Just this morn, my email subscription to Millimeter mag dropped me a link to the is review that begins to address that question:

https://digitalcontentproducer.com/desktoppost/depth/final_cut_pro_7_723/?smte=wr

[Dave Johnson]

With no network storage and the need to work on the project at the same time, one approach might be to assign sections to the various animators and have a team lead, so to speak, responsible for coordinating the efforts and bringing together the final project.

Even with network storage, there is the potential issue of various animators altering source media and affecting all other animators (i.e., if someone needs to take a still image into Photoshop).

You’ll definitely want to make sure certain things are consistent with everyone who touches the project (codecs, color spaces, resolutions, etc.) … perhaps create one master project with all the external media imported and organized to the degree possible, then save out copies to pass to the various animators.

I hope this helps.

[Dave Johnson]

AE plugins have been discussed exhaustively on this forum by myself and many others for years so searches of past threads for “plug-ins” and “plugins” will give you all the info you need … there are tons of plugins available for AE, but which ones will suit you depends entirely on your budget and the kinds of work you do out of the very many things AE is used for (compositing, mograph, special FX, etc.).

[Dave Johnson]

This page has tons of logos that can be used for that purpose:

https://www.visual.gi/logoteca/logos.html

The page is in Spanish and many of the logos are outdated, but neither should affect your ability to download and use the logos for practice.

By the way, as someone who sometimes has to review other people’s reels and factor their prior work into hiring decisions, I for one would appreciate the person admitting up front that the examples weren’t actual paid work product for the companies whose logos are used … for example, that the person didn’t actually make commercials for Coca-Cola, but how you handle that is obviously your call.

[Dave Johnson]

There may be another way I’m not aware of (and I should be ashamed if that’s the case after 10 years using AE), but the only ways I know of are to either create the masks in the desired order or reorder them by dragging the last one to the first position in the timeline layer.

[Dave Johnson]

In addition to the manual, perhaps it would be beneficial to take a look at some of the countless previous posts on this topic … a few in particular by Dave LaRonde come to mind since they explain the answers to your specific questions and others implied within them.

AE isn’t and wasn’t intended to be an NLE like FCP, etc., which is why it doesn’t function like one. The fact is that much of what the Film, TV and Video industries are today was built on the shoulders of Adobe’s software and, more specifically, After Effects. Perhaps before slamming After Effects in an After Effects forum, you might consider that the real issue is your own lack of understanding, rather than that there is something wrong with the software.

If you like your DAW and other software better, perhaps you should just do what you need to do in that other software. No offense since it might actually be beneficial to you for someone to say this before you waste a ton of time … you sound precisely the opposite type of editor that generally has any success at all with AE.

Best of luck. Cheers.

[Dave Johnson]

As with most things in AE, there’s a hundred ways to do this … to do it using linear wipe, just apply the effect to the layer twice and make each of the two wipes go in opposite directions.