[Dave Johnson]

Point taken, Walter, and I do appreciate the tip since I’ve gathered from your other posts that you give very good advice. I will take a closer look at color … as soon as I stop myself from spending so much of my little downtime perusing forums and the like. ;~)

[Dave Johnson]

[Paul Kondo] “I never thought of CC but then again, I never have to do that or have the capability to do that.”

Sure you do … just because you haven’t thus far doesn’t mean you shouldn’t or aren’t capable … especially since you have the tools.

[Paul Kondo] “using the time remapping function in FCP”
That’s another of the things I avoid doing in FCP whenever possible since I find it to be clunky and yield relatively poor results.

[Paul Kondo] “seeing where it’s beneficial for me to use one over the other”

Exactly … the bottom line is whatever works for you in your circumstance is the right way to go. Just know going into it that AE is definitely not the kind of software one learns overnight. You might consider one of the main reasons this and other AE forums are amongst the most active software forums on the web … because even those of us who have been using it for years realize that it is such an enormously deep and mature program that there are always new things to learn about it. Basically, I’d advise starting out by first focusing on learning to do the things in AE that you find FCP to be insufficient for as they relate directly to your particular needs.

[Dave Johnson]

I’m sure you’re right, Walter … for me personally, I guess it’s just that I’m getting to be an old dog now and my current circumstance doesn’t allow much time for new tricks so I often have to just stick with what has always worked well for me. I’m sure I’ll venture into Color more someday … probably around version 10 or so. ;~)

[Dave Johnson]

Just create a text layer above the tile (using the text tool) or use the Basic Text plugin on the tile layer. If you put the text on a separate layer just parent that text layer to the tile layer so it will follow the tile around.

My guess is you’ll probably need to manipulate the text somehow to make it convincingly appear to be actually on the tile, rather than just floating above it. You might try plugins in the Distort folder for that such as Corner Pin, Bezier Warp, etc.

[Dave Johnson]

Bret makes a good point about color correction in AE … I shouldn’t have included it when mentioning things I do in AE versus FCP without proper explanation of why I do some CC in AE.

I too would advise against doing CC with AE in most cases unless you have access to non-standard CC tools in AE like Color Finesse (which includes scopes), Magic Bullet Suite, Tiffen DFX, some other similar plugins, an external NTSC monitor and external scopes.

Although I have to admit it’s also partially because I worked in AE for many years before FCP and just enjoy working in AE more, the main reason I choose to do about 50% of CC in AE is because I often need or want to more closely align the color grading and similar effects on the project’s live video with the elements generated in AE (and/or Photoshop or Illustrator) and/or composite the two together in AE. By the way, I mean 50% of my total projects, not 50% of a single project … I’d never advise doing some CC for a single project in AE and some in FCP … unless you desire chaos.

For me, where I do the CC depends entirely on the specific needs of the project at hand … just kinda glossed over the details of this particular topic in my previous post.

[Dave Johnson]

When you make a new mask, it defaults to a mask mode that makes portions of the image transparent so perhaps you just haven’t turned on the transparency grid visibility in the comp viewer, which would mean you will see the black default background color instead of the transparency grid even though the area is actually transparent.

Sorry, I don’t recall off-hand what the icon looks like, but if you are not entirely familiar with the various controls in AE, it might benefit you to turn on the “tool tips” in preferences so you can just hover your mouse over a control to see what it does.

[Dave Johnson]

Thanks for sharing that link, Joe. Pre-written downloadable expressions are nice sometimes since the terminology differences can make things difficult and, to me, scripting makes the creative process too much like programming.

[Dave Johnson]

If u need to make a lot of FLVs and quality matters to you, you can’t go wrong with Flix. I don’t see the FLV format going away in the near future either … just another factor to consider since for some people paying $400 for a piece of software is worthwhile if we only get a few years use out of it, but others may need it to last much longer in order for it to be a worthwhile purchase.

[Dave Johnson]

What I meant is that the On2 products only make FLVs. Granted FLVs are the dominant web video format right now, but in a business where things change frequently and sometimes drastically, it is questionable whether and how long FLVs will remain the dominant web video format. So, I just meant that whether it is really feasible for you to spend the money on software that only makes that format is a choice only you can make based on your particular circumstances and budget.

I’m not aware of any software or codecs comparable to On2’s products for generating good quality FLVs. In fact, although I don’t know this to be concrete fact, my understanding is that On2 (and their predecessor WildForm) actually developed or helped develop the FLV format. And, this part I know to be fact … the VP6 and VP7 codecs On2’s products use to generate better FLVs than any other software I’ve used are proprietary codecs developed by On2 and the codec is what is really responsible for the output … the software interfaces just add additional features.

[Dave Johnson]

Yes, the position of the anchor point can be animated just like any other property, but I’m not sure that’ll accomplish what you want to do and wouldn’t necessarily be the easiest approach either.

Sorry I don’t recall the names of individual plugins well enough and don’t always recall which ones came with AE and which ones are third party, but there are a number of them that’ll do what you’ve described. In fact, almost any of them in the Distort folder depending on the exact look you’re going for, although some will make it harder than need be. I think the easiest ones are called something like Wave Warp and Ripple.

I hope this helps.