[David Bogie]

> Are there any pitfalls?
And what is the industry-standard way of delivery the finished opening titles?< Plenty of gotchas and, no, there are no standards for anything in this biz anymore. Film generally goes at 2k or 4k rez, not a problem for AE. The problems are image format, pixel aspect ratio and getting s decent designer who understands not only titling but effects. There's a book on amazon about titling for movies. bogiesasn This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

Try saving out of AI in lower common denominators. You can use different AI versions in the dropdown menu for Save As.

Try opening up the Illustrator section of the AE manual. I don’t think you’ve said you’ve actually done that. Follow the steps very carefully. You may have a newer rev of Illustrator than your AE can see, you may not have the right AICB setup. Try using some of the AI clip art objects or just try making some simple stuff.

Other question: Are you absolutely sure the objects are not in AE? They might be black lines on a black background. Try looking at just the alpha.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

Try searching for RUBIK RUBIKS and RUBIX. All generate long lists.

I wish you tons of luck but unless you are REALLY good at 3d, expressions and parenting, you are not going to get this out in a week.

Do you have a possibly alternative design suggestion?

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

I think we benefit from this cool tutorial the most by trying to figure it out. But, yes, you unparent each object one frame later in the sequence.

The idea is that, in PAL, the 25 objects have all been dispersed in a perfect circle after one second. Now all you need to do is unparent them and they’ll stay in place.

This is a little-known but common technique for dispersion of 3d objects. The first time I saw it was when Brian Maffit did his SPACE COASTER tutorial.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

> Thanks for that. I have to ask another question though. Having not used expressions where is it I paste that script into.< You'll need to study expressions a wee bit. Not too difficult but very confusing the first few times. Open the manual and the online help systems, plus there is a complete section here on the cow for AE scripts and expressions, umm, I think. Just remember the RETURN key puts in a carriage return. You need to use the numerica pad ENTER key to exit expressions. bogiesan This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

Your list of basics is nothing like my list of stuff that’s either been broken (or left out of FCP deliberately) since v1.

I don’t see much on your list that interests me in the slightest. Not that’s it’s a bad list, it just illustrates the problem the development team faces: Whose bugs and features do they work on?

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

Not enough information, I’m afraid. Which of the hundreds of different “old movie” effects are you trying to do? There literally dozens, thousands if you include subtle variations.

The question comes up here and on every other FCP forum at least once a week so you can search for many interesting threads with suggestions on how to do it within FCP and how to purchase a wide selection of plugs. Depends on the particular effects you think you need to call “old movie.”

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

Strongly urge you to contact your station and ask to talk to the engineering staff. Ask if there isn’t some way you can bring in your file and have them make the corrections for you.
Or recommend a house to help you with this.

Find out what they need for delivery. If they are accepting a digital file, their playback management system should be able to handle the levels for you — but they won’t do it for you. It will be against their policy.
They probably accept digiBeta or other standard tape formats. Find out which one and find a shop in town that will make the tape for you while running your show through a proc amp/diagnostic system.

If you keep trying to mess with yourself, you’re going to get nowhere. But, if you’re going to keep messing with it, make a complete backup copy of your edited master’s media files and play with the copies of your media.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

I have no idea what you’re seeing in your head but all you need is a looping movie of simulated road lines? White or yellow?

You can create a text layer that uses six m-dashes, animate the margin.
In order form them to appear to loop, the first one only has to get as far as the second one. Umm, that’s not very clear. Looping is an easy thing to do but establishing the loop point is confusing. But you see that all six dashes are exactly the same? You don’t have to get dash one to loop around to dash 6, you just need to create the illusion that dash 2 takes over for dash 1.

ONce you have this short movie rendered, you can import it and set it to loop (or use a loop expression before rendering). You can add a solid yellow line on one side or the other to add
some no passing zones.

bogiesan.

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

I’d look at Card Dance and Shatter. Either can be driven with a grayscale (in the case of Card Dance, a grayscale movie with a different grayscale image on each color channel can be used to drive four different parameters). Card Dance is way under-appreciated and very powerful.

With Shatter, you’d blow your image to pieces and then run the movie backwards.

However, if you already have some of Trap’s fine tools, someone will be along shortly to help you through that exercise.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”