[David Bogie]

Using two spheres, on inside the other, is a fabulously cool solution. Hardly anyone understands it’s possible to do just by putting one layer on top of the other and making the spheres different sizes.
Also, my usual contribution to the Earth Sphere paradigm:
Be sure you have the planet rotating properly so the sun rises in the east.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

Forget the shortcuts; more trouble than they’re worth. Just get down and make all of the changes, one at a time. You can format a Word document and copy-paste to save tons of time but even that can be more trouble than the time saved is worth.

However, you want the formatting changes to be approved BEFORE you have to make them all yet again.

There are guidelines for text on screen: glyph size, shadows, colors, outlines. Which standards you need to apply depend on your release media and proposed viewing distances.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

[Chris Davis] “Everyone there is suggesting AE, which may have something to do with the section in which I put the thread. “

No, that’s not it. AE will get your through anything, Motion is a bit more restrictive, by design, to have a more immediate and interactive feel specifically helpful for shorter form projects and stuff that need interactive linking to FCP. If you want to do stuff with Adobe artists, you must have After Effects. if you are collaborating with Avid users, you won’t want Motion.

If you have AE, you will use only AE. if you have Final Cut Studio and no CS4 apps, you will use only Motion.
If you have them both, you will use them both.
I use them both. I use After Effects daily. I use Motion only when I must.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

Saving as templates is covered in the manual.
Crating drop zones is, umm, covered in the manual.

Here it is:

Creating New Templates
In addition to using and customizing the templates that ship with Motion, you can also build your own templates from scratch. Template files contain everything that ordinary projects do, including media objects, text objects, shapes, generators, behaviors, and filters, in any combination.

You can create custom templates for commonly used shots that you regularly create. For example, if you make titles for a news program, you can create templates for the opening title, interstitial graphics, bumpers, and whatever other repetitious shots you regularly create. Once saved as a template, you can quickly load the necessary template and, instead of having to create a new title from scratch, simply customize it with new dates, title text, and exchanged graphics and movies to reflect the requirements of each new program.

Templates are simply Motion files that are saved in a special way. To create a new template, create the layout you need just like with any other Motion project. In preparation for using the layout as a template, you should keep the following things in mind:

Naming Objects in the Layers List
The names you give to the groups and layers in your template should indicate each object’s function. For example, you might name the text objects in a titling template “Main Title,” “Starring,” “Guest Star,” and so on. If you use visual elements in the template’s composition, describe their purpose, such as “Background Texture,” “Divider,” “Main Title Background,” and so on. This way, when someone else wants to customize your template, it’s easy to see what they’re supposed to do with it.

Using Drop Zones
Drop zones provide a way for template users to intuitively and quickly replace footage in a template. There are two ways to create drop zones. The first creates a drop zone from scratch, and the second converts an existing object into a drop zone.

To create a new drop zone
The Image tab of the Inspector contains controls to adjust the drop zone:

Drop Zone: A checkbox that toggles whether an object is a drop zone.

Fit: A pop‑up menu where you can choose between three different methods of object placement within the drop zone. Values can be selected from Fit, Center, and Stretch. Fit automatically modifies the Scale parameter so the new media is scaled proportionally to fit the dimensions of the drop zone. Center does not modify the object in any way, merely centering it in the drop zone. If media of a different resolution than the project is used, the new resolution is used without any changes to the Scale parameter. If Stretch is selected, the dropped object is scaled and stretched to fit the dimensions of the drop zone.

Clear: A button that clears the image from the drop zone, replacing it with the default generic placeholder graphic.

[David Bogie]

This isn’t easy at all. Applying filters to emulate your CGI components’ look can’t be very difficult although it will be terribly time-consuming. The real issue is physics. CGI tends to be ultra-real and video tends to merely look real. The “look” is not as important as the physics. CGI elements tend to have an unnatural fluidity and a physical presence that is compounded with interactions that are obviously fake or programmed. Stuff just doesn’t look right.

So you need to shoot your live people with careful direction. You need to light them with the same sources you’re using in your CGI. You need costumes and hair fixes that emulate the same drapery, reflectivity, and procedural movement algorithms in your CGI app.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

Just try to locate any stock movie of a plane in flight. Stuff that moves does so in relationship to the foreground and background; a visual phenomenon known as parallax. If the camera is tracking the plane, everything moves differently.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

Got no time to look at the tutorial, I’ve got my own deadlines. You make it a 3D layer and then position it in z space. However, CC Particle World is a 3D effect only in its own layer. If you’re bringing it into a 3D comp, the particles do not react with the rest of the 3D elements.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

DV is always 29.97, umm, I think. When you shoot 24 on DV, it gets baked into a 29.97 format becaue DV is 29.97.

I don’t know why it’s squeezed unless you’re trying to print the anamorphic version or are actually trying to output the 16×9. If so, it will be scaled/squeezed.

Your 16×9 video must have been scaled down to fit into a conventional DV sequence, throwing away most of your resolution. You apply the letterbox bars, render. Now you have a terrible DV version of your lovely HDV work but it will print to tape with a simple push of a button.

Umm, stick around for a day or two, someone with a better answer will get your unsqueezed.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

Who you end up talking to all depends on your issue. But if you have any experience with off-planet call centers, just keep asking the poor guy to move you up the ladder to the next level of assistance. This doesn’t work with call centers where the culture is to get you off the line but it does work with cultures that are service oriented. Try to be patient, realize they have no clue what you’re talking about, they are required to follow their scripts, they can be instantly fired, and there are fifty people who’d do anything to get their job.

The only time I’ve dealt with Adobe customer service was via email. It was obvious that english was a foreign language and the individual had no idea what After Effects was. But it went well.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

q[Amer Halasa] “Light intensity is positive, and the light is close enough to the object. I don’t think this is the problem, even parallel lights are not working.
I just imported a previously done project that has working lights and it worked just fine! But when i copy individual layers and lights into a new composition, everything goes black!!”

Umm, okay, but we’re moving into the realm of incredulity. Open the AE help system to LIGHTS and start going through the setup procedures, one step at a time. You have a something set up incorrectly. I’m guessing your light is starting later in the comp than you think. It’s not really “on” yet.

Try here, too:
https://www.focalpress.com/uploadedFiles/Books/Book_Media/Film_and_Video/AEA2-12-FinalProject_excerpt.pdf

bogiesan