[David Johnson]

You’re welcome, Guido. I’m very glad that my input was helpful.

[Guido Agüero] “I figure this out trying different things”

In my opinion, that is the best way to learn how to do things in AE since what you learn yourself tends to stick with you better than just mimicking the steps of a tutorial … it works that way for me anyway.

[David Johnson]

I’ve done that exact style of effects many times, but forgive me as I struggle through trying to articulate what needs to be done … when working in AE, I tend to do whatever needs to be done to get the result I want, rather than do things via formulaic tutorial-style methods … that making it up as I go along approach seems to make it much harder to explain how I did something.

First, if I recall correctly, doing it with animated masks on the footage or with solid layer track mattes is a six / half dozen kind of thing … the same unless I’m forgetting a gotcha that either method introduces.

[james simpson] “If it is done using animated masks then how do they make sure the distance between the lines is consistent”
I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at there, but perhaps this is it … with either method the lines are on top of the masks or done via an edge effect so, if on top of the masks, they don’t have to be exact … just close enough to cover the splits. In other words, if the lines are 10 pixels wide, you have a range of 10 pixel accuracy for the edges of the masks. I hope the way I said that part makes sense outside of my brain. ;~)

Or, if you meant how do you get the timing of the various lines motion to match, there are several ways … parent individual lines to each other, make several lines as one layer with the holes created by masks and move each set of lines as one, use precomps, or carefully time the movement manually … which is best depends on the specific layout you want and your preference.

[james simpson] “how do you get a solid shape that can be animated and then break of into 3d space”
Simple … precomp the solid and the footage it is a track matte for, then make the precomp layer a 3D layer and animate it in 3D space to your heart’s content.

One more thing I forgot to mention since I always work with multiple viewer windows in AE … that is essential for this type of design.

I hope my two pence is helpful … I find it very hard to explain this kind of stuff in writing versus just showing someone who is sitting next to me, but that seems easier for some folks to do so, if nothing I’ve said makes sense to you, I hope someone else will do a better job of explaining it. Cheers.

[David Johnson]

You do realize that there is no way to scale video above 100% and retain full resolution, right? For example, just like still images (which are generally 4-16 times the resolution of video), scaling a video to 200% screen size means cutting the resolution in half, scaling to 400% is cutting resolution to one-fourth, etc. So, images are never going to look as clean scaled up as they do at 100%.

Just to be clear, nothing I’m saying is counter to anything Michael has said … both the video and the vector images are reduced resolution when scaled … it’s just more noticeable with the vectors due the sharp edges. Blurring the edges of the vectors and/or adding a very faint glow to the edges before rendering the output will help some, but nothing is going to make them look the same scaled as they do at normal size.

A screen shot of your particular images would indeed allow offering more specific suggestions.

[David Johnson]

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/202/891550

[David Johnson]

If they’re self-contained files and won’t play at all on another computer, that means they’re either in a codec that computer doesn’t have or that computer doesn’t have QT installed … if the former, you’ll need to transcode the files.

[David Johnson]

A QT reference file is just a pointer that references other files on the computer it was generated on so there is no way to get a reference file to play on a separate computer that does not have the files it points to … you need a self-contained file to play on other computers.

In other words, in your statement “a qt file that is referenced to fcp and will often not open on other computers”, the words “often not” should be “never”.

[David Johnson]

The simplest way may be to split the arrow L into two pieces (either by duplicating and masking AE layers or making separate layers in Illustrator), animate the X or Y scale of each side of the L separately so that the second starts just as the first ends and animate the position of the the arrow head to correspond. You’ll need to move the anchor points of the L sides so they grow from where they should.

I think it will all only take 7 key frames – 2 each for the start and end X or Y scales of each piece of the L and 1 each for the start, corner and end positions of the arrow head. In the illustrious words of another COW member … easy peasy lemon squeezy.

By the way, another option might be to use a linear wipe on the arrow L and and keyframe the wipe angle at the corner, then animate the position of the the arrow head to correspond … the greatest thing about AE is that there’s a million ways to do everything so you get to choose whichever one you like best.

[David Johnson]

Sorry I can’t take the time to hunt down and send links to tutorials, but the straight answers to your questions are: yes, the things you mentioned are among the kinds of things AE is very good for (as good as or better than any other software) and “easy” is a relative term … AE is not the kind of software one can learn in a day or week by just clicking around on a few things, but the things mentioned aren’t terribly difficult either. That said, if your standard is film level, you may be better off having an experienced compositor do them than expecting to get photo-realism after dabbling in AE as a beginner for a few days or weeks … or even months or years depending on how much time one puts in and how good one is … the bottom line is what level of passable is considered acceptable for a particular project.

I hope my two pence is helpul. Best of luck.

[David Johnson]

My pleasure, Jay. I’m glad you found my input helpful.

I’ll add to my comments just to further clarify my points …
I agree with Rafael … if you believe the new paradigm in video editing Apple is trying to create with FCPX will take hold (which most pro editors do not seem to believe), FCPX will eventually become the software choice for most editors going forward. If you don’t believe that, it will only be the software choice for hobbyists who use Macs. So, my suggestion to start with iMovie and possibly move to FCPX later is based on three things:
1] you already have iMovie so it seems premature for someone in your situation to spend money on a new venture before its truly necessary
2] you’ve stated that you intend to pursue editing only as a hobby
3] any true editing skills you acquire should be transferable to any software … and they have to be since all editing tools eventually go away (in my opinion, the most important factor)

Cheers.

[David Johnson]

The regular FCP (the last version is FCP7) is being phased out so it doesn’t seem to make sense for someone just learning to learn software that will be obsolete by the time they learn it. FCPX is largely based on iMovie so, since you already have iMovie, that would be a good place to start before spending money to buy FCPX just yet. By the way, you are correct that it is primarily professional editors who are displeased with FCPX since the features it lacks are ones typically only needed by professionals.

That is just my opinion and I’m sure you will get other opinions that either support or contradict mine … no matter … the decision is ultimately yours.

With that said, what is really important is that you understand going into it that we are just talking about tools … all of which come and go over time. For example, I’ve been editing video for almost 20 years now, started with linear editing (before computer-based editing, aka non-linear editing) and, since the advent of non-linear editing, have edited with at least a dozen different software packages. The important thing is not the software tool you learn to edit with … the skills you learn should be transferable to any software so you will be better off to focus on learning the craft of video editing (audio-visual story telling), rather than just a particular tool that is used for that purpose.

Best of luck.