David Johnson
Forum Replies Created
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There’s a simple setting you need to change … I’m not in AE right now and I’m terrible at recalling terminology for things I never change, but its called something like “live update” or “live preview”.
By the way, no offense, but it sounds like you would benefit from spending some time with AE training materials and the AE help …. AE is not Flash by a long shot and is not the kind of software that one can learn from just clicking around on a few things. If you learn the basics first, you will save yourself a lot of time and frustration …. its just not practical to jump into AE blind and post forum questions for every minor issue you encounter. If you search the COW and the web, you will find tons of tools to help you learn AE the right way.
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I don’t know off-hand where to download the codec you want, but I’m sure a Google search will offer many options. Perhaps you have one installed, but it’s damaged and needs to be re-installed. It’s not really an AE issue … even though AE supports the formats, you would not be able to render to the FLV or WMV formats either if corresponding codecs weren’t installed on your machine.
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Go to the time controls panel and click the loop button until its on the option you want (normal loop or no loop) ….. its currently on “ping-pong”.
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Right click the file in the project panel and check the “Interpret Footage” window to make sure the alpha is interpreted correctly.
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Unless you’re using a version of AE in which Adobe removed AVI support, which I seriously doubt, it’s probably that you didn’t install any AVI codecs when you “clon[ed] over my previous machine onto a faster newer MAC”. Try downloading and installing a codec that can be wrapped in an AVI file.
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There are several ways to accomplish that … probably the easiest is to just change the blend mode of the text layer to Difference.
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Yes, but it’s safer to just paste the two easy ease keyframes to make two new ones instead of pasting over existing ones since you can end up with unwanted keyframes/changes if they’re not copied from and pasted the exact same distance apart in time.
Press U on your keyboard to show a selected layer’s(s) parameters that have keyframes, select & copy the ones you want, paste wherever you want (another time on same layer or another layer). Or, press U twice to do the same with parameters that don’t have keyframes.
By the way, that’s a question that should be in the Basics forum. In fact, it sounds like it would benefit you to spend some time with the AE manual and help.
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By the way, I meant compositing in my first post, not “composting” … although some of the work I’m forced to do nowadays does smell a little like compost. ;~)
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My two cents is that its very good.
The only thing that came to mind as a possible improvement stems from something a teacher told me a long time ago … there should always be a logical reason/rationale for an effect or stylization … not just an effect for the sake of a cool effect. Referring specifically to the beginning sepia-toned sequence, are you trying to convey dated, historical footage to show that these guys have been doing this stuff for a long time? It seems that’s typically the reason for using sepia or B&W, but I didn’t really get that aged feeling from that sequence. I did notice the film scratches, but other than that, the footage looks fairly new and pristine so perhaps it’s just a matter of slightly overstating the aged look … maybe a little film grain, flicker, stutter, etc. I might even shorten that part a bit, but maybe that’s just me.
Just a thought … don’t mean to sound critical … it’s great work!
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I haven’t used or looked for Illustrator training in a long time, but I’m sure there’s plenty out there if you search the COW and Google for “Adobe Illustrator video”.
Also, the leader of the Photoshop forum, Richard Harrington, writes books that I believe are called something like “Photoshop for Video Editors” … perhaps he has an “Illustrator for Video Editors” book too. If so, I’d highly recommend it even though I haven’t used it personally … I know both from other editors and from following him here for quite a few years now that he is very knowledgeable.
I do most of my text work in After Effects, which has had the scale-able text capability for the last few versions, and primarily use Illustrator for logos and other complex vectors (very rarely get non-vector logos). It sounds like knowing Illustrator will be a plus for you … just a matter of how much time you can/need to spend learning it rather than deepening your skills with the other tools you use more.
I hope my two cents is helpful.