[David Johnson]

Ben Richards “the second clip becomes hidden”

That’s the only thing you needed to say … it sounds like you don’t really have an alpha channel … check that your comp doesn’t have a black solid at the bottom layer (use the transparency toggle button in the viewer window), then check that you’ve properly set it up to render with an alpha … I forget AE’s exact terminology, but check everything along the lines of RGB+Alpha, MillionsOfColors+, etc.

Oh yeah … depending on your software versions, codecs, etc., I suppose it’s possible your Premiere needs to re-render in order for the alpha to work.

[David Johnson]

That first transition appears to be just a custom wipe (aka reveal) using a silhouette of a tree. As you see in that demo, it’s pretty effective when done well, but it’s also very simple …

Just take an already silhouetted image (or silhouette one suing anyone of the very many PS or AE techniques), move it from screen left to screen right and, depending on the image, either use an animated mask to reveal the footage behind it or use the silhouetted image itself as a track matte.

I hope that helps.

[David Johnson]

There is a lot of good info on this subject already in this and other forums on the COW and several recent ones … try a past posts searches for words like “demo”, “reel”, “portfolio” etc.

[David Johnson]

I use custom transitions and organic wipes quite a bit, but I’m not familiar with one referred to as a “Water Cooler Transition” … could you upload an example?

[David Johnson]

More info will be needed to understand and answer your question since CS3 is a software suite, not a particular program within that suite so you’ll need to clarify where you’re trying to export AE titles to.

If you’re trying to make titles in AE to go over video in Premiere, Encore, etc., you just need to render the titles to a codec that supports alpha channels such as the QuickTime Animation codec.

[David Johnson]

Thanks Theo. I hadn’t thought of every Adobe product so I shouldn’t have worded that so broadly.

[David Johnson]

Unlike some other Adobe software, you can’t save an AE project as an older version than the version you’re saving from … in other words, you can’t save your CS4 project as a CS3 project so the folks you’re trying to share project files with will have to upgrade to CS4 … although at this point it would make most sense for you both to wait for CS5 and upgrade to it at the same time.

The cross-platform part is a non-issue from the Adobe software standpoint, but you’ll want to be careful to avoid font issues.

[David Johnson]

I work with PS, AI, AE, etc. on both Win and Mac machines every day and would only add that you’ll want to be careful of font issues. I’m not contradicting what Bob or Richard said … there is no inherent problem using the same Adobe files on both platforms, but font differences can affect that very much, which isn’t an Adobe issue.

[David Johnson]

You’re using a third-party plugin you either haven’t purchased legally or haven’t registered properly.

[David Johnson]

It depends on how you made the bars … if they’re solids arranged in 3D space, you could just precompose the side you want an image on and use it as a tracke matte for the image you want. You could also mask the image to the shape of the bar, then parent it to the bar. I’m sure there are other ways, but those two are the simplest that first come to mind.