[Declan Smith]

Hi

Premiere Pro is one package that can seem to work with almost any video files and doesn’t in itself require you to transcode. You can have avchd, h264, prores etc etc all on the same timeline.

However, if you want to work with say Davinci Resolve or Apple Color, these programs only support a smaller subset of formats. I have gone down the road of not transcoding and to be honest, I have switched back, even when working in Premiere. i.e. I ensure EVERYTHING is in prores. I use the Samurai to record direct to prores most of the time, and for H.264 / AVCHD, I transcode prior to working as this provides much better close system support. In addition, software doesn’t have the overhead of doing the decompression.

I can now go between premiere, final cut pro, davinci resolve, apple color etc, without any source file issues.

In terms of PP & AE workflow, for simple stuff having embedded AE files looks on the surface as a good thing, however, for complex projects you will lose realtime playback which normal means you’ll render out from AE anyway and import the render back into PP. Also, if you export a timeline with embedded AE compositions as XML for other programs, this will fail (or rather not be recognised).

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

You could try precomposing the brush layer and adjust it’s comp length needed to complete one cycle and then on the precomped layer in the main comp, add time-remap and then loopOut on that and drag the length to the end.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Hi Bryce,

Yes, some more weirdness of javascript etc I’m afraid. The first issue, i.e. \ needs an addition \n at the end of the line otherwise the regular expression sees it as an unterminated line. The next issue is with speech marks in that the UI interface seems to insert opening or closing speech marks which don’t match with what is put in the expression (by the same UI), so you need to specify the exact unicode characters you want to match. Please see below.

i.e. Opening speech marks is 8220 (\u201C) and closing speech marks is 8221 (\u201D).

If you get any other weird characters, then just use:

txt.charCodeAt(0)

to print the decimal version of the character, then convert that to Hexidecimal and then add it to a unicode match. The above assumes 1 character at position 0.

Hope this helps

var txt = thisComp.layer("TXT").text.sourceText + "\n";
var i = (txt.match(/\\|T|\u201C|\u201D|,|\//g)||[]).length;
i;

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Glad it helped. There are a bunch of other characters that will also need escaping, such as

/ * + ? | ( ) [ ] { }

Also if you want to count the backslash itself, then escape that by putting another backslash in front i.e. \\

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Ah! I see now.

Ok the reason it’s returning the string length is that the matching characters are regular expressions. The ‘.’ is a special character that means any character. You have to escape it by putting a backslash before it.

b = ((firstline.match(/\.|!/g)||[]).length)

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Hi
I entered your expression onto one text layer and had text on a second layer and it worked as expected. i.e. it counts the number of occurrences of e and f

If e and f do not appear in the text layer it registers 0, so I can’t see the broken condition. I’m using AE CS6

//defines the variables
txt = thisComp.layer("TXT TEST").text.sourceText;
a = (txt.match(/e|f/g)||[]).length
//print total value
a;

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

There are a number of ways you could tackle this and I guess it depends on a number of factors such as how much movement of the talent and / or the actor.

One method is to entirely shoot the talent against a green screen then backgrounds separately. Another would be to shoot talent against actual bg and perhaps put small green screen up where there is to be a lot of interaction. If the camera is moving you could use mocha to track and create a stabilised precomp to replace the bg in the green screen area (depending on amount of camera movement).

Rotoscoping is still an option using the rotobrush tool. You would work on just the areas needed. It’s difficult to decide exactly which method without knowing all the parameters however, as you have hinted that the shoot is still in planning stages you could try some of these methods and see which gives the best results. In some circumstances you may find a combination may be better.

If the mocha route is to be used, google search mochaimport+ which is a very helpful script.

Hope this helps

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Hi,
If there is no tracking and nothing obscuring the nail (ie it’s always in view) then you could duplicate the footage onto another layer, add a 4 or 8 point garbage matte around the nail, then move the footage a few pixels left or right or up or down until you get a clean part if the wall to take its place. You will also need to feather the mask to make it blend well. Not sure whether you need to move the footage then mask or mask then move as I am not in front of a computer right now.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Ok, let’s just de-color some of this advice shall we?
1. The questioner asked whether to and which upgrade path to take, we should answer this question yes?
Ok, FCP 7 itself isn’t entirely core driven in that if you have 8 cores it may only use two (ie it doesn’t spread the load). What FCP 7 does do is allocate plugins to use cores, so if you have some VFX or color grading plugins in use, particularly on multiple tracks, then additional cores would be advantageous. Also, if you are rendering out one project and want to start another or edit another, more cores would help you. More cores means more concurrent applications or streams of work within an application. Personally I would tend to go with 8 cores. Although I love apple color, I tend to use davinci resolve for most CG work and I use FCP 7 for pure editing because its still the best for media management and forward / backward compatibility.

2. Saying things like ‘hey if you want to use discontinued software that’s up to you’ is plain lame and unhelpful. Is the road that you drive your car down updated every day or has it been there for years? It’s not outdated. At present, no further work is being carried out on it. This means it has no new features or new marketing tools designed to get us to spend more, but does it even need that? No, it’s functions fully outweigh anything new. The only thing it’s perhaps a little behind in is media format support BUT, really you need to look at that very closely. Personally, I still transcode when using FCP or premiere pro or iMovie or even Vegas. why? Because is consistent performance and less bottle necks. By having a consistent intermediate format (prores or DNxHD) enables much better workflow, much faster real time performance more dynamic effects, and much faster (and more consistent and accurate) renders.

This is how proper systems **SHOULD** be designed:
Do one thing and do it well. This is how **IX computer systems were designed the basis of OSX. FCP was part of this design philosophy (as was shake, combustion and plenty others). Don’t be fooled by the lazy, the sloppy or those thy are easily controlled by marketeers. Prores is good for example, right up to 8K and was designed when standard def DV was first introduced some 14 years ago. FCP was designed on prores . You never hear people talk about FCP 7 and 8K yet it’s spot on for that particular application an very efficient at it too!

To the original poster, I hope the information I have provided is of some use. To the other contributors, please think before posting just biased lazy opinions, and construct an answer that is both suitable an useful to the original requester.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

The only way is I know of is to use an ExtendScript as the project name is not available using expressions.

Below is a simple extend script that will set the currently selected text layer to the base name of the after effects file. Add this to a file called SetProjectName.jsx and save it to the Scripts directory. Within AE, select scripts -> run a script and select the script.

var comp = app.project.activeItem;
if ( comp && comp instanceof CompItem && comp.selectedLayers.length == 1) {
var selectedlayer = comp.selectedLayers[0];
if (selectedlayer instanceof TextLayer) {
selectedlayer.sourceText.setValue(app.project.file.toString().replace(/\\/g,'/').replace( /.*\//, '' ));
}
}

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”