[Don Sciore]

Hi N,

I have looked at this over and over and I don’t see a “spin” as the three trees come up. Frame by frame it appears that a mask is animating open and that the trees get thicker which could be done by choking the alpha and animating it open. Or animating it in a traditional sense with “sequential” images that get thicker. It appears that maybe the tree trucks are spinning but they are animated separately.

Just my 2 cents as I look at this frame by frame. But if I were challenged to recreate those last few frames, it could be done 2d.

Don

[Don Sciore]

You don’t say which version you are using but…

1. Have you tried Digital Anarchy’s Box Creator lite under the window drop-down that shipped with AE6.5? Great tool to create cubes and boxes quickly wothout calculating the positions of the layers and they’ll match up perfectly.

2. Depth to an image can be faked. Multiple layers set a few pixels apart in z-depth can work if you don’t take your camera directly on the edge of the layers. You can also construct depth using positioning and parenting all layers to a null object.
Also, make sure you composition settings are set to Advanced-3D in the Advanced tab of your comp-settings menu.

3. You can certainly import a 3D render with alpha channel and attempt to match up camera.Even import camera data depending on the 3d program used. Unfortunately I don’t know anything about blender3d.

4. A 2d layer as a background (like an animated starfield movie) placed behind your 3d layers will always fill your comp.

Good luck.
Don

[Don Sciore]

When you hit the space bar you get a preview that may not be actual speed (based on your machine)but it will not play audio. Zero on the numeric keypad (not the keyboard)will give you a RAM preview that loads your comp into RAM based on how much RAM you have and this will play audio and at actual comp settings. Also hitting the period key on the numeric keypad will play just the audio based on the audio-preview time set in your preferences.

Hope this helps.

Don

[Don Sciore]

Sounds like you mean “RAM previewing?” A RAM preview (hitting zero on your numeric keypad)will only preview based on available RAM resources. You can choose to preview a lower resolution as well as skipping frames. Look in your “Time Controls” window. This will allow for a longer preview.

Also make sure your “Work Area” bar is open to your whole 15 sec. comp.

Good Luck.
Don

[Don Sciore]

If they are two separate layers you could select both (Select one then Shift click on the other) then increase the percentage of both in the Stretch pane in the Timeline (the right-most Double Arrows).

(You could also pre-compose the two layers first (Cmd +Shift+C(Ctrl+Shift+C on PC)), then just increase the stretch of the pre-comp.)

Good Luck.
Don

[Don Sciore]

AE still doesn’t play well with mp3.
Try converting your audio to wav or aiff and then re-rendering.

Good luck.