[Eric Barker]

Here’s a method that will probably give you better results, and it will ensure the comp has the same frame rate and dimensions as the clip:

Instead of Ctrl-V copying from Premiere, drag the video file into the AE Project panel (you MIGHT be able to do this directly from Premiere, but you may have to do this from Explorer/Finder). Once the video appears in the AE Project panel, drag it down into the little “new composition” button at the bottom of the project panel (it looks like a film icon). This will create a new comp with the same specs and dimensions as the video. However, it will be the entire file, not clipped from the Premiere project, but we can fix that. Now that you have your comp, delete the video file from the Project panel (which will also remove it from the comp, of course). Go back to premiere, copy your clip (or clips), and paste them into the AE comp.

One handy trick is that if you hold Ctrl+Shift-V to paste it will ignore the Premiere starting placement, and place it wherever you have your playhead set to (which will likely be at the beginning), solving your second issue with clips appearing far out in the timeline.

To set the comp length, do the following: hold SHIFT while dragging the playhead to the end of the clip, and it should SNAP to the last frame, you’ll want to move over one more frame, to the first black frame. Click the timecode indicator, Ctrl-V, open the Comp Settings window, and paste it into the “Duration” field (make sure the start timecode is set to “0”).

This may seem like a lot of steps, but you’ll pretty fast when you do it a few times, and it’ll automatically give you exact specs. If you are copying many different clips from a Premiere timeline, you only have to do everything once. I personally don’t recommend dynamic linking from Premiere->AE unless you have to. It can be useful sometimes, but it’s painfully slow and can be manually replicated by simple Copy/Pasting from Premiere, giving you a lot more control.

TIP: One more handy-dandy thing I use CONSTANTLY is right-click “Reveal in Explorer/Finder”, in both Premiere and AE. This pops open the folder where the video file is, so you can easily get to it (like if you’re dragging it into AE).

Audio/Video Production
Relaxing White Noise, LLC.

[Eric Barker]

LOL, I think a lot of us have done that tutorial at some point or another. It’s extremely neat, and I’ve modified it for different purposes. Great introduction to how to create animated sprites for faux 3D visual effects. It’s basically the same process game designers use for explosions. Even today, many “magic” and explosion effects are compounds of 2D sprite elements. Volumetrics is very GPU intensive and for fast SFX, sprites are far easier to create, control, and often look better.

Audio/Video Production
Relaxing White Noise, LLC.

[Eric Barker]

I think you don’t fully understand the term “Motion Graphics”. Motion Graphics is an entire field, not a technique. It’s half of what AE is used for.

To put it simply, compositing programs like After Effects are used for two different purposes: Visual Special Effects and Motion Graphics. Special Effects is any process in cinema used to manipulate, augment, or create realistic video footage: sky replacement, explosions, CGI landscapes, etc.

Motion Graphics is a subset of Graphic Design, literally putting motion to graphical elements. Logo animations, adding text, user interfaces for apps/games.

Both of these are complex specialized fields that people get degrees in and spend their entire lives perfecting. They are also creative forms, so saying “motion graphics is simple once you get used to it”, isn’t really relevant. It can be very simple, or it can be very complex depending on the task, and same with special effects. I’ve spent days rotoscoping a video clip for special effects purposes… I’ve also spent days programming motion graphic user interfaces using pages of scripting code in AE.

Just a few little chestnuts for ya.

Audio/Video Production
Relaxing White Noise, LLC.

[Eric Barker]

Definitely agree with your last point there. Still don’t think multi-layer instances is an option for my particular cases, considering I often swing around the systems, particles need to be able to overlap each other naturally in 3D space. But you’re correct, motion graphics and VFX are ALL about “HACKS”.

I thought that there would be less when I started working in a “true” 3D environment (Cinema4D), but on the contrary, there’s even MORE! In some ways, 3D graphics is all built on a completely made-up interpretation of how light works (e.g.: in the real world there is no difference between specularity, reflection, and diffusion). “Shaders” are ALL made-up concepts that emulate, but don’t simulate, real-world scenarios. Bump mapping is an amazing, silly, and ingenious example, too.

However, in this case, sprites are such a commonly used stand-in for volumetric geometry, that I’m sort of surprised someone hasn’t designed an engine to give them fake volume for cross-fade compositing, that strikes me as an incredibly useful technique. Maybe this is found on game engines like Unity, where sprites are used practically everywhere.

Audio/Video Production
Relaxing White Noise, LLC.

[Eric Barker]

That can be done just as well with Particular. I don’t really see the purpose behind using multiple instances. With complex camera moves, that can get very weird very fast (distant particles passing in front of closer particles on a different layer). I can imagine that might be a workaround for projects with a static camera, but not with ones involving 360 degree camera moves like I’m usually doing.

I think you misunderstand, I WANT particles to be able to be able to pass in front of and behind, and even through each other, I just want to avoid a sudden “pop” when they do. I envision a particle generator where you can give sprites a Z-depth mass, and have them cross-dissolve between each other when they overlap. I don’t think anything like that specifically exists, but was curious whether someone had come up with some kind of workaround.

Audio/Video Production
Relaxing White Noise, LLC.

[Eric Barker]

With a static Camera it might be possible depending on the circumstance, but it usually isn’t an issue with static cameras anyway, I tend to just have all the particles moving the same speed relative to each other. The problem is I do a lot of camera orbits and fly throughs, as in the video above. I’m often using multiple layers in conjunction with Element3D and Cinema4D elements.

I’d eventually like to get into doing true 3D ray-marching clouds (not even sure that’s possible with C4D), but for now, cloud sprite particles tend to be the best bet. I custom make a cloud loop using an initial Particular system with shading, render that, and use it as a sprite. Cloud 3D geometry hasn’t really hit AE/C4D in a processor-friendly way yet. Curious because Unity can do it real-time with GPU rendering (Horizon Zero Dawn is probably the most advanced example). In any case, until C4D or E3D introduces ray-marching cloudlet geometry, sprites are still my best option.

Audio/Video Production
Relaxing White Noise, LLC.

[Eric Barker]

Here’s one of my videos where that was noticeable. Look at the clouds, it’s most noticeable around the 55sec mark when looking straight down:

https://youtu.be/AWzLAqLlTtQ

At first I thought there was some particle pop-in, but ran some tests and found it’s caused by sprite overlap. My boss and I finally decided to let it slide in this case, but I’ve been hoping to find a way to fix it. We do a lot of these, 2-3 a week of different designs, so I run into this quite frequently, and I’m tired of having to adjust my content to try and avoid it.

Television Producer
KTVF-11 Fairbanks, Alaska
video.ericbarker.com

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Eric Barker]

Thanks for taking the time to respond, unfortunately neither of those techniques are really an option. Doing cloud simulation, I’m typically overlaying hundreds of sprites, and doing camera flythroughs or orbits. The z-depth changes aren’t so much caused by proximity of the particles to each other, but from the camera angle changes causing sprites to be either in front or behind each other. When I can get away with it, I will often use additive transfer modes, and that can work depending upon the situation, but not always.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a 3D engine that can crossfade between passing sprites. It could probably be done, but not sure how. I’ve not seen anything in C4D like this either.

Television Producer
KTVF-11 Fairbanks, Alaska
video.ericbarker.com

[Eric Barker]

Wow, that was PERFECT, thanks! I had to put it on every 3D layer inside the precomp, but then I just made two versions of the precomp, one with only reflections and one without reflection, and then just set the opacity of reflection comp below. Amazingly CPU efficient! I’m working with about 80 3D layers here, two duplicates of Element 3D with a very complex model (giant puzzle split into pieces), constant animation and camera movements, and things are still really screaming! The reflection precomp barely added a CPU hit at all! Andrew is amazing!

Television Producer
KTVF-11 Fairbanks, Alaska
video.ericbarker.com

[Eric Barker]

I’m really not familiar with PSF (just reading up on it). I don’t know why I would be. From what I’m reading, PSF is specific to 30p and 25p, as a way of producing not 24p.

The footage was shot on a Sony NEX-EA50 at true 24fps progressive (not 60i files with 24p pulldown integrated), and edited in a 1080p24 sequence. All nested after effects pre-comps and files are 24p as well.

I guess I’m not having any problems per say, but I’m interested in the technical end of what’s going on.

Television Producer
KTVF-11 Fairbanks, Alaska
video.ericbarker.com