[Erik Waluska]

I looks like someone else has already posted a similar question.

Hopefully we’ll be able to fix the shortcuts in the shortcuts text file:
(windows location) C:Users[username]AppDataRoamingAdobeAfter Effects10.5Adobe After Effects [version] Shortcuts.txt

Check out these posts for more info:

Time-Reverse Keyframes Keyboard Shortcut

Let’s finally have that “Trim Comp to Work Area” Shortcut

Changing Shortcuts with After Effects

Adobe help: shortcuts

[Erik Waluska]

I’m still waiting for my copy of CS6 but I Googled “adobe after effects cs6 shortcuts” and there are already a few complaints about some shortcut changes. I am a shortcut addict and would be very annoyed if they changed/removed the shortcuts I use regularly. This is an old thread so if no one else replies I would re-post this question in a new thread.

[Erik Waluska]

Nice job, man! It looks very good. Thanks for posting.

[Erik Waluska]

“Would you mind just explaining to me how I go about creating a placeholder precomp?”

Just create a comp the size of the footage you will be using that just contains a solid or something. If you’re importing footage as a placeholder then you don’t have to pre-comp it. But I do suggest you pre-comp your final footage if you will be editing or applying a lot of effects, etc. because it will be much easier to deal with that one pre-comp layer in your main comp than several different layers with effects applied to them, etc..

“I know how to import a placeholder into my main comp. Am I supposed to right click it and pre-compose it, and then open it, and then duplicate it? If so, what is the difference in doing that compared to just duplicating it in the main comp? “

No, you want to duplicate the placeholder footage or pre-comp inside of the main comp so you have 9 copies (layers) that you can arrange into your grid.

[Erik Waluska]

I know that powerpoint supports alphas in PNG stills, so maybe try a png sequence?

[Erik Waluska]

You don’t have to import anything for the placeholders, you just need a pre-comp that’s the same size as the footage you will be replacing it with. The placeholder pre-comp could contain some footage or just a solid, it doesn’t really matter. Whatever works for you in setting up your template.

You don’t have to pre-compose anything, but if you are going to edit the footage it would make it easier because you can edit multiple layers and add effect or whatever inside the pre-comp and just have that one layer to deal with in the main comp. But if you’re not going to edit the footage or anything than just skip the pre-comping and use solids or stills or something that are the size of the footage you are going to replace them with.

HTH

[Erik Waluska]

You only need to make one placeholder pre-comp and then just duplicate it nine times in your main comp and set up your Brady Bunch grid with the nine copies of the placeholder. Then when you get the real footage just alt+drag the real footage comps onto each of the placeholder comp layers. You could create nine different placeholder comps but it’s not really necessary.

[Erik Waluska]

For the template, I would make one placeholder pre-comp and then use that to assemble the 9 squares in the main comp. When you get the real footage you can just pre-comp it and edit the footage in the pre-comp however you want. Then just select one of the squares in the main comp and then Alt+Drag any of the real footage pre-comps from the project window onto the placeholder layer in the timeline or into the comp window to replace the footage. Repeat until you’ve got all nine replaced.

[Erik Waluska]

Not that I’m aware of. PNG images are excellent to work with and are supported by most NLEs and of course AE. The quality is great, the file size is usually small, they support an alpha channel and almost any image viewer/editor app can handle them, even powerpoint supports PNGs with alpha!

[Erik Waluska]

That’s a sorely needed function in AE and there’s not really any easy way to do it that I’m aware of. I think it could be done with scripts and there are two scripts out there that could probably be combined
so that you could just select all of your footage layers, run the script and then just render out the trimmed footage to replace the long clips in your project.

The two scripts are Video Copilot’s Trim Compose script and rd: Pre-compose from the redefinery.

The new script would need to be able to:
– Pre-comp the clips while trimming the comp and offering handle options
– Leave or move all attributes
– Correctly deal with clips that have time-remapping applied
– Make individual comps if multiple clips are selected
– Add the trimmed comps to the render queue
– Replace the trimmed comps with the rendered footage or set as a proxy for the comps in the render settings

Maybe someone with some scripting chops might have a go at it.