[Filip Vandueren]

Is there an absolute need to ?

You can just keep the brushstrokes an a layer, and use that layer as a trackmatte.
There’s also the option of painting the alpha, so perhaps you don’t even need two layers.

Thing is when you convert a brush stroke to a mask, you get the center path of the stroke, not the shape defined by it’s width and brush-shape if you understand me.

[Filip Vandueren]

Hey Dan,

position & anchorpoint are each others inverse (if the scale is 100%)
It’s pretty abstract, but when you think about it it makes sense.

[Filip Vandueren]

Hi Arash,

a layer in AE always stays flat, even if it’s 3d, so there’s no way to really make it curve in 3 dimensions.

There are plugins that render a 3d look onto those flat layers using the comp camera and lighting etc.

I suppose you could ask this question on the zaxwerks forum, they make 3d plugins for after effects, but I’m not up-to-speed on any of them.

[Filip Vandueren]

Rule of thumb is to keep quality as high as possible before Mpeg enconding, so Animation is a good choice if you have the diskspace.
I sometimes use Mjpeg or Photo Jpeg, but animation is best.

regarding DVCPro codec, I imagine the same thing happens as with the normal DV codec.

Quicktime opts to play a simplified version of the movie (less precise, but less CPU intensive) by not resolving all the details and only displaying one field.
You can choose “Best Quality” in Quicktime pro if you go to “Movie Properties” and select the Video Track.
Quicktime 7 has a preference to always play movies in high quality.

Apart from that, when you import the movie in AE, it will prob. recognize that it’s DV, so lower-field first interlaced.
AE then automatically deinterlaces and also shows you only half the vertical resolution.

If you render it back out in fields, the resolution is unchanged, it’s just a way of displaying without the jagged/combed edges that interlaced footage usually has.

[Filip Vandueren]

I believe the only things you can assign shortcuts to are those that are allready in the txt-file, so there’s no way to add a shortcut to this or that Filter.

I’m sure there are third-party apps that can add custom keys to menu-items. depends on your OS

[Filip Vandueren]

the effect is caused by what’s known as “frame blending”

In ae. it’s off by default,.

Ask in the premiere foroum how you can disable that in Prem.; it’s probably something to do with quality settiings since it’s off for previews.

[Filip Vandueren]

If all the files are the same size & file-format, you can import the folder as an image-sequence (use force alphabetical order).
Then you can keyframe the time-remapping function (presum. with hold keyframes) to choose wich frame ie. wich file from the folder is visible.

If you can specify what exactly the effect is you need with the sliders or soundkeys, we could suggest an expression.

[Filip Vandueren]

If all the files are the same size & file-format, you can import the folder as an image-sequence (use force alphabetical order).
Then you can keyframe the time-remapping function (presum. with hold keyframes) to choose wich frame ie. wich file from the folder is visible.

If you can specify what exactly the effect is you need with the sliders or soundkeys, we could suggest an expression.

[Filip Vandueren]

Few,

this kept me up all night. When I’ve got a challenge like that I, just can’t sleep untill it’s done 😎

Here are the correct expressions for X, Y & Z-rotation:

CC Sphere Rotation X:

// change camera & effect names as needed...
campos=thisComp.layer("Camera 1").toWorld([0,0,0]);
planetpos=thisLayer.toWorld(effect("CC Sphere")("Offset"));

x=length([planetpos[0],planetpos[2]], [campos[0],campos[2]]);
y=campos[1]-planetpos[1];

alpha=Math.atan2(y,x)

value+radiansToDegrees(alpha) ;

CC Sphere Rotation Y:

// change camera & effect names as needed...
campos=thisComp.layer("Camera 1").toWorld([0,0,0]);
planetpos=thisLayer.toWorld(effect("CC Sphere")("Offset"));

x=campos[0]-planetpos[0];
y=planetpos[2]-campos[2];

beta=Math.atan2(y,x)

value+radiansToDegrees(beta) - 90;

CC Sphere Rotation Z:

No expression

And here are the expressions for the light. (they’re still not 100% accurate; but they’re close)
It _will_ generate an error if your sun is at the exact same position as a planet, but hey, I think Steven Hawking would say that’s just normal 😉

Step1: create your lightsource, and make it an adjustment layer, make sure all the planets are above the light-adj., because we want them to be only lit by the CC Sphere plugin, not receive light. If there are other 3d-layers that do need the shading, put them below the adj.-light.
You can just pickwhip the light color and light-intensity from the lightsource to the light-settings of CC Sphere.

CC Sphere Light Height

// change camera & light names as needed...
campos=thisComp.layer("Camera 1").toWorld([0,0,0]);
planetpos=thisLayer.toWorld(effect("CC Sphere")("Offset"));
sunpos=thisComp.layer("Light 1").toWorld([0,0,0]);

camvector=normalize(campos-planetpos);
sunvector=normalize(sunpos-planetpos);

angle=Math.acos(dot(camvector, sunvector));

100 - (angle/Math.PI)*200

CC Sphere Light Direction

// change light name as needed...
thesun=thisComp.layer("Light 1");
xy=thisLayer.fromWorld(thesun.position) - effect("CC Sphere")("Offset");
angle=Math.atan2(xy[1],xy[0]);
radiansToDegrees(angle) + 90;

[Filip Vandueren]

Few,

this kept me up all night. When I’ve got a challenge like that I, just can’t sleep untill it’s done 😎

Here are the correct expressions for X, Y & Z-rotation:

CC Sphere Rotation X:

// change camera & effect names as needed...
campos=thisComp.layer("Camera 1").toWorld([0,0,0]);
planetpos=thisLayer.toWorld(effect("CC Sphere")("Offset"));

x=length([planetpos[0],planetpos[2]], [campos[0],campos[2]]);
y=campos[1]-planetpos[1];

alpha=Math.atan2(y,x)

value+radiansToDegrees(alpha) ;

CC Sphere Rotation Y:

// change camera & effect names as needed...
campos=thisComp.layer("Camera 1").toWorld([0,0,0]);
planetpos=thisLayer.toWorld(effect("CC Sphere")("Offset"));

x=campos[0]-planetpos[0];
y=planetpos[2]-campos[2];

beta=Math.atan2(y,x)

value+radiansToDegrees(beta) - 90;

CC Sphere Rotation Z:

No expression

And here are the expressions for the light. (they’re still not 100% accurate; but they’re close)
It _will_ generate an error if your sun is at the exact same position as a planet, but hey, I think Steven Hawking would say that’s just normal 😉

Step1: create your lightsource, and make it an adjustment layer, make sure all the planets are above the light-adj., because we want them to be only lit by the CC Sphere plugin, not receive light. If there are other 3d-layers that do need the shading, put them below the adj.-light.
You can just pickwhip the light color and light-intensity from the lightsource to the light-settings of CC Sphere.

CC Sphere Light Height

// change camera & light names as needed...
campos=thisComp.layer("Camera 1").toWorld([0,0,0]);
planetpos=thisLayer.toWorld(effect("CC Sphere")("Offset"));
sunpos=thisComp.layer("Light 1").toWorld([0,0,0]);

camvector=normalize(campos-planetpos);
sunvector=normalize(sunpos-planetpos);

angle=Math.acos(dot(camvector, sunvector));

100 - (angle/Math.PI)*200

CC Sphere Light Direction

// change light name as needed...
thesun=thisComp.layer("Light 1");
xy=thisLayer.fromWorld(thesun.position) - effect("CC Sphere")("Offset");
angle=Math.atan2(xy[1],xy[0]);
radiansToDegrees(angle) + 90;