[Filip Vandueren]

1. How do you apply tracking data to the position (and rotation) of a mask? Can I write an expression to do this? I just can’t fathom that you can’t do this in AE.

You can’t, you apply the mask to a solid, and apply position and rotation to that solid. Use the result as a track-matte

2. Can AE map keyboard shortcuts? For example… Windows/Tracker Controls

On the mac there’s a file called “Adobe After Effects 6.5 Shortcuts”. But It doesn’t list the functionality to open that window AFAIK.

3. Is there a parameter in expressions that measures the luminance flicker of a source layer. For example, have a Trapcode LUX beam flicker in sync with a source image.

No there isn’t one, but I’ve heard of a plugin that can do this, I’ve never tried it though:
Create Keys From Image
I believe this could generate a value that changes with the luminance of certain pixels, and you can target that value in your expressions.

[Filip Vandueren]

Hi Dror,

I’ve updated the script (had to work around a bug, but I found a great script by jdnorthup from the adobe userforums)

Note that I set the script to Guess for the Alpha Type, I think that will be the most helpfull, AE usually gets it right, if you don’t start the sequence with an entirely 0 or 100% alpha frame.

+ you can easily transfer interpretation settings from 1 to multiple footage items using the “remember interpretation” and “apply interpretation” commands.

download from the same url:

smartImport_multiSeq.jsx

enjoy,

Filip

[Filip Vandueren]

Well, are you zooming into those images upto 100%
Or are you using fit to screen ?
Then they would typically be scaled at somewhere between 18-30% in a PAL or NTSC project

If that’s the case, you can get away with scaling them down in After Effects beforehand (keep the original scans if you need them for print)

Or are you doing HD-work ?

[Filip Vandueren]

What is your delivery medium ?

If you’re going for a 16:9 DVD or going to tape but playing back on a 16:9 screen, this is exactly what you want:
you’re using the full resolution of the recording medium, and leaving the stretching to the last step (in the TV or DVD-player)

If you’re delivering to the web or CD-rom, you should always use square pixels: so 16:9 would be 1024*576 px.

Alternatively, instead of re-rendering you can manually set the size of a movie in Quicktime player and save those settings back into the file.
If you have QT Pro v7, you can enter the 1024*576 dimensions in the Movie Properties window so it stretches to the right dimensions.
You can also try doing it by hand by holding shift while resizing your window. Open the Info Window to see the current size in pixels.
Holding Shift ignores the aspect ratio (5:4 for 720*576).

BTW if you want to view true 4:3, you should resize a 720*576 D1 Pal movie to 768*576

[Filip Vandueren]

That’s just the way the textacy animation works. On a per-character basis.

I’d use the method you described (gradient layer as a trackmatte) or if you want to do it on 1 layer,
use “Alpha Ramp” Plugin (red giant software Image Lounge), it’s on the CD of Creating Motion Graphics by the Meyers

[Filip Vandueren]

I’ve noticed the same thing, and it really bothers me too.
Especially slowly scaling up is troublesome on text and illustrator

The crazy thing is that to my eyes bitmap-text out of Photoshop does not have the problem at all.
So if you’re not animating using any special textacy stuff, consider that an oldschool workaround.

It’s worth noting though, that the effect is more pronounced on the monitor than on a TV-screen, but see for yourself if the TV-output is acceptable.

Adding a slight amount of Gaussian Blur (0.5 – 1 px) helps and is usually not a bad idea for text-output to DV and sorts

[Filip Vandueren]

Hi,

I’ve hopefullty solved your problem.

my first attempt at a jsx file.

This is an adaptation of the smartImport script. The original script just assumed that once it found 10 numbered files in a folder, the entire folder contained 1 still-sequence.
My script compares the basenames (everything at the start of the filename, before the numbers) and works out how many different sequences there are.

get it here:

smartimport_multiSeq.jsx

[Filip Vandueren]

As a starting point, you can apply easy ease, or easy ease-in/out.
Just right/ctrl click on the keyframes and you’ll see it’s one of the options

[Filip Vandueren]

As a dirty work-around:

select the first item, tick on “force alphabetical order” as well “tiff sequence”
You’ll get one long footage and can cut that up into pieces.

Not a pretty soluition and not advisable if there are different aspect-ratios, field-orders, framesizes etc.
But it might do the trick.

[Filip Vandueren]

You get the error because you also applied the expr. to layer N