[Graham Macfarlane]

what graphics card are you using and have you tried turning off “enable openGL” in AE preferences?

Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK

[Graham Macfarlane]

From what I can see there seems to be 3 elements:

1: a Dolly shot away from person in bed.

2: A helicopter shot, starting with a med close-up of building then pulling out to a wide shot of city as the helicopter moves away.
(Could be possible to achieve with 3D camera mapping of a high res city photo but would be more of a challenge)

3: Zoom out/tilt up from post card on table

With some simple masking, radial motion blur and some very careful animation of linked layers (containing elements 1,2,3) and playback speed control of each element this and more can be achieved.

Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK

[Graham Macfarlane]

Sounds very odd.

Would it be possible for you to post a link to download a version of your scene that demonstrates the problem?

Graham Macfarlane
3D animator and VFX specialist
London UK

[Graham Macfarlane]

Thanks Dave

You got me thinking on the right track and I found the problem.
I have a solid layer using the shatter effect to create some 3D text and that effect can only use the first light in the comp, (default setting I believe), or an automatic point light or a distant light.

I will have to make a dupe of that solid layer and have the lower one using the “point source” light type from the shatter options and the other using “first comp light” (my animated feature light).

Regards,
Graham

[Graham Macfarlane]

Thanks Vincent for your response.

you made me realise I havn’t updated my profile in over 5 years!! I’m actually using a i7 920 machine with a Geforce 9800 GT running Win7 64bit.

I also realised that my comment about being able to use the pressure sensitivity in CS4 was wrong. I was mistaking it for the brush for that tapers at each end (silly me!)

I did some more digging online and discovered that the solution is to double click the chosen brush definition to access a dialogue that has the pressure and variation controls.

Now everything works perfectly!!

[Graham Macfarlane]

Thanks Todd

This looks like a great solution!

Graham

[Graham Macfarlane]

Bartek, thanks for the link to tracker2mask. It looks very interesting and I think I should be able to use it for the wave by creating the red circle points demonstrated in the second tutorial video, one point for each wave top!

————————-

Gary, thanks for your suggestion. I had a good look at the smart mask interpolation. I tested it out on a simple square mask animated to move in a simple V motion. AE by default interpolates linearly so that at the bottom of the V movement there is a sharp linear change in direction (as expected)
I had hoped the smart mask interpolation could be applied to smooth this out but it doesn’t change the motion much at all.

I found a decent tutorial on this tool here;
https://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_keyframes/story/managing_moving_masks/P0/

After reading through this I tried applying it to my animated wave mask but here also, I can’t seem to get it to change the animation much. The jerky linear motion of the mask is still very much present.
Additionally, when instructed It adds extra vertices in-between those I made but they all stay in line so they have no effect on the masks shape.

Perhaps I am asking too much from the tool?
Anyway, thanks for all your help guys. Much appreciated.

[Graham Macfarlane]

Thanks Stuart;
I currently only have one machine but if all goes well that could certainly change to two or more within a year or so.

Perhaps the way the boxed product activation works has changed since you stopped using it. If I recall correctly Adobe stated to me that I can install a boxed product twice without issues but after this would I need to contact them to unlock the product. They apparently will only unlock it a limited number of times at which point the software needs to be re-purchased.

Perhaps this is a UK only thing??

Perhaps the unlocking by Adobe is only Licence red tape and isn’t actually required to physically install a third time or more??

Having said all that seeing as they are both the same cost (actually the volume license is going to be cheaper due to the free upgrade promotion) plus I don’t mind not getting a physical box of DVDs in the post (Volume license product is download only) I think my preference is still on the volume license.

Stuart seeing as you have been using the volume license for a while now can I assume that there are no major disadvantages?

Thanks for your advise
Graham

[Graham Macfarlane]

Thanks Michael

I didn’t expect there to be a shortcut for such a thing! Will keep link in Favs!
Cheers
Graham

[Graham Macfarlane]

Thanks Alperen for your help and sorry for not having the time to respond sooner.
I had a good look at your video and the cc pixel poly/particular work flow. I still can’t figure out a way to achieve the crumble effect I need.
The example on your work you high-lighted on the 32nd second is cool but its more of a disintegration effect.
What I’m trying to do is to crumble an old wall. Imagine your looking at an ancient castle wall and there is an earth quake. The wall would crack and chunks of various shapes and sizes (some chunks – very big and shaped lossely on clusters of stones from the wall) would fall and hit the ground.
I wont need to see these chunks break up on impact with the ground as I’m far enough away from the wall in my video but the wall needs to break appart in a very realistic manner.
As I mentioned, the shatter effect in AE can achieve the break appart look using a custom map perfectly, but lacks the ability to make the chunks stop at any point (i.e. hit the ground).

Perhaps there is an AE plugin out there that can do all this??
Otherwise I think I may have to resort to reactor in 3D Max. 🙁

Thanks
Graham