[Graham Quince]

Are your graphics card drivers up to date? If you’re on Windows, has it been since the last update (the one that put the stupid weather on the top bar).

[Graham Quince]

If you’re using Trapcode Particular you can use the Sphere option in the Physics section with a negative displace value.

In CC Particle World, you could precomp the stars coming out of the point then time reverse the precomp.

[Graham Quince]

Have you tried upping the life of the Aux/Child particles, with their velocity set to 0, they should hang around longer which should create the trail you’re after.

[Graham Quince]

I’m so sorry this has happened to you. The only thing I can think to suggest is contacting Adobe Support. I had a couple of problems about a year ago and they worked through all the solutions remotely (took about 4 hours). Eventually they solved it. It’s not the same, I didn’t lose files, but I’d contact them

On another note, it’s probably worth investigating cloud backups. I’ve set up Google Drive backup and sync. It given me “peace of mind” should I lose anything.

[Graham Quince]

That sounds really, really difficult to do.

Can you post a couple of frames so we can see the challenge you have. I’m thinking the only real option here would be a colour replacement to make the pipe dark grey. Other than that, you will need to use tracking and masking.

[Graham Quince]

I think you have the right workflow (edit in Premiere, replace with AE composition). You could duplicate all the clips where VFX and place them on their own track. Then highlight them all and replace with AE composition. That way you have non-destructive replacements.

I take it reshooting isn’t an option?

Left-field alternative – what about using Character Animator, drop the actress’ footage into that and replacing them with a cartoon talking head?

[Graham Quince]

I saw this when it came out. It’s really well done.

My guess is that for the punch a water balloon was suspended on a thread and the dropping balloon was rotoscoped onto the shot, ending at the moment of impact.

[Graham Quince]

Right click on the name of one of your comps and choose Undock. Drag it up so you can see both comp, both layers and both sets of properties. Then you can use the pick whip to link them together.

Once you’re done, you can drag it back into the comp panel.

[Graham Quince]

I’d probably fake it by having a cap as part of the rig, but it’s visibility controlled by the parent comp.

[Graham Quince]

You could use Shatter with a fractal noise layer as the custom shatter map, but I think this shot was done using Card Dance. Again use a fractal noise layer for the gradient and keyframe the effect’s X position’s offset to move the particles off screen.