[Graham Quince]

It’s a shot in the dark and would be a cheat. But could you try using a displacement map of the orginal footage onto the fractal noise layer, (might need the displacement map layer to be pre-comped to strengthen the dark and light areas).

As the real skin moves, it would hopefully warp the fractal skin, faking movement?

An alternative, would be to use the liquify tool and draw in the distortions by eye. Patience required.

Fingers crossed for you.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

Hi Michael

You’re right, that whole section is greyed out for me too. The only time i’ve experienced the sort of problem you’re describing was with Camtasia studio’s screenscapture avi, not with Flash.

If you’d like to email me your swf file, I can check it out, see if i can make sense.

graham_quince at hotmail.com

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

Is it anything to do with your alpha channel. If you right-click on the swf in the project window, and choose to interpret the footage, and set it to ignore the alpha channel you’ll hopefully solve the problem.

I use swf’s in After Effects all the time, so please feel free to give me a shout.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

Depends what you’re wanting, Fractal Noise can create a nice chruning cloud cover. If you turn the layer into a 3D layer and angle it right, it looks pretty good.

And lightning or advanced lightning combied with strobe can get you your strikes.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

Hi guys

Thanks for all your advice. Unfortunately MacDrive didn’t seem to want to play (seemed geared up for CD-roms not usb hard drives) and the guy’s based quite far away, so popping down isn’t an easy option. Next plan is to use a friend’s mac to get the files off and then reformat the drive and put the files back on.

Thanks again

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

After Effects doesn’t have the world’s greatest compression settings. It’s not part of its job.

Quality and size-wise, it’s much better to render out at a lossless codec and bring the video into Premiere (or similar) and render out your final footage. Plus if you don’t achieve the right compression first time, your PC doesn’t have to rerender all the effects you’ve applied. it only needs to compress the video again.

Personally, a short-cut for lossless codec thst I use is to render out of AE in the Microsoft DV codec. It’s the codec I capture in through Premiere and for the quality of camera we use (pro-sumer) it’s good enough without being unusably large.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

Hmmm copying and pasting usually works for me. You can drag one composition into another, but then you have to go back to the original to edit it.

Are you sure you were copying the layer you wanted? it is possible in After effects, (i’ve done it on a number of occasions) to accidently have something else highlighted.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

I’d personally do this using a mask/path and Stroke.

Trace over your text with the path tool. Then apply Stroke. Animate the End property and your text should appear in the manner you wanted. Hide your original text layer, add Glow and mess with the transfer modes and you should get the effect you’re looking for.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

When you render your logo footage, make sure you alter the RGB setting to RGB+, that will export an alpha channel as well.

To extend your timeline, go to Composition > Composition Settings and change the length of your comp.

Hope both of those help

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

I’m looking into a 3d project too, and while TV has apparently done some 3D stuff, it’s almost non-existent in online write-ups.

All the advice from people who work with 3D is that you need two projectors, a silver screen and alignment software. We’ve priced our project at