[Grant Swanson]

Most likely you are using a trial version of some plugin, either it’s one that came with After Effects, (are you using 7.0?) and you haven’t entered the serial number yet, or you are using a demo of some other 3rd party plugin.

Hope that helped,
-Grant Swanson

https://videoapex.blogspot.com/

[Grant Swanson]

I’ve done this effect in the past using Trapcode’s Particular, and a shell casing created in 3D Studio Max as the source of the particle. It worked out pretty well, and once it’s motion blurred and color corrected to match the scene it’s very realistic.

Hope that helped!
-Grant Swanson

https://videoapex.blogspot.com/

[Grant Swanson]

You need to go to the Preferences section (Edit–>Preferences for PC, After Effects–>Preferences for Mac), and in the General section, make sure that “Switches Affect Nested Compositions” is checked.

https://videoapex.blogspot.com/

[Grant Swanson]

It just sounds like you have “wireframe” selected at the bottom of the Composition panel, switch it to OpenGL, Adaptive Resolution, or None, and your problem should disappear.

Hope this helps,

-Grant Swanson

https://videoapex.blogspot.com/

[Grant Swanson]

If you’re referring to the issue of version 7.4.0, yes. That problem was fixed with the release of 7.4.1.

-Grant

https://videoapex.blogspot.com/

[Grant Swanson]

My mistake. I just realized this after I left, so I thought I’d come back and correct myself, but you already did. Thanks Dave.

-Grant Swanson

[Grant Swanson]

Hi Richard,

If you want to use a program to make the transfer, I would recommend Automatic Duck over Sheervideo, that way it will just move right into After Effects with ease and quality.

You can do it right in Final Cut though, just go to File–>Export. Select QuickTime movie, then Current Settings, Video Only. Double check that “Recompress All Frames” is UNCHECKED, that way you will have no loss in quality when you make the transfer.

Yes, Definitely do the time manipulating in After Effects. In Final Cut, you would have to re-render back to the codec you’re working in, and even if you’re working “uncompressed,” you’re still rendering back to a 4:2:2 codec, which isn’t truly lossless.

For file types, I always use .TIFFs, with LZW compression, just make sure it’s interpreted as the correct frame rate/AR in After Effects.

Hope that helped!

-Grant Swanson

[Grant Swanson]

[Steve Roberts] “For AE, just go for a midrange card. AE’s implementation of Open GL is not very good, so most of us just switch it off. As long as the card is supported by AE, it’s good.”

Well that’s very debatable. OpenGL works just fine if the card on the computer can support it, which not all AE-supported cards can do very well…for instance, I would not recommend a GeForce card for any sort of post-production work, they’re designed and built for games and other home-use applications, they simply don’t perform very well on video and 3D applications.

I’m sticking with what I wrote earlier. Obviously a top of the line Quadro card such as the FX 4500 will cost to much to be reasonable. For your budget, you should check out the Quadro FX 1500. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133179

Converted to the Pound, it’s right around £235, which is right in line with your budget.

From there, again, spend your money on a dual/quad core CPU, and 2-4 gigs of RAM.

7200 RPM should be plenty, how often do you use Premiere? Do work on long projects with it? If you do you may want to consider an “editing” drive that is built for speed, such as a 10k Raptor, which you’ll store your temporary video files onto while your editing, and save the final clips to a separate, larger drive.

Those HP’s are nice, I’ve worked on a few of them, with very few hiccups. I did a little looking for you, and they have three different performance levels (https://www.hp.com/sbso/busproducts-workstations.html), all of which should be within you budget when converted out of US dollars.

I hope this helped!

-Grant Swanson

[Grant Swanson]

Well for your budget you won’t be able to get a super computer, but you can still come up with something decent.

In my opinion, and I can speak from experience, the component you don’t want to skimp on is the graphics card. I highly recommend any of the Nvidia Quadro FX cards, the higher up in the product line the better. These are absolutely amazing.

From there I would definitely say get a mulitcore processor.

I really don’t think you need monster amounts of RAM, unless you’re doing something extremely intense (in which case you’d want to increase your budget) you don’t need any more than 2-4 gigs.

If you make the graphics card your number one priority, then the CPU, you should have a pretty solid machine. And after those components just buy as much as you can staying within your budget.

I know it’s a little vague, but I hope it helps some!

-Grant Swanson

PS – If you want something off the shelf, try looking in to a Mac Pro if you prefer Mac, or an HP Workstation if you prefer Windows.

[Grant Swanson]

It sounds to me like you have “Freeze Layer Contents” selected in the bottom of the Composition window. Just Switch this to OpenGL or Adaptive Resolution, or another setting you prefer.

Let me know if this works.

-Grant Swanson