[Harry Frank]

The only thing I can think would be to use Dan Ebbert’s expression based particle generator:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/ebberts_dan/particle_gen.php

Then you could convert the expressions to keyframes and control their flow that way.

Freelance Motion Designer

[Harry Frank]

You can remove ALL effects like this:

Select the layers.

Go to Effect>Remove All

But, it sounds like you are looking to remove one certain effect and leave another?

Harry J Frank
– Freelance Motion
Designer, Adobe ACE

graymachine.com

[Harry Frank]

you are out of luck. 3D Stroke lives in its own little 3D world. Your best bet within 3D stroke would be to create some sort of custom Compound Blur map, which doesn’t sound fun.

Particular, on the other hand, DOES support DOF. You can create a very accurate little brush with it, too. Just use a Light emitter, and set the Velocty and Velocity Random to 0. Also, reduce the XYZ emitters all to 0. This will emit particles from a single, easily controllable point in space, with Smooth DOF rendering.

If you want to pursue this direction, it might help to take a look at Andrew’s light streak tutorial:

https://ayrshire.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/nano/index.htm

Harry J Frank
– Freelance Motion
Designer, Adobe ACE

graymachine.com

[Harry Frank]

“4 computers to work with and 2 MACs.” ???

So, is that 4 PCs?

If you had all Macs, I’d look into using Compressor and Qmaster:

https://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/compressor/encoding.html

If it’s a mix, I’d just had one clip off to each computer and just sit and drink a lot of coffee. Don’t bother with the Watch Folder, it won’t be worth it at all.. like you said, it only output image sequences.

Harry J Frank
– Freelance Motion
Designer, Adobe ACE

graymachine.com

[Harry Frank]

When you Collapse Transformations on a comp, the transformations for the nested composition are not performed until AFTER the effects for the composition are rendered. This is just how things are wired when you hit this switch. So, essentially your effects will render at the original size, then that will be composited on top of the comp after transformations, resulting in a mismatch of sizes in many cases.

The Meyers CMG book Vol 2 (I believe?) explains this in a lot of detail (with charts and arrows and circles..).

My solution is usually to work within the largest resolution needed in the precomp (sometimes as big as 5000×5000). It’s a slow process, but it works.

Harry J Frank
– Freelance Motion
Designer, Adobe ACE

graymachine.com

[Harry Frank]

Particular would be perfect for this. There is a “Physics Time Factor” that allows user control of the flow of time backward and forward.

https://trapcode.com/help/particular/index_preview.html

Harry J Frank
– Freelance Motion
Designer, Adobe ACE

graymachine.com

[Harry Frank]

From the help file:

You can apply a layer style to a 3D layer, but a layer with a layer style can

[Harry Frank]

I’ll send you the file. This picture might describe the problem a little better:

https://www.graymachine.com/downloads/puck2.png

The transparent area in the center is where the Shadow Catcher is. So, everywhere the Shadow Catcher object is, it creates transparency behind it. I would think (like you describe) that it should be transparent, allowing us to see the wood block behind it.

This happens in all of my tests with Shadow Catcher.

Harry J Frank
Freelance Motion Designer

[Harry Frank]

Have you considered 3D Warps?

https://zaxwerks.com/3dwarps/index.shtml

[Harry Frank]

They kinda look like circles to me, but one simple approach to making a bubble is to use the “Circle” effect on a solid and use these settings:

Radius: 150
Edge: Thickness
Thickness:0.0
Feather Outer: 0.0
Feather Inner: 80.0

Then on the position, apply a simple wiggle:

wiggle(1, 200)

Just duplicate away, and this should be pretty close.