[James Hooey]

Figured out a probably less than elegant solution….

Paste the mask to a default white solid….use as a luma matte over the rotating, scaling moving position photo layer….

works, but is there a better way?

If I’m not learning something….I’m bored.

[James Hooey]

Thanks Eddie, product enhancement suggestion sent to Adobe.

Here is what I suggested…

*******Enhancement / FMR*********

Global video FX bypass switch.

This is a suggestion to include a GLOBAL video fx bypass switch (perhaps in the program monitor) that would disable the majority of video effects in a project. There are many times where I would want to disable all effects to either quickly A/B effected to uneffected video or just as importantly have a fast option to turn off all effects to allow for much higher frame rate playback (realtime generally) for checking precision of edits. This could further be enhanced by giving some options for what type of video effects to enable/disable such as effects only, transitions, all but cross dissolves, ect. The current methods of enabling/disabling fx are all clip based and too cumbersome to easily A/B a timeline.

Vegas video has had this functionality for years and it is certainly a feature I use all the time in my workflow with that software.

Thanks and hope this suggestion gets some notice!

James Hooey
Sound Pro Studios

If I’m not learning something….I’m bored.

[James Hooey]

WOW….I am shocked that this simple functionality doesn’t exist in Premier….thanks for the tips though.

Draft mode – (had already tried), still not realtime when working with HDV.m2t material using Magic Bullet Looks 1.2 on a quad core AMD with 8 gig of ram. Probably more around the 10fps range.

Disable effects clip by clip – aware that that exists but that is exactly why I was asking about a global switch. Far too slow to have to turn off effects clip by clip just to A/B clean or effected as well as get full frame rate for checking edit precision.

So to follow up then…anyone remember where to send Adobe product improvement suggestions…this one seem like it should really exist. Use this feature all the time in Vegas.

It’s like a mixing board without a solo button!! (btw-I know Premier has solo buttons for audio tracks).

Thanks again for the help

If I’m not learning something….I’m bored.

[James Hooey]

bump….any help? Using CS4 Production Suite, Photoshop Extended in particular.

James Hooey

If I’m not learning something….I’m bored.

[James Hooey]

Congratulations on your new paths in life! I am already missing the thought of not learning some new aspect of After Effects from such a well spoken and exceptional teacher as yourself. I have certainly learned many things faster and in more practical and effective ways from your Creative Cow podcasts and tutorials than I have from hours pouring over the PDF manuals.

Your future is as bright as you are.

James Hooey

If I’m not learning something….I’m bored.

[James Hooey]

Thanks for the reply Dan,

You are absolutely right in that without the +840 added the reflection text ends up above the main text….this confuses me as I thought the opposite of a layers position should put it in the perfect spot below the main text.

Would looking at the info panel while hovering over text edges/areas give me a better understanding of the x/y coordinate system and how the math would be applied I wonder?

Honestly I am horrible at math concepts. I am very logical though….go figure that one out?

James

If I’m not learning something….I’m bored.

[James Hooey]

Well, I’ve sort of got this figured out, but it’s not as elegant as it probably could and should be….

After discovering that I can seperate the timeline properties for x and y coordinates rather than having then in one property it was somewhat simple to pickwhip the x and then the y properties for each text layer and assign it to a point controller. The problems and confusion I still have is that the point controller has a combined x/y controller field and I could not seperate them so I am using two point controllers with only half of the each controller affecting either x or y positions of the text layers.

The other niggle is that to get my reflection layer to move opposite in the y axis to the main text my expression after pickwhiping I added…

*-1+840

I understand the *-1 would create opposite values of whatever it is linked to but I had to fiddle around with the +840 number and don’t understand why I would need it….without a + something in there the reflection test does still move opposite to the main text but it’s placement is always well away from where it should be….

If any of this makes sense….please forgive my ignorance as I am brand new to all this…are there any explanations, better methods that could be suggested?

James Hooey

If I’m not learning something….I’m bored.

[James Hooey]

great camera!!! I only have one dissapointment with it…the zoom, focus and iris rings are servo control mechanisms and as such they have a rather limiting shortcoming…. you cannot zoom and adjust focus at the same time. Typically not a problem but there is the occasion from time to time where focus will be lost while zooming from close subjects to distant ones. Manual control rings would solve this I believe but then that’s more $$$ and it also requires a pretty good operator.

On the plus side though…excellent video quality, good compliment of manual controls and the size is unobtrusive. Basically it rocks.

[James Hooey]

To make an animated pie chart you cannot use the static graffiti plug…you must apply it as a effect to a presumably blank (transparent) section of generated media. There is a more recent post explaining this in this forum.