[Jeff Dobrow]

hmmm….

1) When you are in your timeline with this setup, and click the ‘alpha only’ disply option on the viewport,…do you see the correct alpha?? If yes then go on, if not…you have something setup wrong.

2) If you do,….then render it out. Bring it back into AE, and see if it has the correct alpha?

3) If it DOES then its a FCP issue,…if not then hmmmm….you are animating a shape on a layer above your fill layer and using it as a track matte?….Is that correct?

[Jeff Dobrow]

When you say ‘quite small’…

1) How does it look when you first import it? At whatever size it comes into from AI?
2) Does scaling it smaller produce this result? OR does zooming out (effectively making it smaller too) produce this result? or do BOTH operations produce this result?

Might be a place to start looking?

[Jeff Dobrow]

Man,….I cannot get it to look soft. Seems razor sharp.

I have zoomed waaaay in to the edge of a complex curvy spiral .ai type shape…….

very weird.

Maybe someone else has some ideas?

btw – I have not adjusted any settings at all,…looks same in Standard 3D as well as Advanced 3D (ofcourse OGL hardware looks bad…….)

[Jeff Dobrow]

I think Chris meant:

Set it to rgb+alpha, AND then set alpha to pre-multiplied. (it will look like crap until it is placed in an NLE or Comp. app)….

[Jeff Dobrow]

Good question.

I have AE 6.5 Pro,…and it works fine as wine. AI file in timeline, with collapse and 3D on.
NO softening at all.

[Jeff Dobrow]

Well, Adguy……….it is very hard to comment without any visuals to look at.

On one hand, your description ‘could’ lend itself to cheesy, old-school thick-extruded flying logo tumbling in,…then an offset of the other type coming in, then the oh-so-typical ‘shatter’/shine/glow – then deviating into some psuedo-hip trendy line into city into woman type thing. Without a sense of timing this could be like 1,2,3,4,5 with no overlapping motion, consistant feel, pacing or direction.

BUT OFCOURSE, on the other hand, it could be some beautiful, barely extruded 3D, revealed in an innovative way, shattering out in some dynamic, wispy turbulent fashion…all the while being garnished with a flowing line of light that evolves into the city and then carries the view into the transform of the woman,…all in 3-space, very trendy, polished and professional.

SO I cannot comment without seeing anything. A comment, if taken seriously could end up doing more harm than good.

Love to see it when u r done though!…Post back with a link….

[Jeff Dobrow]

hat’s off.

U R correct. Never tried to do it in AE before,…..but yup. You are right.

nevermind 😉

[Jeff Dobrow]

Maybe I am not following correctly.

But cannot you just drop in your image layer, make it 3D and put it at say…320,243,100
THEN create your circle/3D stroke layer and make that 3D, and put it at the same place only with an x rot of 90

The stroke should automatically go around the other layer and clip properly due to AE’s 3D capabilities….

or did I miss something?

[Jeff Dobrow]

His particle attract & particle dispersion tuts should get you 99% of the way to what you need. BUT do not skip the basic tut’s, you will need them.

[Jeff Dobrow]

To some degree, yes. http://www.allanmckay.com has several good video tut’s (watch them online) that take you through alot of particle basics…..that EXACT effect though is not shown. Should be able to fire it from the info u get on his site………