[Jeremy Fabiano]

I’ll do my best to explain, but I haven’t touched afterfx in a year and I won’t be getting my pc back for a few weeks so this is from memory 🙁

The way i would do it is to make a null object

then put the 4 point tracker on the footage that has your tv
set the to the null object (the thing at the end of the tracking process cant remember its name)

play it make sure your null stays put

once it works, then take the precomp of your footage that you want on the tv (take the footage, precompose it, then put the cornerpin to the precomp as well as color adjustments) and parent the precomp to the null object.

Now when the null moves it should move your ‘tv shot’

I hope that makes sense :S

[Jeremy Fabiano]

You could try something like wiggle(#,#) or time*# on the rotation values, time would probably look more realistic, but I’m not sure, haven’t done something like that before.

Hope it helps.

[Jeremy Fabiano]

Well there’s a few ways depending on the complexity of the shot..

I’ve been out of AE for a year due to a lot of non-related factors, but I’ll try to help based on what I can remember..

First off, you’re going to need the ‘corner pin’ tool and make your video clip fit to the screen. I would precompose the layer and move all attributes.

you’ll need to do motion tracking on the tv if its part of video, if its a static image, don’t worry about it, just apply the corner pin and call it a day. Oh, you’re going to need x,y tracking + scale as well (will give you 4 points to track, set them to parts of the tv that are high contrast). The scaling option will hopefully help out if theres any forward/backwards movement of the original shot.

Once you got that stuff looking the way you want, if you havent already, (and if the tv is a tube type not lcd/plasma) put an adjustment layer on it, and change the color a bit to look like a real tv set.. (id use curves and tint/w colorize perhaps, you’ll have to play with it and see if you like it).

I really hope this helps or at least gets you on the right track. If it works out shoot me a sample of how it looks, I always like to see when my advice benefits someone and how they used it 🙂

Good luck!

[Jeremy Fabiano]

Um the title is misleading – the title suggests you wish to know what kind of computer setup to buy/build.

But your question seems more work flow related.

For keys, 0 on numberpad for ram preview, spacebar to just play, and . on numpad to play just audio

the audio and video files go into the timeline and (hopefully) get along nice.

[Jeremy Fabiano]

Um.. the only place I’ve seen any references to that being done is on videocopilot.net

tutorial section – look for something like “meteor tutorial” its a 3 part video.. he uses something like what you’re looking for..

I seem to remember the coordinates being switched or something (x and z) it might have been boujou im thinking of there though, he covers it..

sry cant be anymore help…

[Jeremy Fabiano]

The way you’re doing it should work pretty well.. maybe use some fractal noise over the top of the lights in aditive mode and cut into a cone shape…

Other way is to use Trapcode’s LUX .. I haven’t tried this effect before so I’m just guessing here..

[Jeremy Fabiano]

Um.. I haven’t done this before, but there’s talk about using the cc cylinder and mapping an image/layer onto it.. I don’t know how to do it, but I’ve seen it somewhere on here before…

Hope it helps somehow..

-Jeremy

[Jeremy Fabiano]

If you can’t afford lux (which was going to be my suggestions)

You can make your normal spot light, then make a new solid the same color as the light, use a mask to cut a shape out of your beam, and feather the crap out of it… won’t be as good as lux would be, but it’d be darn close, and if its not a high-def project, no one will prolly notice the dif..

Hope it helps
-Jeremy

[Jeremy Fabiano]

No problem 🙂 Shoot me an email when its done so I can check it out – always love seeing the outcomes

jeremyfabiano /at/ gmail /dot/ com

[Jeremy Fabiano]

The other possibility if you have it at your disposal is the “Puppet Tool” I don’t know much about it, but I know it can do quite a bit with moving pixels around etc.. might be what you need w/ that grass…

Im sure if you search you can find some tutorials on how to use it..

-Jeremy