[John Cuevas]

If you are trying to set up multiple renders that is based off one comp, you might want look at the script True Comp Duplicator at AE Scripts. It makes original duplicates of your comp and all precomps. Really handy.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

In Optical Flares, the “Render Mode” pulldown gives you the option render over “On Black”, “On Transparent” or the “Over Original”, changing it to “Over Original” will render the lens flare on your video footage.

For Particular, this is accomplished by twirling down the “Rendering” and changing the “Transfer Mode” from “None” to “Normal”

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

You need to play with the transfer modes. Make sure the “Modes” column is available—if it’s not there right click by “Source Name” and choose modes. Darken, Multiply & Color Burn will all produce a green when those layers are combined.

Work with layer blending modes

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Shatter doesn’t have a bounce, stick or any floor properties, so it’s not going to break apart and land on a floor. You can break an object and use the viscosity to freeze it during mid fall, but that’s really not the same thing.

I think you will need a 3D program to do what you are describing.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

I have to admit, I had no clue you could put a stroke on an adjustment layer…learn something new everyday.

Track mattes are pretty basic but important concepts to learn in AE…if you are just getting started check out some of these links from Todd Kopriva(works at Adobe). There some really good training programs there to get you started & give you a proper understanding of how AE works.

Getting started with After Effects (CS4, CS5, CS5.5, & CS6)

Glad you got it to work.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

If I was doing it, I would create my text and put a solid layer over it, turn the solid’s visibility off, create the masks needed, add the strokes and then turn the text’s track matte to “alpha matte”.

If you already have the masks/strokes on a text layer, a duplicate of it would work also, just remove them from the bottom text layer. An adjustment layer won’t work.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Try this, put multiple strokes on one layer and set the first stroke to “Reveal Original Image”, then set the next strokes to “On Original Image”.

Place this layer over your text layer and change the text layers track matte to “Alpha Matte”

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

One thing you might wanna try is to add some shadows to your dancers on stage, just .02 cents, but all in all really fun.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

I did a search over at Pond5, might give you some ideas on how to approach it, either buying one or how to make your own.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Is your mask on a solid layer? Did you duplicate the mask or the solid, because you need to duplicate the solid(layer) and create two different solid colors. It would be a lot more difficult to duplicate a mask on a single layer and have the fills be 2 different colors—though it probably could be done.

So if you are talking about a duplicated solid layer just press “shift+cntl+y” to access the solid settings and you can change the color. There is a check box in the corner that says “Affect all layers that use this solid”, make sure that isn’t checked or you will change the color of your original solid also.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.