[John Cuevas]

Adobe TV covers the subject a little in the After Effects and the Premiere areas.

Here’s a link to what Stereoscopic returned at AdobeTV. Might be some interesting stuff there, I’ve only seen the AE videos.

Good luck,

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]

AE isn’t an editor, and playback is sporadic generally unless you do a RAM preview(press 0 on the number pad). Info and Links on RAM preview.

As far as what can be deleted, you only posted your system, we don’t know what you are doing, what files you are using…

As you are new to AE Todd Kopriva of Adobe has a great list of references for getting started: Getting started with After Effects (CS4, CS5, CS5.5, & CS6)

Along with the links to Andrew Davis and the VideoCopilot series, I strongly recommend the book Creating Motion Graphics by Chris and Trish Meyers.

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]

Few times I needed one, I just made it, doesn’t take much time.

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 don’t understand, if you just apply Roughen Edges to your text it’s a static effect until you start animating it. If you don’t keyframe anything, won’t it “stick” to your text?

But if need a different way to roughen your edges check out how Andrew Kramer creates his chalk and letters by using a texture & track mattes. Blueprint Reveal

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 also tried this: in the new empty project I imported the other project file…which has the result of bringing on all the other files. I then deleted everything save for the elements I wanted….but then there were some linkage issues.

I was just referring to the issue of linkage issues. I don’t generally run into that issue unless I have started moving things all over the place.

When I finish a project I do a little cleanup. First I reduce the project and then run a File -> Collect Footage. That duplicates my entire project(I’ll delete the originals after), but then I have everything in one folder. Then I just move it to an archive and if I need to reference or use part of it, I can just bring it back and not have to worry about missing links.

Glad I was able to help.

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’m not sure why you had a problem importing one project into another, I do that all the time without issue.

But you could try this, take the element you want to for your new project and put them in a folder in the project panel. Select the only the folder then go to File -> Reduce Project, everything but what’s in the folder will be deleted.

Finally use the “Save As” and give it a new project name, your old project is unaffected and you have a new project with just the elements you wanted.

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 could use an expression. Add a null to your project and add the Effect -> Expression Controls -> Slider Control. Twirl down the effect so you can see the slider control.

Open up one of the layers position and paste this expression.


x = transform.position[0];
y = transform.position[1];
z = transform.position[2] + thisComp.layer("Null 1").effect("Slider Control")("Slider");
[x,y,z]


Right-click the position property and choose “copy expression only”. Now just select all your other layers and paste.

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’ve done this by changing the emitter to “layer” and under the “Layer Emitter” pulldown(down at the bottom of the emitter properties) change the “Layer” to the layer you want to sample the colors, “Layer RGB Usage” to “RGB – Particle Color”. For Particle Type I used “Textured Polygon Fill”

FYI, if I read what you are trying to accomplish, Trapcode Form probably is a more efficient solution. As I worked this out, I created a little example project: 4340_particleexample2folder.zip

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]

Because offset turbulence drives the flag waving, the displacement map comp won’t ever loop seamlessly(the fractal keeps moving and it will always be different). So the normal trick to create a seamless loop in this situation is to use a dissolve to hide that you are basically just starting the layer over again.

Here’s a quick way to do it. Get The Loopmaker from AE scripts(if you want you can name a price of 0 for this script). Install the script, open up the Waving Flags comp and run the script on the “Displacement” layer. The layer will now have 2 keyframes, go to the second keyframe and move one frame backwards “page up”. You should be at 27;28 now, press “n” to change your work area. Right click on the work area portion of the timeline and choose “Trim comp to work area” Finally change the “Displacement Loop” transfer mode back to Hardlight.

Go to your final comp and your “waving flags” comp will be a shorter than it was before, so will have to shorten it also. Now you should have a seamlessly looping flag. Using Rob Mize’s original file, I updated it with a seamless loop. All that needs to be done is to trim the final comp to 27;28. So if you have any questions you should be able to check that out and figure it out.

4338_wavingflag.aep.zip

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 want to explore the caustics effect and wave world.

Here’s a Caustics Tutorial

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.