[John Cuevas]

You can use “cntl + alt + shift + t” to create a new text layer, type your text and use the “enter” key on the number keypad to finish your layer, but you won’t get the bounding box using that method.

If you are using the text tool where you create the bounding box first, you can use “enter” on the number keypad to finish your text and then start a new bounding box and text layer elsewhere.

Finally, “F2” will deselect everything in the active window.

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 AE you could render out your rotobrush pass with an alpha channel and composite that layer into Premiere, but probably even better would be to composite everything in AE and render that as your last shot and bring it into premiere.

So take your finished roto layer(I’m assuming you have correctly used the rotobrush) and place that into your composition. Take the layer you want to change the color of the walls and make that your bottom layer add whatever color effect you want to change it. Now if I understand Dynamic Link correctly you should be able to save the project and import the comp into Premiere, but if for some reason this is a problem, just render to a Quicktime Animation file and you should have everything you need to finish you project.

Strange, I did something like that your concept recently, Top Left Video

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]

It’s quite a bit of animation there, but I think the basic look could be created by using the scribble effect. Check out these tutorials for more info on scribble.

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]

Since you are on a deadline, I’ll skip trying to figuring out the “why” it’s happening and move to a solution you could try.

Create a folder, and render the project to a TIF sequence. If it fails at a certain point, you will have a working animation to that point and all you will have to do is change your render area to where it failed and start from there.

Once you have all 900 frames rendered you can bring import them as a sequence and render to the codec/file(with audio) that is your deliverable.

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 think you are looking for Plexus.

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 know about Pixel Polly, but shatter can absolutely be delayed. Shatter is created when the force hits the layer and in the “force/wireframe” view you can see it’s already interacting with the layer. Just twirl down “Force” and move it so it’s not smashing into the layer, key frame it’s position and it will explode the layer whenever you want.

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 the color you want is super consistent, you could use keylight(or any keying software) and choose the color of the red bus to key out. Put a layer below that set the track matte to alpha inverted, that should give you just the bus. Add one more layer below where you crank up the saturation and you have your effect. You might need to blur the top layer a bit to blend the two layers together.

Of course this only really works if the color you are trying to isolate is perfectly consistent, shadows, highlights can all make using this method a real pain. Of course that’s why Adobe invented the rotobrush tool.

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]

This is one of those projects that can be accomplished in multiple ways, but here’s one method you could use.

What you need is a graphics with multiple layers, chalk layer(top layer) and chalkboard/pictures for the background(bottom layer). So first set up your work in Photoshop and save as layered .psd file.

Import your graphic into AE as a composition(that option is in the bottom left corner of the import dialogue) and open up your composition.

On the top layer(chalk line) add the effect Generate -> Stroke. Now use the pen tool(“G”) to create a path for the stroke effect to follow. Start from where you want it to start revealing to the end. In the effect window, for paths choose “Mask 1″(assuming you haven’t created any other masks in this composition. For Paint Style choose “Reveal Original Image”.

Move the Current Time Indicator to where you want your animation to finish and press the Stroke “End” stop watch to set a key frame. Now move to where you want the animation to begin and change the percentage to 0%. This will set another key frame and if you scrub the time line you should see your chalk line animate on.

At this point you may need to thicken the brush size. If the stroke line is a little too smooth you could also add a “Stylize -> Roughen Edges” to it, that might make it look a little less smooth, but if the animation is fast enough, nobody is going to notice that.

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]

Can’t be done–not in one layer. You need to use multiple layers to accomplish that.

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]

As I’m deciding on my new system(and video card) I’d be very interested in seeing the results.

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.