[John Cuevas]

Try changing your custom particles to a textured polygon.

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]

The first issue I see is that you have turned your particular layer into a 3d layer. That’s not necessary and will most likely cause you problems.

You should be able to do everything you are attempting with Trapcode Particular, the custom emitter layer and custom particles(and even the rotation of them)

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 might want to precompse your layer(if it’s not already) and mess around with the bevel layer style.

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]

There website says all the plugins are 64Bit ready. Since you bought the plugins they may allow you to upgrade for free or you may have to pay an upgrade cost. VCP has forums though, you might found the answer there:

https://www.videocopilot.net/forum/

ETA: Link to upgrades page

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]

How are you playing it, from a DVD or a computer? If from a computer you could use windows media player and there is a option to loop the file. If it’s from a DVD, you have to set the end action of the video to loop back to the start of the timeline.

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 you were doing it with the text, I would make a composition(this will be a pre-comp) and use the shape tool to create a circle. Create a layer with my text and place it on top of the circle.

Take this pre-comp and drop it in my final composition and change it to a 3d layer by checking the 3d layer switch. Press “R” to open up the rotation property and rotate it 90 degrees on it’s y-axis and set a keyframes then set another keyframe rotating it back to 0 degrees fairly quickly(10 frames).

Sometimes when rotating from 90 degrees, the image won’t disappear, so trim your layer start to the first keyframe.

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]

Thank you Dan, that was driving me nuts. Good thing to remember for the future.

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]

Add a solid and apply fractal noise to it and play with the evolution settings would be the simplest way to add smoke.

Perhaps taking your logo, adding a simpler choker(assuming you have an alpha) and keyframing the choke amount with a fast blur would be an effective way of creating a track matte for your fractal noise smoke.

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]

Here’s one way that should work-

While in photoshop save your file as a layered PSD. In AE import the file and Change the “Import As” selection to “Composition”. Now you can copy the text layer to any new composition you create.

And when you get a chance you should work your way though some of the tutorials here at the Cow and:Getting Started with AE

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]

Roger, I adjust my lights, stills, text to the length they need to be. If I have a 10 second comp and the text is only 3 seconds, starting at the 5:15 mark, then my text is adjusted to 3 seconds and placed at 5:15.

I believe, AE will work faster too, if it doesn’t have to check on an asset that isn’t spanning the duration of the composition—even at 0% opacity, if it’s part of the composition I think AE has to calculate that on every frame rendered.

I’m not sure if you are familiar with the open and close bracket “[ ]” fuctions. Knowing these shortcuts will probably make your work a little faster.

[ = moves the head of the layer to the CTI
] = moves the tail of the layer to the CTI
shift + [ = Cuts the layer head to the CTI
shift + ] = Cuts the layer tail to the CTI

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.