[John Cuevas]

You might want to try the free preset Amortype 2.0

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]

No, the settings shouldn’t matter, as long as you are using vector images.

Do you have bitmapped(pictures) in your illustrator files? If they are bitmapped doesn’t matter if you save them as eps or ai, they are still bitmapped images and won’t continuously raster.

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]

No, you don’t need it installed. You need a vector image, eps/ai files are generally vector. And then makes sure the continuously rasterize button is pressed.

Here’s some vector images, if they don’t scale properly, then you are doing something incorrectly: 7855_vectorimages.ai.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]

If you don’t mind, can you do a File > Collect File, zip it up and upload it here(last icon). Save as a CS6 project, please.

I’ve never had the puppet tool work in the way your are describing, so, I’d like to check it out.

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 something else you might play around with. Blend the two layers using a mask, like I mentioned above, then duplicate both layers, and place them in a pre-comp. Make the pre-comp the top layer.Now, use the rectangle mask to and mask the middle horizontal 1/3 of the video. Add a vertical feather to the mask(120 or so) then play with the blending modes of the pre-comp—this way when the two layers blend together, they combine with some stronger colors that pop a little more. You may want to play with the opacity of the top layer too.

Here’s a quick little example project. 7853_blendfolder.zip

Also if you are new to AE, you really should check out: Getting started with After Effects (CS4, CS5, CS5.5, CS6, & CC)

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]

Also if you are new to AE, I would strongly suggest you check out – Getting started with After Effects (CS4, CS5, CS5.5, CS6, & CC)

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 sounds like your original image is much bigger than 720×486, so you need to scale down your psd file(s). Since you are offseting them to create a 3D look, I would go to Layer>New>Null. Nulls are layers that don’t render, just used to control other layers. Move the null to the center of your psd image. Select all your .psds layers and parent them to the null, then just scale the null to your comp size.

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]

Just put a mask on the top layer, open up the mask feather properties, unlock the link and just adjust the vertical feather.

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 can achieve that by apply the BadTV 3-Weak preset to your text. Duplicate the text twice and then apply a shift channel to each layer. Set one layer to Full Red(other 2 layers full off)/ Layer 2 to Full Green(other 2 off), then Layer 3 to Full Blue(other 2 Full off). Now set the top to layers to screen.
Maybe add a blur to round off the edges, turn off the noise effect. Now if press EE for each layer you will see there is an expression. If you change the number that time is divided by, you will get a close approximation of what you are trying to achieve.

The tricky part is that you want to be able to keyframe in and out of the effect. I would make a control layer, add the necessary expression controls and link the layers to them, so I can keyframe everything from the controls to start and stop the effect.

I made a simple project, and added a controller and expression for the wave effect-so that it fades up and down. So you can take a look and see if this helps you get started.

7848_screenshot20140810at2.03.24pm.png.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]

Here’s a link to a thread that has some links to some good camera tutorials and camera rig setups(makes controlling the camera easier)

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/1031696

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.