[John Cuevas]

There is a free layer sequencer script inside the project files of this Video CoPilot 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.

[John Cuevas]

The pen tool has a duel purpose, it can be the mask tool and there won’t be a fill/stroke, or it can be used to create a shape layer and that will have a fill and stroke.

Create a new comp without any layers, select the pen tool and start making points, the fill and stroke will automatically appear next to your tools.

Now, create a new solid(cntl + y) and mask out a shape, you won’t have a fill/stroke options. You can use effects to create a fill and stroke for that layer though. They are both located under Effect > Generate > Fill/Stroke.

Here’s an example project illustrating the different techniques. 7714_fillandstroke.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]

Not with the number effect. The best way is to use an expression. Create a text layer (Cntl+Alt+Shift+T) and add a Effect>Expression Control>Slider Control to it. Twirl open your text layer, and twirl open “Source Text” and add this expression(courtesy Dan Ebberts).

numDecimals = 2;
commas = true;
dollarSign = true;
dur = 4;
s = effect("Slider Control")("Slider").value.toFixed(numDecimals);

prefix = "";
if (s[0] == "-"){
prefix = "-";
s = s.substr(1);
}
if(dollarSign) prefix += "$";

if (commas){
decimals = "";
if (numDecimals > 0){
decimals = s.substr(-(numDecimals + 1));
s = s.substr(0,s.length - (numDecimals + 1));
}
outStr = s.substr(-s.length, (s.length-1)%3 +1);
for (i = Math.floor((s.length-1)/3); i > 0; i--){
outStr += "," + s.substr(-i*3,3);
}
prefix + outStr + decimals;
}else{
prefix + s;
}

Right justify your text layer and keyframe the slider control and you are done.

Here’s an example project if you have any questions. 7713_counter.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]

Select the layer in the project window, press “cntl+e” to edit original, edit then re-save. Should automatically update in 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]

Smaller resolutions mean you are seeing less pixels, if your paths are small enough—they maybe be discarded in resolution drop. I’m not 100% sure, but I think it has to do with the size of the stroke and how AE does the res drop-down. Increase the width of the stroke and test 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]

You might want to take a look at this project from Video CoPilot, Earth Zoom. The technique is to parent layers to layers as you zoom in closer and closer. You should be able to take his technique and adapt it to your project.

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]

Along with the other suggestions(particularly separate character layers), here’s a little bounce script I made(adapted from Dan Eberts), that you may find useful.

Copy the Control layer to your text comp. Copy the expression on the scale layer of the white solid and paste it to each of your text layers(if you use the Copy expression only by right clicking you can paste it to all your layers at once). Add keyframes for you scale and the expression will provide overshoot, adjust the control layer to change how much and for how long the layer bounces.

Cool thing about this expression is you can add it to rotation or position also, don’t need to change anything(though you might want multiple controllers if you are working with more than one property—so you will have to update that)

7693_scalebouncecontroller.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]

Quite a few ways to do this, the approach will depend on how well is that color isolated in your project. Like if you have a field of yellow flowers and green leaves–yellow and green are really close, so it will be very tough to just isolate the flowers or one particular flower.

One method would be to use the keying effects—if the color is really strong, just use the Color Key effect, sample the color and adjust the tolerance and edge feather. In my first example I had to a small mask to grab a couple of stray areas. Then use the layer as a track matte for whatever layer you want to effect.

Another keying effect you could try is Extract. In my example, I look at the color channels and saw that there wasn’t much green in the rose—so I played with the levels of the green channel and added an extract effect. This method would require a bit of masking after to return some of the green I extracted from other areas of the picture.

So those are a couple of methods you might want to try…here’s my example project—if you want to see what I did. I’m sure there are many other ways of isolating a single color. 7691_colorselectfolder.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]

I’d first suggest trying out the animation preset “3D Falling Like Leaves”

If that doesn’t do it, check out this thread, in it I posted a project with some animation controls for making layers fall down, like paper/leaves. Check it out and see if it helps you out.

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/202/899616

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]

Glad 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.