[John Hammond]

Thanks to everyone who responded, I learned some good tips that will speed my work up, like CTRL+ Drag the cti, CTRL+Click for a 1 sec preview,
And I’d never thought of using * for markers on an audio preview, maybe that will get rid of the half a second time delay I always get when placing markers to a video.

Thanks,

and Mark, as for why space bar isn’t play.. well imagine if a photoshop user came to AE and the space wasn’t the hand tool they would be just as uncomfortable as you are with having to use 0 on num. keypad. Anyway you obviously don’t get the real difference between Space and 0, and I can’t be bothered to explain to you.

John

[John Hammond]

Ops! I posted that last comment in the wrong thread – too many firefox tabs!

[John Hammond]

I learned a few good tips from these replies that will speed up my work.

Recently on a project I went to the length of making text layers in the top corner which switched on and off in sync with a soundtrack. I used phrases like ‘drums kick in’ and ‘mood change’ and animated thier scale to symbolise volume fall off and things. Probs took me 10 mins on a 30 second audio track but you really get familiar with it afterwards and are left with a kind of structure to animate to.

But with these workflow tips maybe I won’t have to go that far next time!
Thanks

John

[John Hammond]

when you RAM preview you should hear the sound play with the video. Make sure the sound icon is ‘on’ on the layer, and the sound icon in the RAM preview options is on too.

If still problems you can access your AE sound hardware setup from Edit/Preferences/Audio hardware.

John

[John Hammond]

maybe a particle system like Particular could help. You could make it run in reverse for the ‘vacuum’ effect. You can define the emitter shape to match it to the cotton, and you can define custom particles. You can also make, say 5 different particles and make particular randomly choose from them to get some variation.

There are other particle systems including the ones that ship with AE – but I haven’t used them much so can’t really recommend.

This is just my first thought from what you described.. might not be the way to go it’s just a suggestion.

[John Hammond]

Hi, thanks to you both.

Yes – I was rotating the emitter, not the cloud.

John

[John Hammond]

Thanks, that was a good explaination. I wouldn’t call myself a newbie but the collapse transformation button sometimes eludes me!

Another tip: If you have a camera in a main comp and a camera in a precomp, but want them to always move together and stay synced, link their parameters with a simple expression.

John

[John Hammond]

Hi,

Are you aware that you can import camera data between 3D software and After Effects?

That way you can model, texture, light and animate your object in 3D software, then render it to, say a .TIFF sequence with treansparency. Then you export your camera data and import it into after effects along with your 3d render. And voila, it all lines up nicely.

The method depends on your software. Cinema 4D has this functionality built in. For 3DS max I have used scripts that I found free online.

Oh – and if you want to animate a camera in After Effects and transfere that data to a 3D program, there are free scripts available.

Maybe there is a reason you need the actual 3D model in after effects, but from my experience most people render it first in their 3d software and just import the rendered image/video.

Chow
John

[John Hammond]

Ah, thanks! so simple.. for some reason I assumed I would need to ‘switch it on’ within particular.

thanks

John

[John Hammond]

:s i’m stumpted then.. ?