[John Hammond]

Thanks Dave,

I think the reason I didn’t do that is because I didn’t want to import lots of big projects into the one I was working on. Each project uses a lot of fairly high res images, and duplicated material. So I thought it would be messy, and may make my PC respond slowly.

But thinking about it, I could create a new blank project and use that to import all my comps into, then it doesn’t matter if it does crash due to all the material.

aerender.exe still refuses to stay open for more than a split second though :S

[John Hammond]

hi, not got AE on this PC right now to check this, but I think it’s some combination of the below:

open both comps.

In the composition window of one comp, at the top there is a little drop down list. Click it and click ‘new comp viewer’.

Then select your other comp.

Then, from the same menu, choose locked.

Now you have 2 comp viewers. Now just rearrange them side by side in the usual manner.

Done!

I remember this being fiddly until you figure out how its done, hopefully I explained it right, but it does work.

John

[John Hammond]

Hi, here’s a few ideas..

Try adding the Effect ‘Matte choker’ to a duplicate underneath your original layer. play with the settings. To get it white add a HSL effect.

If you have CS3 or higher you could try right clicking the layer and selecting ‘layer sytle’ then ‘outer glow’.

John

[John Hammond]

Ops – Sorry I replied to this before hitting ‘refresh’ and my pc had been on rendering over the weekend so Adam’s reply didn’t show up..

But yeah nice one Adam I didn’t know that!

[John Hammond]

Hi,

I think it’s just a limitation of mo graph.. I don’t know why.

But to achieve the effect you want, click your cloner object and then choose MoGraph/Plain Effector.

Then go to ‘parameter’ and alter the ‘scale’.

If nothing happens check that your plain effector shows up in your Cloner’s effector tab. If not drag it in.

By the way – ‘plain effector’ just effects every object the same.

John

[John Hammond]

I see,

Maybe you could use Sweep Nurbs with a flat, 2d shape as the cross section – like just a 2 point spline (just a line) so the sweep nurbs has no depth.

Another way to go could be to output a .AEC scene file and a compositing tag to represent where the ‘pen’ touches the ‘paper’.

You could then import all this .AEC 3D data into after effects and you get a null object which you can attach you write on effect to.. Just a thought. Also Cinema 4D’s sketch and toon module could help you. It is a post effect. You can animate the lines to ‘draw’ across your splines and also add many preset effects like crayon, pencil, chalk, paint etc.

[John Hammond]

I’m not sure what kind of ‘grow’ you are trying to create…

You could use Sweep nurbs to grow the outlines.

Or Extrude nurbs to grow the caps by animating amount.

Or you could combine both techniques on identical duplicate splines, or maybe fade in the caps as the sweep nurbs animate.

But like I say ..I don’t really know what you are trying to achieve.

[John Hammond]

Cool, thanks JAck. I’ve use Xpresso a little like this tuts first example.. But this tut goes deeper with the vector2matrix and matrix to HPB.. I need to work through that and try to understand it!

Cheers.

[John Hammond]

Have you tried Extrude Nurbs (same menu as sweep nurbs). It has cap options. just drop a spline inside

[John Hammond]

Hi Jack,

The Arrowhead’s positions are firstly arranged in a radial pattern by using the Cloner Object (mograph). This cloner then flies around the circlePath through the use of the Align to Spline tag on the cloner. (animating position %).

To adjust the arrow’s position you can alter the original object’s pivot point, or add a plain effector to the cloner and adjust the position params.

However, I don’t think this issue is related to the crazy render I am getting . . the geometry is jumping around all over the place (see render above).