[John Stanowski]

But I need to adjust volume on a per clip basis. From what I understand the Sound Mixer works with entire tracks. And from what I’ve read it also records keyframes for all your actions.

[John Stanowski]

Yes, but I’m a Windows/Adobe guy. Do you have any idea when we can enjoy this new interface in After Effects?

[John Stanowski]

I just watched the QuickStart movie on Zaxwerks site, that new interface is beautiful, just what I was wishing for. Can’t say I agree with squeezing the timeline on the side like that in the Animation view though. Anyway, I’d definitely pay for a upgrade for the new interface alone. C’mon Zaxwerks!

P.S. I’m a little starstruck that you answered my post. Love your stuff.

[John Stanowski]

Isn’t this just a mess of keyed clips that are all scaling the same amount at the same speed but offset, each new clip on top of the other? Seems pretty straightforward in concept, though could be really complicated to manage a project like this.

[John Stanowski]

Hmm, how ’bout this:

Get a rust texture, something with a lot of dynamic range, desaturate it with Tint. Then apply levels and animate. First crush the blacks alll the way. Set a keyframe and move down and put the blacks back where they were and crush the whites until it’s all white.

Get your text layer, or graphic layer and use the levels-animated rust as a luma matte (that right?) The words should form out of nothing based on the pattern in the rust.

Next, apply Shine. You may need to precompose the above before adding Shine. Season to taste. (glow, etc.)

Best I can do, I’ve only been using AE for about a year.

[John Stanowski]

You many not need to make your text in AI or Photoshop, try making text with an outline and no fill. Add a glow to your text.
Yes, use repeater, and try the Add blend mode.

Aaron Rabinowitz (sorry if I spelled it wrong, Aaron) just did a tutorial on the Repeater effect, so it should get you up to speed on that effect.

The rest is just tweaking and those fancy camera moves. I’m not sure but I hope the repeater effect is 3D so you can get those changes in perspective.

[John Stanowski]

There’s one title for v10.5 and one for 9. It’s completely introductory. I just picked up C4D a couple months ago with hardly no 3D experience and I was feelin’ good after a 4-day bootcamp with his tutorials. Yes, it just scratches the surface as someone else said, but if you’re a beginner it’s a great start. Have you tried Cineversity.com?

[John Stanowski]

Awesome, thanks! I suspected that but the pixel aspect ratio confused me. So, if I render a 640×480 animation out of C4D using the After Effects Exchange, I can open it in AE and change the comp to 720×480, and change the pixel aspect ratio to .9 and all will be well? I’ll have to do some experiments on this.

[John Stanowski]

thanks! that’s just what I needed to know. I wanted to get “Making it Look Great 2” but part of it involves Invigorator which I don’t have, but now I know I can do a workaround with ProAnimator. thanks again.

[John Stanowski]

If I’m not mistaken, grouping the objects in Illustrator and then saving makes them come into PA as a single object. (I think I saw that in the John Dickenson tutorials.) I’d try grouping all the elements according to how you will stylize them in PA.