[John Williams]

Hi there, while this doesn’t directly answer your question, this can certainly help.

When you ‘double click’ on the Type tool AE automatically creates an empty Text layer in the centre of your comp (handy but not your question.)

When you hit the open square bracket ‘[‘ keyboard shortcut, the selected layer jumps to the current time indicator.

Beyond that, perhaps some scripting wizard can create you a script for that.

John Williams

Soho Editors

[John Williams]

Hi there, definitely the more ‘true 3D’ objects and scenes you need, the more you will want to work in Cinema 4D directly. However, there is a great workflow for AE users you may or may not be aware of.

When you’ve created your composition with Classic 3D elements in AE then send it over of Cinema 4D (full version or Lite version): File / Export / Maxon Cinema 4D Exporter

This converts all your elements (Solids, Text layers, Shape layers, Still images, moving Footage, Lights…) into a Cinema 4D scene where you will have a lot more control as well as merge in other more complex 3D objects and intersect as much as you like. Of course you can then send it all back into AE to finish it although, if your running the full version you will want to render it in Cinema 4D rather than run through Cineware as that’ll be much slower.

Hope that opens some other doors for you;)

John Williams

Soho Editors

[John Williams]

How did those body parts all come in as separate objects? Usually a rigged character will come in as one mesh.

What is the end result you are trying to achieve?

John Williams

Soho Editors

[John Williams]

Then i’d recommend the FX Console to you for faster access to effects.

https://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2018/05/fx-console-updated-to-v1-0-3/

All the best;)

John Williams

Soho Editors

[John Williams]

Change the ‘Output Upper’ to 200 and you’ll get twice the height.
Obviously you can change this to any value you like, 200 mean twice the value of the original which was 100.
And this value can also be keyframed.

😉

John Williams

Soho Editors

[John Williams]

Hi there, this is a simple job for XPresso.

Create you object and animate it along the X. then add an XPresso tag the to object and drag the object into the XPresso Editor two times.
With the first node, create an out port from the Position X. On the second node create an in port for the Position Y.
Obviously you can link the two together now and you will get a diagonal movement, so instead you need to add a ‘Range Mapper’ node. Set both the ‘Input Range’ and the ‘Output Range’ to ‘Zero to Hundred’.

Then open the spline ‘graph’ on the range mapper and draw the shape you want to remap the movement to (in your case a smooth curved arc.) This will map the continued X position movement to a bobbing up and down Y movement. This will also take into consideration any speed changes in your X movement.
Finally, if you want this to happen multiple times (as in your second illustration) then just tick the ‘Modulo’ button in the range mapper.

Hope this helps, let me know if I lost you at any point;)

John Williams

Soho Editors

[John Williams]

To convert a rigged and animated character to a single object you can select the Mesh, then right click to select ‘Bake as Alembic+Delete’. This will convert the mesh and you can then delete the joints but the animation will remain baked into the mesh. This will obviously remove the control to change the animation but make your scene simpler and it will also speed things up considerable once the animation is baked.

Hope that helps;)

John Williams

Soho Editors

[John Williams]

Hi there. From what you describe, it sounds like you need to use a ‘speed’ expression.
The speed expression looks at the speed a layer moves at rather that the value it changes from and to.

So if you have a layer that moves you can create an expression link from an effect (ie Amount of Noice on a Noise effect) and add to the end of the expression:

.speed.toFixed(1)

This will look at the speed of the property rather than the value and the (1) at the end will just round the number up to the nearest decimal point.

As the layer moves faster the speed increases and so will the Amount of Noise, then when it decreases in speed the amount of noise will decrease. Of course you can then add *2 to the end of the expression to multiply it by 2 or whatever, if you need it to be more and /2 if you want to divide the value. This method will work on noise but could be even more interesting on other distortion type effects.

Hope that helps;)

John Williams

Soho Editors

[John Williams]

Hi there. If you’ve been using After Effects for a while you may be aware that ‘everything is possible’! Just not always in the way you might think:

To customise the Layer Styles is the same as customising the Effects. Once you’ve applied it and adjusted the setting to how you wish them to be (ie 100% opacity, different colour…) then select the Layer Style on the layer and go to Menu: Animation / Save Animation Preset.
This will save the changes into the Presets folder and then you can always find it in the Effects and Presets menu.

Hope that helps;)

John Williams

Soho Editors

[John Williams]

Hi there! I can’t recall exactly how RG’s Edge blur used to work but when blurring an edge in After Effects I use ‘Channel Blur’ and just blur the Alpha. Simple.

If you want more control then Refine Soft Matte & Refine Hard Matte are two other inbuilt effects (these can process a bit slower). You can also try the Matte Chocker.

If you need still more complex control, you could make a copy of the layer, put it above the original, set it to be a ‘Track Matte’ and then apply any blur of your choosing to it.

Hope one of those helps;)

John Williams

Soho Editors