[Jon Bagge]

This is easy to do in AE. Apart from the above suggestions, this script https://aescripts.com/create3dshapes/ will create simple 3D shapes (like boxes) from layers.

————–
http://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

In the Output Module settings when you have an image sequence module open, unselect the ‘Use Comp Frame Number’ button. This will allow you to set the starting frame number.
It will still render whatever selection you’ve set in the Render settings.

————–
http://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

Have you tried View -> Simulate Output, and set the profile to the correct one for the wide gamut monitor?
There is also a ‘display colour management’ (or something similar) you can turn on just next to the Simulate Output submenu.

Also you almost certainly have to use colour management for this to work. (which you should be doing anyway)

In addition to After Effects handling colour, your graphics card will also have a colour management system. Your card should be able to handle a different colour management on different monitors.
Mine does anyway (FX3800), but I also use Spyder calibration, which will calibrate each monitor seperately.

————–
http://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

Most likely your gradient doesn’t go to either complete white or complete black.

————–
http://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

Apart from the advice already given I would recommend rendering to image files (png or jpg) if you have a very large render. That way you don’t have to re-render everything if something goes wrong.

Also if you think hard drive access is an issue make sure you’re rendering to a different drive from where your sources are.

————–
http://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

We still need to know what codec you’re using when rendering from AE to offer any help.
Most codecs at 1080 just aren’t playable directly in a media player. That could be why you’re seeing the glitches – your computer just can’t keep up.

That’s why Kevin advised you to use the Avid codecs, they should be playable at least within Avid, and most likely in Quicktime/Windows Media Player also.

————–
http://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

Joe, Your piece is absolutely beautiful. Did you edit/shoot/direct as well as animate? Great work, regardless.

Thank you 🙂

I did editing and animation. The actual cartoons were drawn by somebody else, pencil on paper. Then I scanned them in, treated them, rigged them with puppet tool and animated them.

————–
http://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

On your layer with the puppet pins on the timeline, twirl down Effects>Puppet>Mesh 1>Deform>Puppet Pin 1 (or whatever puppet pin you’re working on)
Then alt-click that stopwatch and pick whip to the position of your null object.
Now, when you move your null object, the puppet pin follows.

Unfortunately it’s not quite as easy as that.

Firstly you need to get the null in the same position as the puppet pin, otherwise the puppet pin will just jump to whatever position the null happens to be in.
You can do this by selecting the puppet pin position, and copy-paste to the null’s position.

But this won’t always work either, because the two positions refer to different things. The null’s position is its position within the composition.
The puppet pin’s position is its position within the layer its on.
The two are only the same if the layer the puppet effect is on is the same size as the comp and has not been moved. (you can solve this by pre-composing)

Assuming you have set your puppet layer up this way it will work.

Except if you make a rig with several nulls you can’t parent the nulls to each other. Because if you do a child null’s position parameter will refer to its position relative to its parent and this will move the puppet pin to the wrong place.

For a good tutorial about this whole mess and how to fix it:
https://www.slipperyrocknyc.com/SlipperyRockNYC/Animation_Tutorials/Entries/2009/3/7_Using_Parenting_and_Puppet_Tools.html

He doesn’t stress that the puppet layer must be precomposed or the same size as the comp, but take it from me – it must.

I’ve had a lot of success setting up the puppet tool this way, here is an example:
https://vimeo.com/18526926

Good luck!

————–
http://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

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[Jon Bagge]

MC is 64 bits. this version will be the last to work on 32 bit system.

No, MC is 32 bits, including the new version 5.5. Future versions (MC6?) will be 64 bits.

You can run 32 bit programs on 64 bit OS’s, but not the other way around.

————–
http://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

I’m pretty sure AE doesn’t render the whole 5k^2 when you put it inside a smaller comp. However AE will need a memory buffer for the whole 5k comp as it can’t predict what you intend to do with it.

Some options:

As mentioned by Dave, do a proxy render. While working on the project do a 1/4th or 1/9th size proxy.
You’ll probably want to use some kind of compression even for the final proxy to keep the filesize down. A jpg sequence might be an idea, that way you can alter parts of it later if you need.
Make sure you turn on proxies in your render settings, or they will be ignored.

When you know how you’re going to move the camera around, you can cut individual layers short in the 5k comp so AE doesn’t need to load them into memory when they’re not needed. You’ll have to do this manually.

Lastly you could change the size of the 5k comp to 1050×576, and either use a camera, or parent your layers to a null and move the null around.
This will definitely render much faster, but may or may not be practical depending on what’s in the comp and how you’ve put it together.

————–
http://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects