Joseph W. bourke
Forum Replies Created
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Marko –
This might be a job for the secret settings in AE. There is a command palette which is normally hidden in AE, which will allow you to purge frames in a render after a certain number of frames. When I was working on a less well-equipped PC, I used the setting, and it saved my skin.
Go here:
https://generalspecialist.com/2007/02/troubleshooting-after-effects-7.asp
Look down a few paragraphs and you’ll find a walk-through of what you need to try. To get to secret settings, hold down the Shift key and then select Preferences. You’ll see the secret settings at the bottom. I think I used “purge every 15 frames”, and it stopped my problems, but read up on the details, and try it. There is a ton of useful information on this site related to all sorts of AE troubleshooting. Good luck!
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com -
Hi Anne –
From your reference shot, it looks as if you’re trying to create mist – although I’m being a bit nit-picky here. I think of fog as the rolling, moving, cloud-like stuff, and mist as a light screen that’s almost solid (no cloud shapes), but still translucent.
At any rate, there are a couple of ways to go – one is to just use a couple of Fractal Noise layers, and set the complexity way down, if you want the misty look. You can stretch it on the Y-axis to give it the layered look, and also make a couple of layers so that there is a foreground and a middle ground, with slightly different settings.
The second way to go is with a 3D effect. The only way I know to activate AE’s 3D effects is to bring in an RPF or RLA layer from a 3D package, such as 3D Studio Max. You can import your layers with Camera, Alpha, and Z-depth. Then once you import to AE, you’ve got access to the 3D filters. There are many other setting available to the RLA or RPF file, and you can actually convert a 3D camera in AE and it will create keyframes. Hope this helps.
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com -
To be honest with you Brian, I have neither, and rely right now on network (gigabit), Firewire, and USB 2.0 for my capture. My gut feeling is that headroom is a very good thing, and you never know when you’ll be hit with a 2k or 4k project. If you’ve got the money, I would say go with the Kona 3, as long as it fulfills your requirements on the lower end.
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com -
Hi Jason –
I’m a PC user, so I’m a bit in the dark as to why the Apple Braille font won’t work in AE. I’m wondering if, rather than a system font, the Braille font might be in some sort of “accessibility” mode.
If you’re under the gun, here’s a workaround – the Braille font is available as a free Truefype font for the Mac at:
https://www.searchfreefonts.com/free/braille.htm
If this installs and works fine in AE I think the Braille font on the Mac may not be your standard font as we know it. Good luck.
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com -
My formal schooling is in music. My career is in graphic design and television production. Everything I have learned has been through observation and reading the manual. That said…it helps greatly to have an eye and a talent for what you are attempting. If you are certain that this is what you want to do, and you feel that you have the necessary talents, don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it on your own. Observe everything, deconstruct what you see on television and in the movies, take tutorials, buy books, and work, work, work. Do a project a day, whether you’re getting paid for it or not. The money will come, whether you educate yourself or pursue a formal education.
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com -
Just to put in my two cents. To me, the Mac VS PC decision is like comparing a Stanley hammer with a Black and Decker hammer; both will drive nails, but you may prefer the design of the handle on one, or the way it feels when you swing it, but both are wholly capable of getting the job done. I’ve worked with both in my career, and I’ve found that, once you get past the GUI, you’re working with the same tools (FCP, 3D Studio, etc. platform limitations aside).
My business partner runs a mostly Mac shop, and mine is totally PC, but once we’re into the software we’re on the same page. Good luck with your choice – test drive both, and pick the one that gets you there most comfortably. Either one will pay for itself in a relatively short space of time.
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com -
The best results I’ve seen for AckAck explosions would be from Wondertouch Illusion. There’s a huge library of presets available, many of which would be ready to go with a couple of tweaks. If I remember correctly, AA explosions were somewhat round, with a bright white flash in the center, followed by a quick spread of grey/black smoke (not that I was there – but I’ve watched my share of combat footage) that then spread or smeared due to wind conditions. Here’s a link to Wondertouch:
I’m sure it can be done in Particular, but at a greater cost of setup time. I don’t remember seeing any explosion type presets. Good luck!
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com -
I’m sure someone more knowledgeable will weigh in and correct me if I’m wrong, but I am under the impression that AE CS4 does not play well (if at all) with the Athlon processor. In a couple of searches I found that an SSE2 enabled processor is required. I don’t know whether that’s part of your problem. I just found the word from the horse’s mouth at:
https://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/production/systemreqs/
“An SSE2-enabled processor is required for AMD systems” right at the bottom of the Windows requirements. Good luck!
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com -
Hi Richie –
I recently went from a single-core 3.0GHz multi-threading machine with 4GB of RAM running XP Pro to a Core 2 Duo Quad machine running Vista 64 bit, 8GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 260 graphics card. I have a 500GB OS drive, a 500GB Applications drive, and two 750GB media drives (not striped, no RAID). I plan on adding a RAID array as the HD work gets heavier (long form projects, in other words).
I went from an average graphics heavy project in AE (about 15 to 20 layers – many comps in the same project) taking about 90 minutes to render on the old box, to a 7 minute render on the new one – same project. Nothing scientific here for the comparison, but I was astounded by the speed increase. As I said, this was an SD project, but I have played around with some P2 footage, and had very quick response.
Here’s another link that will help you out in your optimization quest:
https://generalspecialist.com/2007/02/troubleshooting-after-effects-7.asp
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com -
OK Ryan –
I would start out by saying that you want to make each of those effects using two layers in your Comp – one for your text, and one for the mist/burn effect.Put the text layers underneath your effects layers – Particular does nice smoky/mist effects, and pretty good flame effects. I tend to use Illusion (Wondertouch) for both of these effects when I do them, but if you’ve got Particular, that’s what you’ve got.
For the mist effect, you could use the Shatter plugin that comes with AE – make your particle size very small, and use one of the shapes that doesn’t have an obvious shape to it (bricks, glass, etc.). You want tiny particles to approximate the mist. When you’ve got your Shatter looking good, cross-dissolve it into the Particular mist effect, and let it dissipate.
For the burn effect, I would use the Erode plugin that comes with AE – play around with the presets – there are many that approximate a burn – animate the edge size to burn out the text, while increasing the flame brightness on the Particular layer. This will take some playing with to make it look as real as possible, but it can be done. Good luck!
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com