[Kevin Camp]

rather than using a track matte, you might be able to use a blending mode called ‘stencil alpha’…

add the pictures to a comp, add the USA text (or whatever text you need), and arrange the pics as needed. move the USA text to the top layer of the comp and change the ‘mode’ from ‘normal’ to ‘stencil alpha’.

this should have a very similar effect to the track matte, but effect all layer below the text layer (track mattes are limited to a single layer).

now add a null layer and parent all the layer (pics and text) to the null. scale the null and they should all scale, and since the images have not been precomped, they should retain their original resolution.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

you could do this with the compound arithmetic effect… but there can be some issues.

if the original size of the image is the same size as your comp, then it’s quite easy… add the image to the comp, then create a new solid (comp sized) and add the compound arithmetic effect to the solid. set the ‘second source layer’ to the image and set the ‘source’ menu to ‘effects & masks’.

now if you add an effect to the image (like curves) and make changes to that effect, the changes will also happen to the copy of the image on the solid.

where it can get a little tricky is when the image is not the same size (and particularly not the same aspect ratio) as the comp. in that case when you create a new solid, you need to make sure you make it the same size as the original image. so if the comp is 1920×1080, but the image is 4000×3000, you need to make the solid 4000×3000. but after that, it should work.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

now i see what you are trying to do…

the only way I think you can do this is to use separate text layers for each line…

it would be nice to have one master text layer that you type into, and then expression on several other text layers that parse the ‘master’ text into separate lines bassoon newlines (\n or \r\n), but i’ve never been able to get after effects to detect a newline, just a hard return (\r).

example:

text.sourceText.split(‘\r’)[1]; // will return the second line after a hard return (carriage return)

but

text.sourceText.split(‘\n’)[1]; // will will not return the second line after a newline wrap in area text

maybe some one has found a workaround to detect newlines and will chime in.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

sorry Roei, just saw this…

if you are still working on this, add a slider to the text layer and set keyframes to animate from 0 to 1, then try this expression:

completion = effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”) ;
n = linear( completion, 0, value.length ) ;
substr( 0, n )

the text will type-on based on the keyframes set on the slider.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

I just noticed that difference in the screen grabs… the avi option may have replaced video for windows in newer Ae versions…. unfortunately I don’t have Ae on a Windows box to check.

There may be issues with older codecs on newer OS’s or even newer versions of Ae… I did go to Matrox’s site, and could not find a Win10 version of those software codecs, so that might the issue.

Do you also have a Matrox card in your PC, or are you only installing the software codecs? Thinking that this could be a driver issue if you also have the card installed….

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

in your Win10 screen shot, it doesn’t look like you are accessing the output module settings…

try choosing edit > templates > output module and clicking ‘new’. set format to ‘video for windows’ then click ‘format options’ and see if the codec is listed in the menu there.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

this should detect if Layer02 is active and set the opacity value to 100 if it is and 0 if it is not.

if ( thisComp.layer(“Layer02”).active ) 100 else 0;

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

you could try animating the y scale of a single layer to go from 100 to 0, then add the echo effect to an adjustment layer.

got to the last scale keyframe, then in echo, set the decay property to .9 (you can refine that later) and then increase the number of echoes. the echo effect will start blending the animation. fiddling with the echo time, number of frames and decay property will adjust the blending.

since you don’t want this to ‘animate’, when you the this comp into another comp, goto the frame that you like the ‘blend’ of and choose layer>time>freeze frame to lock it to that frame.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

can you do the typewriter effect in the source text? if so, sourceRectAtTime() should work for what I think you are trying to do.

You may want to have a fixed width for the rectangle, but as the text types onto a new line the box should expand vertically to accommodate the new line(s).

a simple type-on expression in source text would be something like this:

rate = 10 ; // characters per second
substr( 0, rate * ( time – inPoint ) )

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

here’s a link to a map with the projection that would work for that expression:
https://www.1worldglobes.com/images/custom/inflatable/basic_world_map_lg.jpg

if you take that into a 1080 comp and fit it to the comp (layer>transform>fit to comp). then add a null and copy/paste that expression in the null’s position, it should line up pretty well with the map. in my sample expression, the values were for Seattle, and that seems to be pretty accurate, and i tested a few others.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW