Kevin Camp
Forum Replies Created
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[Steve Roberts] “new 8-core MacPro”
i thought steve’s posts had sounded happier recently… 🙂
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
cc sphere, unlike cc cylinder, is not a real 3d plugin and it won’t behave as a 3d object when a comp camera is added…
andrew kramer has a two-part tutorial on using cc sphere to create the earth. they are #41 and 41b, i think it was the second part where he shows how to link some of the 3d camera properties to some of the properties in the cc sphere plugin to get it to behave more like a 3d object.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
there are a few ways… you could create the text in another application, like photoshop or illustrator, and import that file and see if ae handles a file better than text… i have noticed that ae handles files better than gobs of text in a text layer.
you could break up the text in ae, making several lines of text and arrange them correctly in a very wide comp (wide enough fo the line of text), then bring that comp into the main comp for the movement.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
i did have problems installing cs3 production premium on a macpro (4-core)… i ended up having to create disk images of all the install disks and install from the disk images. it was rather annoying, but i haven’t had any noticeable issues since… except when ae does crash, it sometimes leaves a temporary file that will show up as a disk error. you’d never know it was there, but when you run the disk utility it shows up as an error. it’s easy to fix, but kind of strange…
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
if i understand what he’s going for, he may be better off not parenting (in this case) …. as every time he wants to rotate the parent, he has to counter the rotation of the child to keep it pointing upward, and then he has to compensate for an offset of the next child, and offset its rotation to keep it pointing upward too.
just pasting a circle mask as a motion path for 5 layers, then offsetting the keyframes to offset he rotations is pretty quick.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
personally i use dave’s method… i had figured it out a while ago, and i just stick with it…
but maltaannon has a slow-mo tutorial that should work that sounded like you may not need to adjust the interpret footage settings, just apply a preset to get half-frame rate slow-mo. it was for interlaced footage, but i would think it would work for 60p to 30p just fine.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
preferences>previews… there should be a check box to enable opengl, and you can then select to accelerate effects using opengl.
in addition you can set the preview window to use opengl interactive previews or always on by clicking the little lightning bolt icon under the preview window (i would recommend interactive…)
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
[marcoshoracio] “The problem is that I have 5 of those arrows spread along this orbit and every time I paste the path into each one of their position attributes they all get stacked, falling on the same place.”
can you just slide the position keyframes over a few frames so the arrow motions are staggered and each arrow will be visible? you can slide the keyframes left or right depending on how you want the motion to start (like, all staggerd, or all from the same start point).
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
15hrs for 12mins just for levels and curves seems a bit long… if the comp is as simple as you said, the usb2.0 drive is probably not the big issue.
in ae’s memory & cache settings, is disk cache enabled? you might try turning it off if it is, if your disk is slow or fragmented it can really slow things down. you are rather handicaped by 1gb ram, so disable the disk cache can result in other problems, but for troubleshooting this, you might give it a try.
additionally, you could try a render using opengl as the render engine. both levels and curves are opengl accelerated effects. once you send your render to the queue, click the render settings and check the box for use opengl for render. now, i want to warn you a bit about opengl and ae… you will want to check the opengl render against the other render. opengl renders a little differently than ae, and there may be problems.. but if the comp is as you described, i think it should be fine.
in ae7 most effects can’t use multiple processors unless you purchase nucleo pro (gridironsoftware.com). so a new machine with more processing cores may not result in significantly better render times. cs3, however, uses multiple render engines, one for each processor, so the beneift is grater than for ae7.
additionally, i would spend money on more ram than a better graphics card, particularly if you invest in cs3 or nucleo pro for ae7 (the recomendation is 2gb per processor for multiprocessing).
a raid0 would not be as beneficial to ae as it would to an nle… it would allow capture and playout of higher data rate file types, like lossless or uncompressed, but so will your sata drive. if you get a sata ii host adapter, you could easily upgrade to a raid0 drive array when you want to go hd (in a couple of years, you could probably get a few terabytes for a hundred bucks… 😉
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
i think this will work….
first create a null layer (name ‘null 1’), add a slider control and set the slider value to around 200 for starters.
now create your solid, make it 3d and enable expressions for position. paste this in the expression field:
x = linear(index, 0, thisComp.numLayers, 0, thisComp.width);
multiplier = thisComp.layer(“Null 1”).effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
z = Math.abs(Math.sin(index * Math.PI / thisComp.numLayers)) * multiplier;
[x,value[1],z]duplicate your solid 100-150 times… as you duplicate your layers the should distribute across the screen and recede in z space as they approach the center of the screen following a curve (the positive value a cosine curve). the z offset can be controlled for all layers by the null slider value.
create a new comp, add a null (name ‘null 2’) and add a slider control to it. bring in the comp created above, enable collapse transormations (next to the shy layer control), enable expressions for position and paste this:
spacingAdjust = thisComp.layer(“Null 2”).effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
y = linear(index, 0, thisComp.numLayers, 0 – spacingAdjust – (height / 2), thisComp.height + spacingAdjust- (height / 2));
value + [0, y]now duplicate the nested comp and the dupicates should distribute vertically, use the slider control on the null to fine tune the spacing.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW