[Kevin Camp]

you can get the read only version of the codec from matrox:

https://www.matrox.com/video/en/support/mac/mpeg_2/downloads/softwares/4.2/

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

yes, typically pre-rendering a precomp will make speed up the render time for the main comp.

i’d say it’s worth trying, if it either doesn’t help or makes things worse (which i don’t think is likely) then you can always swap the precomp back into the main comp.

I don’t know that echo would eat up much ram though (it might, but i don’t think so) but it can definitely eat up cpu time.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

yes, haveing a precomp that is 9000×7000 is the same as having a layer (image or otherwise) that is 9000×7000.

you might see if enabling ‘collapse transformations’ for the precomp layers in the main comp changes anything… it may change the look of what you currently have, but it depends on what is happening to those precomps in the main comp… but it may decrease the amount of memory needed to render that frame, though i’m not 100% on that.

i do think that if you move the layers from those 9000×7000 precomps, into the main comp, it should require less ram to render.

you are pretty short on ram with only 4gb. you don’t mention your ram settings, but i would make sure that ‘render multiple multiple frames simultaneously’ is off. i’d also make sure that no other software is running when you try to render (no photoshop, web browsers, mail clients, etc).

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

Hi Rob,

I don’t have an error here… i am using an old version of ae, but i don’t think there’s any syntax that has changed that would be effecting this expression.

do you have a layer named “OBJECT” in the comp? your original expression was pointed at a layer named “OBJECT” so i used the same layer name. however if that was the issue, normally the error would say say something to the effect of that layer could not be found, but that’s the first thing that comes to mind…

do you have the latest updates to your version of after effects, and/or have you rebooted your computer lately?

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

sorry the main problem was the first line was only looking at the x component of ‘object’, i didn’t catch that in your expression (i assume you want both x and y, if not we can change this).

i was also missing 2 semicolons at the end of 2 lines, but that shouldn’t have caused the error.

this should work:

p = thisComp.layer("OBJECT").transform.position;

s = 10;
xOffset = 100;
yOffset = 50;

x = xOffset + s * p[0] / 360;
y = yOffset + s* p[1] / 180;

lonDeg = Math.floor(x) % 360;
lonMin = Math.floor(60 * (x - lonDeg));
lonSec = Math.floor(3600 * (x - lonDeg - lonMin/60));
longitude = lonDeg + "° " + lonMin + String.fromCharCode(34) + " " + lonSec + String.fromCharCode(39);

latDeg = Math.floor(y) % 180;
latMin = Math.floor(60 * (y - latDeg));
latSec = Math.floor(3600 * (y - latDeg - latMin/60)); latitude = latDeg + "° " + latMin + String.fromCharCode(34) + " " + latSec + String.fromCharCode(39);

longitude + ", " + latitude;

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

motion also has an offset feature, though it’s less intuitively named ’tile center’.

if you animate the tile center y component, you should be able to make it look like is moving, rather than animating the position property.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

this will make the x and y values seem like longitude and latitude values:

p = thisComp.layer("OBJECT").transform.position[0];

s = 10;
xOffset = 100;
yOffset = 50;

x = xOffset + s * p[0] / 360;
y = yOffset + s* p[1] / 180;

lonDeg = Math.floor(x) % 360;
lonMin = Math.floor(60 * (x - lonDeg));
lonSec = Math.floor(3600 * (x - lonDeg - lonMin/60));
longitude = lonDeg + "° " + lonMin + String.fromCharCode(34) + " " + lonSec + String.fromCharCode(39)

latDeg = Math.floor(y) % 180;
latMin = Math.floor(60 * (y - latDeg));
latSec = Math.floor(3600 * (y - latDeg - latMin/60));
latitude = latDeg + "° " + latMin + String.fromCharCode(34) + " " + latSec + String.fromCharCode(39)

longitude + ", " + latitude

s is like a scale factor, it controls the amount change per pixel. xOffset and yOffset allow you have the longitude and latitude values start at larger values.

it’s not really very realistic, but the format will seem about right. with better math, it could be fairly realistic.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

try motion tracking the first point and apply the track to a null, then create a second null, parent the first null to the new null, track the second point and apply that data to the second null.

now the first null should continue moving after it’s position data stops since it will be parented to the second null, which should start moving at that point…

there is a tutorial on videocopilot.net for set extensions (search for those terms) that shows this procedure… probably better than i can explain it in writing.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

you could use the ‘smoother’ (window>smoother), but that is destructive (it changes the keyframe values) so you’d want to duplicate what you have and apply the smoother to the duplicate.

you can also use an expression function called smooth() on the keyframed property (i assume position in this case), and the function is not destructive, so you can modify it or remove it as needed and you’ll always be able to revert to the original values.

the expression is very simple:
smooth(width = .5, samples = 5)
the width value is in seconds, it tell the expression how far before and after the current time to average. and samples is number of keyframes values to average. modify those as needed to smooth your values.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

videocopilot.net has a ‘portal’ tutorial that you could adapt to do something similar… you’d only need to part that describes making the portal.

i think you’d just want to shoot with an actor as the shadow figure, then roto a mask around that actor to use as the ‘portal’ shape in the tutorial and pick it up from there.

his tutorial doesn’t show how to make the smokelet, but you could look for tutorials on creating smoke.

if you have trapcode’s particular you could use the roto’d shape as an emitter and then use a procedure similar to mike park’s ‘catching fire’ tutorial on redgiant.com to create an organic smokey particle system.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW