[Kevin Camp]

to clarify on michael’s statements, cs4 is 32-bit and thus limited to 3gb of ram, but with ‘render mulitiple frames simultaneously’ enabled in the memory and multiprocessing prefs ae can launch as many 32-bit render engines as you have processing cores, with each capable of use 2gb of ram. so for most rendering (and preview rendering) ae can easily use 10gb of ram.

you’ll need to figure out how many cores and how much ram to allow ae to use for your system. to get started, read some of the links here:

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/543440?start=0&tstart=0

you can start with the basic guidelines given win the ‘memory settings for cs5’. both of the ‘performance tips’ links can give you a good understanding of how to balance memory and cpus, and the performance tips for cs4 would be helpful too.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

this may work for you…

add a layer control effect to the Element layer, then link your expressions to the layer control rather than the actual layer that you want them to use.

then you can select which layer to use ans the expression ‘parent’ from the layer control. if you duplicate that Element layer, you can use the layer control to select a new ‘parent’

ex: add a layer control effect to a layer, then add this expression to the position property of that layer:
target = effect("Layer Control")("Layer");
target.position

if you set the layer control ‘layer’ property to another layer in you comp the layer swill take that selected layer’s position property…. select a different layer from the list box and it will take that layer’s position.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

if you went the card dance route, you can use a gradient layer to effect properties of the ‘cards’.

i don’t think you’ll be able to get the cards to move with the dancer with this feature, but you could use a matte (maybe blurred matte) of the dancer as a gradient layer and use that to effect the scale and/or z position of the cards… so as the dancer moves within the frame, the small videos seem like they get displaced in space, which might be pretty cool.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

nope, that won’t work… i think about it a bit more, but i don’t think we can get around having to set the base value to 0.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

i’m rendering right now, but if you can, you might try changing the last line to this:

min+Math.abs(wiggle(freq,max-min,oct))-value

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

trim paths probably needs to be set to 0… wiggle still uses the value of the property.

i’ll take a look when i get a chance.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

that’s pretty much how you’d do it… you could simplify the math a bit, like this:

min=50;
max=75;
freq=5;
oct=5;
min+Math.abs(wiggle(freq,max-min,oct))

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

here’s another method:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/stern_eran/Simple_Morph.php

also, i think re:flex has a free demo (not sure about bcc) so you could try it out.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

i think the most straight forward, without any extra effects, is to simply create the tail the way you need it, animate the arrow head so it looks like it follows the tail, then parent another solid to the arrow head. position that solid so that it follows just inside the back edge of the arrow and then use that solid as a track matte to reveal the tail layer.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

you can roll your own loopOut() cycle with valueAtTime().

try this:

Math.round(valueAtTime(time%key(numKeys).time))

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW