[Kevin Reiner]

378_familytree.aep.zip

Yes, if you use the write-on effect you will have to use multiple instances of the effect. I did a quick test of it that is attached. It is a bit of busy work, but it can be done this way. One shortcut is that if you duplicate the effect, then select all of the keyframes in the new effect, you can adjust their positions all at the same time. Make sense?

I’m not at work and don’t have access to AE CS3 right now. If I did, I would also check to see if you can do this using shape layers. Within shapes, you can also write on the stroke of the shapes. You might want to look into that.

And a third option would be to make your entire path in AI. Copy and paste that into AE, and try the stroke effect.

Good Luck,
Reins

[Kevin Reiner]

Explain a little more what it is you’re trying to accomplish. Is it just the names that you’re trying to write on, or do you have pictures of the family members?

If it is just the names, the write on effect (possibly combined with some animated masks and shape layers) should work. If you have illustrator, try this tutorial:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/kantorski_kevin/signature.php

It will probably be a combination of many mask animations and write on effects. Do you have a reference picture or video to show what the final image looks like? You say that the write-on effect isn’t working for you – what exactly doesn’t work?

Good luck,
Reins

System Setup (for a more detailed list, see my profile)

HARDWARE
Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
9GB Memory
Two 16x SuperDrives
Dual-channel 2Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Apple Cinema HD Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT Graphics Card
AJA Kona LHe SD/HD capture card
Apple Xserve Raid 5.6TB

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Final Cut Pro Studio 2
After Effects CS3
Photoshop CS3
Illustrator CS3
Boris Continuum 5
Sapphire Plug Ins
Roxio Toast
Digital Anarchy Anarchist Suite
ParticleIllusion 3.0
Trapcode
Zaxwerks

[Kevin Reiner]

Maybe play with Auto-trace,
1. Apply autotrace to your picture.
2. Find a good setting that traces your art they way you like it. (clicking preview helps)
3.Then check the “apply to a new layer” and hit okay
4. Apply the scribble effect to this new layer and change the following settings:

a. check “use all maskes”
b. make fill type “center”
c. edge width a low number like 2
d. stroke color black
e. stroke width 2

5. Then precompose that solid layer moving all attributes into the new comp.
6. Add the displacement map effect to the original image and set the displacement map layer to be the precomp.
7. Play with all the settings in both effects to get the look you want.

Hope this helps. It will probably take some trial and error, but might get you to a solution.

System Setup (for a more detailed list, see my profile)

HARDWARE
Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
9GB Memory
Two 16x SuperDrives
Dual-channel 2Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Apple Cinema HD Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT Graphics Card
AJA Kona LHe SD/HD capture card
Apple Xserve Raid 5.6TB

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Final Cut Pro Studio 2
After Effects CS3
Photoshop CS3
Illustrator CS3
Boris Continuum 5
Sapphire Plug Ins
Roxio Toast
Digital Anarchy Anarchist Suite
ParticleIllusion 3.0
Trapcode
Zaxwerks

[Kevin Reiner]

amazing and beautiful work. bravo.

System Setup (for a more detailed list, see my profile)

HARDWARE
Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
9GB Memory
Two 16x SuperDrives
Dual-channel 2Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Apple Cinema HD Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT Graphics Card
AJA Kona LHe SD/HD capture card
Apple Xserve Raid 5.6TB

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Final Cut Pro Studio 2
After Effects CS3
Photoshop CS3
Illustrator CS3
Boris Continuum 5
Sapphire Plug Ins
Roxio Toast
Digital Anarchy Anarchist Suite
ParticleIllusion 3.0
Trapcode
Zaxwerks

[Kevin Reiner]

Has this workflow worked for you in the past, or is this the first time you’re going this route? The reason I ask is because you’re using the very latest version of Quicktime. I always give a new version of QT a couple of weeks/months before upgrading to make sure there aren’t any bugs. This might not be your problem at all, but I’ve ran into similar issues in the past.

System Setup (for a more detailed list, see my profile)

HARDWARE
Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
9GB Memory
Two 16x SuperDrives
Dual-channel 2Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Apple Cinema HD Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT Graphics Card
AJA Kona LHe SD/HD capture card
Apple Xserve Raid 5.6TB

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Final Cut Pro Studio 2
After Effects CS3
Photoshop CS3
Illustrator CS3
Boris Continuum 5
Sapphire Plug Ins
Roxio Toast
Digital Anarchy Anarchist Suite
ParticleIllusion 3.0
Trapcode
Zaxwerks

[Kevin Reiner]

“and you’ll learn about frame-by-frame animation of multiple masks.”

ha

Dave, I am a long-time fan of your posts. My dream is to one day be zinged.

System Setup (for a more detailed list, see my profile)

HARDWARE
Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
9GB Memory
Two 16x SuperDrives
Dual-channel 2Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Apple Cinema HD Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT Graphics Card
AJA Kona LHe SD/HD capture card
Apple Xserve Raid 5.6TB

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Final Cut Pro Studio 2
After Effects CS3
Photoshop CS3
Illustrator CS3
Boris Continuum 5
Sapphire Plug Ins
Roxio Toast
Digital Anarchy Anarchist Suite
ParticleIllusion 3.0
Trapcode
Zaxwerks

[Kevin Reiner]

To save an extra millisecond in your day, you can follow Kyle’s advice except instead of hitting O and N, select the layer whose length you want your comp to be and hit APPLE-OPTION B. Then “Trim Comp to Work Area”. Over the course of a year, this could save you 5 mins.

😉 Kevin

System Setup (for a more detailed list, see my profile)

HARDWARE
Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
9GB Memory
Two 16x SuperDrives
Dual-channel 2Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Apple Cinema HD Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT Graphics Card
AJA Kona LHe SD/HD capture card
Apple Xserve Raid 5.6TB

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Final Cut Pro Studio 2
After Effects CS3
Photoshop CS3
Illustrator CS3
Boris Continuum 5
Sapphire Plug Ins
Roxio Toast
Digital Anarchy Anarchist Suite
ParticleIllusion 3.0
Trapcode
Zaxwerks

[Kevin Reiner]

You would somehow have to throw a variable into each layer’s equation. I’m not at my office so I can’t play around with AE right now. I’m not the best at expressions, so we might be at the limit of my ability to help. I would advise you to post this one in the AE expressions forum. There are a lot of brains bigger than mine in there (Dan Ebberts & Filip Vandueren usually help me out when I’m stuck.)

Good luck

System Setup (for a more detailed list, see my profile)

HARDWARE
Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
9GB Memory
Two 16x SuperDrives
Dual-channel 2Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Apple Cinema HD Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT Graphics Card
AJA Kona LHe SD/HD capture card
Apple Xserve Raid 5.6TB

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Final Cut Pro Studio 2
After Effects CS3
Photoshop CS3
Illustrator CS3
Boris Continuum 5
Sapphire Plug Ins
Roxio Toast
Digital Anarchy Anarchist Suite
ParticleIllusion 3.0
Trapcode
Zaxwerks

[Kevin Reiner]

I’m not an expression expert by any means, but here’s my 2 cents.

1. Make a new layer and apply the “slider” effect.
2. Name that layer “slider”
3. Choose one of your video layers and put this expression into the anchor point value:

x = anchorPoint[0];
y = anchorPoint[1];
z = thisComp.layer(“slider”).effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
[x, y, z]

4. Copy and paste this anchor point expression to all video layers.
5. You should now be able to move all of the layers by just animating the slider value.

Hope that works for you.

-Kevin

PS I am sure there is a simpler expression, but if it works, it works.

System Setup (for a more detailed list, see my profile)

HARDWARE
Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
9GB Memory
Two 16x SuperDrives
Dual-channel 2Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Apple Cinema HD Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT Graphics Card
AJA Kona LHe SD/HD capture card
Apple Xserve Raid 5.6TB

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Final Cut Pro Studio 2
After Effects CS3
Photoshop CS3
Illustrator CS3
Boris Continuum 5
Sapphire Plug Ins
Roxio Toast
Digital Anarchy Anarchist Suite
ParticleIllusion 3.0
Trapcode
Zaxwerks

[Kevin Reiner]

That’s my initial guess. I would need more info on what you mean by bad quality. Color/gamma shift? Blurry? Pixelated? Interlaced?

Is the resolution set to Full and the layer’s quality set to best. If yes, then it is probably something that interpret footage would correct.

-Kevin

System Setup (for a more detailed list, see my profile)

HARDWARE
Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
9GB Memory
Two 16x SuperDrives
Dual-channel 2Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Apple Cinema HD Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT Graphics Card
AJA Kona LHe SD/HD capture card
Apple Xserve Raid 5.6TB

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Final Cut Pro Studio 2
After Effects CS3
Photoshop CS3
Illustrator CS3
Boris Continuum 5
Sapphire Plug Ins
Roxio Toast
Digital Anarchy Anarchist Suite
ParticleIllusion 3.0
Trapcode
Zaxwerks