[Mathias Möhl]

In contrast to the user interface of Ae, scripts can actually set the keyframe interpolation for in and out independently.

I haven’t tried it, but this script seems to offer a nice implementation:
https://gumroad.com/l/behold

[Mathias Möhl]

I think Harry is right that there are situations where keyframes with incoming hold make a lot of sense.
Note: incoming hold means that the value of the keyframe is hold BEFORE the actual keyframe, not after it.

If I see it correctly, using incoming hold is actually the only way to create truly abrupt changes.

[Mathias Möhl]

Hi Roland,

yes, it sounds like this could be related. I have no 3d layers in my project, but maybe collapse transformations and 3d layers cause the same problem.

Best,
Mathias

[Mathias Möhl]

I did a few more experiments.

The issue I found with CS6, seems to be something very specific to my particular project. In general applying effects to adjustment layers inside a precomp works fine. In my case, a particular combination of masks, the CC power pin effect and the Cartoon effect caused a problem on CS6.

It seems to be a special case. If you have any problems, I recommend to turn off collapse transformation or tell MochaImport+ to use the corner pin effect instead of the CC power pin (each of these options solved the problem for me immediately).

If you are interested in the details, here is the bug report I submitted to Adobe:

******BUG******
Collapse Transformation with mask, CC power pin, and adjustment layer in a precomp behaves in CS6 different than in CS5.5

Steps to reproduce:

1) take some footage and precomp it.
2) inside the precomp add an adjustment layer on top of the other layer and add the cartoon effect to it.
3) on the adjustment layer insider the precomp, add a cartoon effect (with its default settings).
4) apply a rectangular mask to the adjustment layer in the precomp. The mask shoud be located in the middle of the comp and cover roughly a quarter of it.
5) Copy the same mask on the footage layer inside the precomp (below the adjustment layer).
5) go back to the main comp and apply a CC power pin (with its default settings) to the precomp layer.

6) In the main comp, toggle the collapse transformations switch of the precomp layer on and off

expected behavior: There should be no difference between collapse transformations on and off (this is what I observe in CS5.5).

behavior: With collapse transformation on, the masked area is zoomed to cover the entire comp

This does not look like a minimal example, but as soon as I make it more minimal, the problem disappears.

The problem disappears, for example, when I do one of the following things:
– If I skip the mask on the adjustment layer (and only have a mask on the footage layer)
– If I use a corner pin instead of a CC power pin effect
– If I use a box blur instead of a cartoon effect or even if I put a box blur on top of the cartoon effect

Best
Mathias

[Mathias Möhl]

Thank you Roland and Ross, for pointing me to this discussion.

MochaImport+ is the right tool for this task. The precomps created by it use collapse transformations by default. However, a liquify effect inside the precomp still works nicely.

I just did a few tests and in CS6 it looks like it breaks if you use an adjustment layer inside the precomp. As this works fine in CS5.5, it looks like a bug to me. But even if you need an adjustment layer in your precomp, you can simply deactivate collapse transformations to make it work again.

The workflow of MochaImport’s stabilized precomps is explained in the After Effects tutorial: Graffiti becomes Alive.

[Mathias Möhl]

If you want to animate the mask with an AE tracker, a very easy and flexible solution is my tool Tracker2Mask:

– You can use as many track points as you want: either move the entire mask with just one track point or add a few more track points to add more precision

– You can either move the entire mask or only move certain vertices (using the “local mode”) of Tracker2Mask

If you prefer the cool construction with the precomp, I would track it in mocha AE (included in AE since CS4) and use MochaImport+ to import the tracking data into AE. It makes this entire precomp rig for you in just one click.

Its shown in this tutorial: https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/redgianttv/item/29/
The tutorial shows it with Red Giant Warp, but if you don’t need motion blur, you can also use AE’s build-in corner pin.

I have a lot of tutorials about both techniques (Tracker2Mask and MochaImport+) on mamoworld.com

[Mathias Möhl]

You can use my brand-new script “Chameleon – The Adobe Kuler Color Theme Browser” for this.

Video-Tutorial:
https://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/workflow/making-your-color-scheme-a-whole-lot-kuler/

Download:
https://aescripts.com/chameleon/

[Mathias Möhl]

If your footage is such that the transition between ocean and sky is more or less static and not too much impacted by the moving waves, I would try to track an area around this transition with a planar tracker like Mocha for After Effects.
With a planar tracker the movements of the waves may cancel each other out to some extend.

[Mathias Möhl]

And here is another one:
https://aextensions.blogspot.com/2009/02/tracker2mask.html

[Mathias Möhl]

Tracker2Mask is a free script of mine that does the job and is really easy to use.
Usage is explained in the video tutorials here:
https://aextensions.blogspot.com/2009/02/tracker2mask.html