[Matthew Woods]

This has something that has been on my wish list for years. While you are waiting for Adobe to implement it, check out the plugin I created in FX-Factory to work around it. The plug-in was created with Premiere in mind, and doesn’t work work quite the same as track matte, but it does work in AE. It might be of some help some help to you all.
All plugins created with FX-Factory are Mac only, sorry Windows users.

https://monadnock.org/1matte/

-Matt

Check out my plugins for AE, Premiere, Motion and FCP.

https://monadnock.org/plugins/

[Matthew Woods]

Wow. This looks like a very handy tool. Downloading it now.
Thank you!

-Matt

Check out 9 Slice Scale.
A way to scale graphics while preserving the border and corners.
An FxFactory Plugin for AE, Premiere, Motion and FCP.
https://monadnock.org/9slice/

[Matthew Woods]

I always undo after sending segments of my edit to After Effects. This only undoes the premiere deletion and AE linking, the edit is already sent to After Effects. I have never found the linking of AE projects into Premiere to be very useful as my AE edits are usually too heavy, and I like to maintain the footage in premiere. It would be nice if Premiere had an option to send to AE without linking or deleting, but hitting undo is relatively easy.

Check out 9 Slice Scale.
A way to scale graphics while preserving the border and corners.
An FxFactory Plugin for AE, Premiere, Motion and FCP.
https://monadnock.org/9slice/

[Matthew Woods]

I’m kind of in the same boat. I have been unhappy with Apple’s anorexic design product design of recent years.

I tried windows and hated it. We bought a ProMax tower that has been advertised on this website a lot. I spent more time with IT problems than I did working. We finally installed linux on it and are using it as a server.

I use a top of the line fully loaded late 2013 iMac and an older 12 core mac pro tower (upgraded SSD, graphics card etc). The mac pro tower still does very well for a machine of its age, and I love the hardware design. So easy to get in there and upgrade things. That said, I feel the iMac outperforms the pro tower for most tasks except those where raw processing horsepower is required. If you have to encode a lot of 4k Proxy’s the horsepower on the old Pro tower is your friend. Back when multiprocessing was important in AE, the pro-tower performed better, but now that Adobe has removed that from the latest versions of AE, I feel that the iMac is faster.

I would probably recommend an iMac for your tasks. It is the most bang for your buck in Apple’s offerings. You can buy a new one in a few years for the same price as a more expensive machine now. It has a really nice display. Thunderbolt is really nice. I have a Pegasus thunderbolt 2 raid for my storage that has been running great for 3 years now.

I am a little intrigued by the touch bar on the new macbook pro. I want to see what Adobe does with it in AE and Premiere. I’m not happy with the 16Gb memory limit, but from what I have read, the SSD in those machines is so fast that it makes up for the lack of memory. If your SSD is as fast as the ram itself, why would you need a lot of memory? I’m waiting to hear from user experience and benchmarks. I’m also not happy with only the USB C ports, but as someone who for the most part would keep it parked in one place, connected to a bunch of monitors and peripherals, it doesn’t bother me too much. There are some nice docks out there for all the cables, and it would be nice to occasionally take my machine with me.

My 2 cents,

-Matt

Check out 9 Slice Scale.
A way to scale graphics while preserving the border and corners.
An FxFactory Plugin for AE, Premiere, Motion and FCP.
https://monadnock.org/9slice/

[Matthew Woods]

You don’t even need to use a color key or pre-comp for this. Just choose “Stencil Alpha” for your blend mode in the paint bucket effect, then check the “Invert Fill” box. Paint Bucket is an incredibly useful and underrated effect in After Effects. I use it all the time.

-Matt

Check out 9 Slice Scale.
A way to scale graphics while preserving the border and corners.
An FxFactory Plugin for AE, Premiere, Motion and FCP.
https://monadnock.org/9slice/

[Matthew Woods]

You can definitely do this with the animation engine. Watch some tutorials on how to use it because its a little tricky to use. Basically you first need to make a version of all your coins stacked (i.e. your end state), then copy it into another group. Displace and potentially scatter your second group (your initial state) off. You want your animation type to be directional, and you want to make sure to align the direction along the same axis as your stack of coins.

Good luck!

-Matt

Check out 9 Slice Scale.
A way to scale graphics while preserving the border and corners.
An FxFactory Plugin for AE, Premiere, Motion and FCP.
https://monadnock.org/9slice/

[Matthew Woods]

We’re in western Massachusetts actually, though anyone who actually recognizes the word “Monadnock” thinks we are in New Hampshire.

Don’t spend too long looking. Its maddeningly hard to search for. Closest I could think of was the Microsoft “I’m a PC” commercials, though that is variations on the same line rather than segments from a larger script.

If anyone knows an example off the top of their head let me know.

Thanks,

-Matt

Check out 9 Slice Scale.
A way to scale graphics while preserving the border and corners.
An FxFactory Plugin for AE, Premiere, Motion and FCP.
https://monadnock.org/9slice/

[Matthew Woods]

PS. This is for a museum exhibit, and we do have the luxury of surround sound and multiple projection surfaces so its possible we could do something fun with it. Still want some examples to look at.

Check out 9 Slice Scale.
A way to scale graphics while preserving the border and corners.
An FxFactory Plugin for AE, Premiere, Motion and FCP.
https://monadnock.org/9slice/

[Matthew Woods]

Also from New England, and I agree, I feel like I’ve seen it to much. That is why I am somewhat surprised at how hard it is to find specific examples. Our client suggested that technique, feeling that it would make a certain historic speech “appeal to a young audience.” We wanted to have a few examples in front of us. Hard to argue that the technique is overused or trite when you can’t find any examples.

-Matt

Check out 9 Slice Scale.
A way to scale graphics while preserving the border and corners.
An FxFactory Plugin for AE, Premiere, Motion and FCP.
https://monadnock.org/9slice/

[Matthew Woods]

If you have a lot of floating layers as this animation does,
Element 3d or Trapcode Form will make your life much easier.

If you have fewer floating elements and want to do like you suggested, try this:

Make the actor a 3d layer.

Put a null 3d Layer in the same location as the actor.
Parent all your floating assets to the Null.
Use Auto Orient so that the layers always face the camera.

Animate the cloud by rotating the Null around the Y.

Hope that helps,

-Matt

Check out 9 Slice Scale.
A way to scale graphics while preserving the border and corners.
An FxFactory Plugin for AE, Premiere, Motion and FCP.
https://monadnock.org/9slice/