[Max Haller]

that sounds like a nightmare. If you roto’d the fingertips using masks (vs shape layers as alpha mattes) you can use the feather tool to customize the feathering on the masks. So you could use that to keep the end of the fingertips sharp, while making the part closer to the palm feathered out. You’ll find the feather tool as a feather icon if you hold down on the pen tool.

[Max Haller]

Here’s something you can try. I would try photoshopping two versions of the pickle jar one for the start and one for the end. Then bring them into AE and have the clean version of the first photo fade out into the clean version of the ending photo. Have the original timelapse video as the top layer of that comp, and try using the luma key effect to key out the brightest spots (which would be the yeast).

That’s the easiest way i can think to try removing those. Otherwise i think youll have to piece together patches of clean pickles to cover up the yeast.

[Max Haller]

Does the image open properly in photoshop? If so can you save it save it as a psd or resave it from photoshop as a jpeg and try to reimport that. See if that opens properly.

Is this only happening on images that are Jpegs? Try some other file formats like .png or .tiffs.

[Max Haller]

I think rendering an image sequence is your best bet too. Or just try rendering a still frame of that one bad frame and see if you get the issue still. Maybe you can just duplicate the frame before it to cover the glitch if it’s just that one frame.

[Max Haller]

For the second one I’d make a few precomps of squares and rectangles rotating in place. Then Lay them out in another comp so they’re covering the frame like you want them to. Then precomp that and call it the Rotating Square Layout comp. Now make a comp with your footage and bring in the Rotating Square Layout comp. If you set that as an alpha matte you should see your video appearing where those squares were before. Then just dupe the footage layer and move the new layer to the bottom of the stack. Now you should be able to precomp the Rotating square layout comp with the original footage and add a drop shadow to that new comp and that should give you the black outline you see in the gif.

That should get you pretty close

[Max Haller]

I think thats gonna be a tough one. I know you can use the CC glass effect to light a surface based on another layer as map. I’ve gotten good results making surfaces of water look like they have waves with that. You might be able to use that to add “fake” lighting to the surface of your 2D asteroid. It should respond to the lights that are in the scene too so that might help sell the effect. You’ll have to tweak the settings a good deal to make it not look like its wrapped in plastic though. I can’t think of any cheating way to make an uneven 3d object off the top of my head.

[Max Haller]

Is this for emoji’s that would be actually used in an app for messaging or are they graphics that are going to be placed into footage?
If it’s something for a app, I would think it might have unusual requirements that you might be better off just asking the client how they need them delivered.

[Max Haller]

Hey it looks like the video didn’t actually come through.

Just a shot in the dark though without seeing what’s going on- Maybe try rendering the animated people and use the rendered video instead of using the precomps as particles. that would probably bypass what ever is happening to the puppet tool

[Max Haller]

I think you can just precomp it after you skew and animate the position on that pre comp

[Max Haller]

It sort of seems like the liquify effect with some noise displacement added and then screened back onto the video. Maybe something to isolate the colors and crush the darks so it screens well. I’m not sure of any plugins that would do that but maybe someone more knowledgeable will have a better answer. Interesting effect tho!