[Max Haller]

I don’t believe this is going to be a simple task unfortunately. If you have some budget check out doing it in Mocha Pro they have a good object removal workflow and they seem to have lots of useful support info too. See if any of these seem like an option for you: Removing objects with mocha pro

I don’t believe camera projection will help you here.

I’d go about it by tracking the scene (might have to experiment with different tracking methods, I’d try the camera tracker first) and making a clean plate in photoshop and then trying to match it back on the footage. That’ll be more difficult depending on the perspective shifting and camera movements but i have had success removing objects like that in the past. If the problem tree isn’t in the center of the viewer’s attention you’ll be able to get away with a lot more.

[Max Haller]

I would wager there’s an adjustment layer with a blur effect somewhere in the layer above the layers which are blurry.

it could be a number of things though, can you post a screenshot of your whole screen that shows as many of the layers as possible.

Also you said it was a template, so they usually hide adjustment layers by enabling the “shy” button. That’s the icon that looks like a guy creeping his head over a fence. Its in the upper right corner of the layer panel, by the option for motion blur and frame blending. If that Shy icon is blue that means some layers are being hidden. Turn that off and look through your layer panel for an Adjustment layer with a blur effect.

If its not that, it could be due to a camera if it’s a 3D comp. That layer might be out of the depth of field of the camera which you can change but it’s a little more complicated.

[Max Haller]

Well that’s a very complicated topic. Im not sure why you’re having trouble finding tutorials for those things though. a quick google search of “putting 3d model in scene with c4d and ae” returns almost 2 million results. The first few tutorials on that search page show exactly how to track footage, export camera to c4d and bring the model back into the AE.

The main benefit to using a compositing program like AE instead of doing it all in 3d is the ability to make quick changes. Instead of dealing with the longer render times from a 3d program. Essentially they should render out a model with multiple passes like diffuse, specular, ao, object buffer etc. Then you can combine those passes as layers in AE and tweak those layers to get the right look.

To implement your friend’s models just open the c4d scene in ae and use the cineware effect to manage it with in the comp. Or better yet have him send you rendered passes of the model. He will need the camera tracking data from your AE comp and he can use that to match the camera on his end in C4D. Matching lighting is tricky. You’ll either to match it in Cinema by using an HDRI that you’ve generated of the scene, or by carefully matching it by eye using lights, or using the skybox/daylight type of option.

My advice would be practice with simple models and scenes until you’ve gotten the basics like tracking/relighting/shadow catchers down pat. Trying to do an extension turning a house into a mansion is going to cause you to run into many additional problems that will be harder to solve. Im not sure how hard you’ve looked if you were unable to find useful tutorials.

Here are some links you might want to check out. You just need to practice the techniques and apply them on your own no tutorial is going to show you exactly what you need usually.

https://www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/cinema-4d-to-after-effects

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKMcZxNqVh8

https://greyscalegorilla.com/tutorials/how-to-export-your-scene-from-cinema-4d-to-after-effects/

https://greyscalegorilla.com/tutorials/track-a-3d-object-into-shot-footage-using-cinema-4d-and-after-effects/

https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaylist/layer_real_3d_shadows_on_2d_imagery_using_cinema_4ds_shadow_catcher/

https://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/forums/topic/98598-matching-lighting-3d-track-without-hdr/

https://lesterbanks.com/2017/03/use-c4ds-shadow-catcher-material/

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[Max Haller]

Actually sorry i didnt realize i stumbled into the expression forum haha. Im not sure how to write an xpression that would do that sorry.

[Max Haller]

Can’t think of a way to automatically do this, but there are a few plug ins that let you batch rename comps/ search and replace comp names. I use bq_ProjectPanelNavigator for that. I’m not 100% sure the expressions will update but you can try to just select the trouble comps and add a suffix to them to differentiate them.

[Max Haller]

I think this should work for you
Follow that tutorial to make the sine wave.

Now make a rectangle that half the size of your comp on the layer above the sine wave.

Set the sine wave to alpha matte of that top layer. Precomp those two layers together and now you have half a sine wave.

Duplicate the precomp, right click the duplicate and go to transform>flip horizontal.

You should see pretty much the end result at this point, both sine waves should be originating from the center so now just make the ball and animate to cover where the sine waves touch.

[Max Haller]

Well i can’t help you with the scripting and im not sure its possible. Heres one last bit of help though. https://forums.creativecow.net/docs/forums/post.php?forumid=227&postid=20765&univpostid=20765&pview=t

That thread is dealing with scripts to replace the source footage, you might be able to get it to replace the source with the footage on the network drive that way. Good luck at least you learned to organize your footage better next time.

[Max Haller]

Anyway you can move the footage on your local drive into a new folder. I think that might be enough to break the path in AE and force them to go offline. Like if you made a new folder and just moved the root of the path that the footage is in on your local drive.

[Max Haller]

You should do the rotation in c4d and save and then it should update in your AE project. When you try to rotate it in AE I think it’s just trying to rotate the layer itself not the 3d obj in the scene.

[Max Haller]

If you want them to all go offline, that means you’ll have to manually relink them correct? Since the folder paths on the network drive won’t match the paths on your local drive?

So isn’t that the same as just manually relinking them without having them go offline first? Sorry if i’ve missed something it seems unnecessary to make them go offline first to me