[Michael Szalapski]

Yes! AE’s latest versions have had some really neat data-driven graphics tools added to them. More info here: https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/data-driven-animations.html

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

There are a lot of settings you can tweak in Premiere Pro/Media Encoder, so it’s really hard to compare it to something else unless you set the settings the exact same between them.

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

I’m trying to remember what happened with that feature when Mercury Transmit was enabled in AE. (And what version that was…)
You may need to go in and set up Mercury Transmit instead. Easy to toggle on and off with a keystroke and makes it truly full screen.

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

Your preview panel does have the full-screen option ticked for spacebar, right?

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

For stuff like that, I often use a blur to soften things up and levels to sharpen them up again and it gives fairly smooth joining effects.

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

Glad to help! ☺

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

Set Poster Frame has nothing to do with the exported file. It’s just for the image you see when you select the object in the Project Panel inside AE.
H.264 (the format you’re exporting to, I assume), doesn’t support setting a custom thumbnail. YouTube, Vimeo, and other video hosting sites will let you pick one, but that’s because they’ve got their own custom back end for that. Facebook might also have that option, but it’s something that has to happen in Facebook, not AE.

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

Does putting time into your expression help? That’s how I’d count up each frame.

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

This was going to be my suggestion too.

The main issue probably has something to do with how puppet pins determine their positions relative to the layer instead of the comp or something, but using nulls like you’ve suggested works for some reason.

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

AE has data driven capabilities now. Also, Master Properties open up a lot of possibilities for you. How do you get your weather information?

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.