[Michael Szalapski]

Are you asking for a brush stroke effect so that the background looks like a painting or an effect where you see the background being painted into the scene?

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

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

[Michael Szalapski]

I think the big question (and I’m surprised nobody’s asked this) is, “Why are you editing in After Effects at all?”
AE is NOT an editing tool. It’s like using a screwdriver to bang in a nail; you CAN do it but it takes longer, hurts you, and is terribly frustrating.
If you use Premiere to edit you can just open your project in AE as a composition and do whatever colour correction, compositing, or motion graphics you need to.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

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

[Michael Szalapski]

Just out of curiousity why do you not have your layers parented to a 3d null?
This way they all rotate when you rotate the null. It sounds like you’re having to keyframe them all seperately.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

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

[Michael Szalapski]

Halving the frame rate always helps too. 15 fps isn’t too bad on a computer. It kinda depends on the computer it will be playing on. For example, the computer I’m typing on right now would in no way handle full-screen full-frame video playback. The one just down the corridor, on the other hand, can deal with it just fine.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

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

[Michael Szalapski]

Remember, when you’ve got something parented to something else you can still keyframe the child. So if you’re using the camera controls they’re going to control…the camera! (not the null)

I find the most success with putting the values in numerically using the timeline, and checking in the comp window to see if it’s looking right.

However, different shots call for different methods and different people prefer different methods. It’s all up to you.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

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

[Michael Szalapski]

Use Foam. (included in AE)

Create a flow map in a precomp.

That should do it. Foam’s more intended for bubble use anyway, check it out!

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

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

[Michael Szalapski]

Say you want to make your camera orbit around something, then orbit around something else.

Just TRY to get an even orbit around something without using a null, much less two things. It won’t happen quickly.

Now try it with the parented to the null trick.
Put the null in the same place as object 1, and animate the null’s Y rotation.
Animate the null over to object 2, and animate the null’s Y rotation.

Done!

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

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

[Michael Szalapski]

As Lee said you can make something evaporate with ParticleIllusion. (There’s a tutorial by Elvis Deane around here somewhere…)

You could also do it with fractal noise.

Create a new solid and apply fractal noise to it. Keyframe the evolution and the offset and other things to make it sorta steamy looking.

Precomp that layer.

Now apply two effects to your layer-to-be-evaporated.
1. Distort-Displacement map
2. Blur-Compound blur
For the map on both of these use your precomp (I’m sure you titled the precomp something intelligent like, ‘fractal’ or ‘noise’, right?)
Adjust the amount of displacement and blur and keyframe them both to go from naught to some big amount.
Also keyframe the opacity towards the end of the animation to make it disappear.

I don’t have AE on this particular computer so I hope my directions are clear enough and the names of the effects are correct; if not, sorry.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

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

[Michael Szalapski]

You can make good clouds with Particular and the plug-in is well worth the money.

You might also check out, for your own education, this tutorial from Ayato. Now keep in mind that English is most certainly not his first language and that he expects you to have a certain degree of familiarity with AE. If you have difficulty with this one please realize, this is one of his easier ones; but don’t despair, many have tried and failed to understand.

I love his site, the guy’s a genius.

The “Great” stands for “Not-So-Great”

[Michael Szalapski]

There’s a tutorial here on the COW for animating a butterfly. Might be easier than trying to roto a live action one.

But if you need it to be a real one go to Artbeats, they should be able to get it for you. Artbeats is great!

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

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