[Michael Szalapski]

I haven’t seen the new Smallville, but I do know how to shatter something in AE quite well.

Select your footage layer, than in the effects menu select shatter. You’ll need to play around with the settings here to make it look like you want it to, but it’s really quite simple to do.

Check out the tutorials here on the Cow, there are some great ones for shatter.

– 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]

This seems a bit odd to me. I once desperately needed some footage of someone talking for a rush job. That someone turned out to be me (when no actors are available, shoot the effects guy, why not?). I needed them (me) keyed out over a background that I designed.

I used a rubbish camera.

I used a bright yellow(!) cloth.

I used no proper lighting whatsoever.

I used three mouse clicks in Keylight and pulled a perfect key. (Granted it was a shot of me so it still looked rubbish…)

What are you trying to key? Is it translucent or wispy? Is it a phone, a person, the local llama?

If you use a different light for your subject than for your greenscreen that would help a lot. If you can use a slight backlight on your subject with an orange filter on it that would also help.

– 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 suggest option A because Zaxwerks rocks so much.

– 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]

Pants! I thought that would be an easy solution for you.

How about a Targa sequence?

– 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]

Whoa there cowboy. If you’re just using some fire plugin than there’s a good possibility there’s not any alpha to use anyway. Did you check to see what happened if you put something behind that layer in After Effects? Or perhaps clicked that little button to turn the checkerboard on?

– 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]

Ah, a horizontal shiFt, I see now!

– 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]

Unless you want to do the increasing popular ‘continuous shot…’

– 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]

An easy way to get these stars to spin around his head would be thus:

Set your stars up (as 3d layers) in a circle around a null object (also a 3d layer).

Then parent them to the null.
(You probably want to make sure your star layers are set to orient towards the camera.)

If you have your green screened or rotoscoped talent also as a 3d layer you should be able to rotate the null and position it in such a way that the stars go around his head. Then keyframe the rotation!

– 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]

And I highly recommend the Total Training DVDs. Totally worth every single copper penny you spend on them. And that’s English OR American pennies!

– 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]

Pardon?

Are you asking if there’s a way to save a RAM preview? The answer is yes. (I don’t have AE on this particular computer, check the help files.)

– 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.