[Michael Szalapski]

Would using a mask reveal not work? Or are you wanting all your text to be bunched in a circle and then bounce out?

BTW,don’t forget Creative COW stands for Creative Communities Of the World. When you posted it was 6:44 am for me (in England), it’s almost 8:30 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]

I second Mr. Lindeboom’s assesment. In the world of plug-ins Trapcode is extraordinarily inexpensive, especially considering how useful those plugins are.

But please, don’t overuse Shine. It’s SO pretty you could easily go overboard.

– 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 a mixture of compound blur, displacement maps and track mattes. Using the same fractal noise precomp for all three. The right recipe can work perfectly.

That’s assuming I understand your question.

– 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]

Yes, have your video layer in your composition. (It can have the eyeball turned off.)
In the effects pallete set it as Layer map 1 (or two or three…)
In the Invig Options set Layer Map 1 (or whichever it is) as your reflective source.

– 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]

Yes, have your video layer in your composition. (It can have the eyeball turned off.)
In the effects pallete set it as Layer map 1 (or two or three…)
In the Invig Options set Layer Map 1 (or whichever it is) as your reflective source.

– 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]

Here’s a piece of advice for questions like this:

Try it and see.

P.S. A second piece of advice is: If what you’re trying to do ends up not working, try precomposing

– 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]

Why not use Wondertouch’s ParticleIllusion or Trapcode’s Particular and create your smoke in AE? Much easier to control and check.

If you absolutely must use your BBQ you’ll have several things to think about. First of all is the smoke from your barbie going to be the same kind as the smoke you filmed? Colour, shape, density, texture, speed, etc.
If it’s good enough then you’ll have to film it against a black background with plenty of light shining on the smoke to make it stand out, then screen it over your footage. Or possibly make a luma matte with it. Or possibly… you know what? Try everything.

I still suggest ParticleIllusion.

– 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]

My first thought on this was to put Shine on an adjustment layer and then, through creative positioning of the sourse point, create your effect.

But it’s possible that I’m not understanding the problem.

– 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]

Also, do you have it set to best quality and full resolution?

Sometimes I forget to tick those boxes then I smack myself in the forehead.

– 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]

Have you tried applying frame blending to your layer?

– 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.