[Michael Szalapski]

Yes. The issue is how our eyes process motion and frame rates. You’ll need different horizontal speeds depending on what frame rate you’re working with.

Really good camera operators working in Hollywood have their formulas for each lens and how fast they can or can’t pan. It’s way easier in motion graphics because we can just see it and retime. A lot harder when you’ve got a whole set and crew and you can’t see it until it’s been printed! (Of course, with digital it’s much easier, but still… hundreds of people on set having to redo everything just because your panning sucked isn’t great.)

If you’re working in 60 frames per second, you’re less likely to have judder because human eyes work at basically that speed too. Signals pulse from the eyes to to the brain at about 60 per second, but that varies person to person. The issue is that you MUST have control of the playback in order to be sure that 60fps is your solution. If you’re just putting it on YouTube, someone could still be watching at 30 and getting horrible judder.

[Michael Szalapski]

There are a multitude of ways to track something in a shot. You can use AE’s point tracker, Mocha AE (that is included for free with After Effects), King Pin Tracker or Spot Clone tracker if you have Red Giant Complete, Lockdown from aescripts + aeplugins, etc. You just use whatever you have available to make a track of each area you need tracking data for and then attach your elements to that tracking data.

[Michael Szalapski]

The issue is called “judder” and, if you search for that term, you’ll learn a lot!

One way to solve it is to use a different frame rate (as you’ve done), but another is to change the pace of the motion.

Judder doesn’t just appear in motion graphics. It can appear in any movement where frame rates are involved. I went to see Cowboys and Aliens in the cinema and the opening shot had a TON of judder because of the speed at which the camera was panning. Terrible way to start a film. Almost as bad as that gopher at the beginning of Indiana Jones 4 to make you go, “Oh no, this movie is going to suck!”

[Michael Szalapski]

I’m assuming you need some dynamic, 3d motion in some way that makes it so you can’t use a basic bump map, but is there a reason you can’t use clones for this?

[Michael Szalapski]

That looks like something you could get with the Roughen Edges effect set to spike.

[Michael Szalapski]

The problem with property links is that it only works for things that are properties already present and things that can be linked via expressions. The extra formatting you’ve got going on isn’t doing you any favors.

Now, recently, the AE team has added the ability to access more properties of text layers via expressions, but it starts getting a bit more complicated.

[Michael Szalapski]

Is the null scaled at all?

[Michael Szalapski]

There are follow position and follow rotation options you can keyframe up as needed to make them end up in very specific positions, yes.

[Michael Szalapski]

Andrew Kramer and his team are very busy with “real” work and haven’t had time to put into Video Copilot lately. Plus, Andrew’s got a bunch of kids and needs to spend time with them!

That said, I would be very unsurprised to find VCP coming back to life in the not-to-distant future.

[Michael Szalapski]

That looks like a really clever use of Vegas or MAYBE Saber from Video Copilot, but I’d try Vegas first. Apply Vegas to your text layer and set it to be driven by the alpha of the layer and start tweaking!