[Mike Clasby]

To make Dan’s expression very controllable just add a slider to Z depth by highlighting the 1000 in

maxZ = 1000;

then pickwhip (drag the “@” to a slider (Effect>Expression Controls>Slider Control, double click it and rename it “maxZ”, put it on a Null layer, then when you change the slider the layers will accordion in or out. Aharon (click his head on the main page and scroll down) has a tut or two on Expression Controls if you need a walk through.

[Mike Clasby]

How about a mask in the shape of the gun (rear view) on the muzzle flash layer?

[Mike Clasby]

You might want to give this Dan Ebbert’s expression a try. Put it on Position of a 3D layer. Alt click the position stopwatch and paste it in:

minX = 0;
maxX = thisComp.width;
minY = 0;
maxY = thisComp.height;
minZ = 0;
maxZ = 1000;

seedRandom(index,true);
random([minX,minY,minZ],[maxX,maxY,maxZ])

Change the vales as needed, like:

maxX = thisComp.width * 3;

in line 2 will make it 3 times as wide as the comp. Also change the maxZ to more than 1000 pixels if you want them deeper.

You can put the expression on one layer, then highlight the expression and Edit>Copy Expression Only, then select all the other layers and Paste, a great way to put an expression on lots of layers at once.

Aws an alternative to this you might consider placing the photos in a grid (expressions are available) and then to that comp apply Card Dance. This would be a bit of a pain to setup, but very controlable in shape after that. Ask if you need more.

[Mike Clasby]

Here you go:

https://www.megaupload.com/?d=6JUB5XQ6

OK, qualifcations… This is an AE7 aep (I have AE6.5 so I can’t test open it)and I don’t see any footage files in my Tyler Paul Folder, so I hope this works for you and you can sort it out. Good luck.

[Mike Clasby]

I downloaded it, do you need it posted somewhere?

[Mike Clasby]

Looking forward to Dan’s and Filip’s latest and greatest.

Christmas in May… hooray!

[Mike Clasby]

It might just be easier to render your 200 frame movie as a sequence, png, maybe, then import that and drag them into a comp, check “Create Single Composition” and don’t check “Sequence” if that pops up.

Then just add the position expression for the offset. Put the expression on one layer, select that expression, Edit>Copy Expression Only, then select all the other layers and Paste.

[Mike Clasby]

These two expressions seem to work. Enable Time Remapping on your footage layer and put this expression on time remapping (Alt Click the Time Remapping Stop watch, then paste it in):

(index -1)/29.97

I’m assuming your frame rate is 29.97, and I think there’s an expression to just grab the number of the frame, but I don’t know it, so like I said this seems to work.

This will give you frame 0 for layer 1, frame 1 for layer 2…

To get your Z offset, add this expression to the position of a 3D layer:

position+[0,0,(index-1)*1]

Now duplicate the layer (Ctrl D) 199 times.

Done.

Or, if you want more flexibility, delete all but that first layer, and on a Null add a slider control (Effect>Expression Controls>Slider Control) name it something like “Z offset”) and link (pickwhip) that last “1”, in the position expression to the slider, giving you an expression like this:

position+[0,0,(index-1)*thisComp.layer(“Null 1”).effect(“Z offset”)(“Slider”)]

You need to put that on the first layer, along with the time remap expression, and dup it 199 times. Now a 2 on the slide separates them by 2 pixels, a 5 by 5 pixels each, etc…

[Mike Clasby]

Alt [, trims the layer’s inpoint to where the “Current Time Indicator” is located.
Alt ], trims the layers outpoint to where the “Current Time Indicator” is located.

If you need to take several chunks out of the same clip or layer, you can either duplicate the layer (Ctrl D) and trim away, or you can Edit>Split Layer (Ctrl Shift D), split the layer where the “Current Time Indicator” is located. So you could split the layer several times where you know one end of the edit will be, then trim those segments out you don’t need.

AE is not really a Editing Program but you can trim footage/layers this way.

There are probably other short cuts to trimming, maybe someone else will chime in.

[Mike Clasby]

If you don’t have shine, try Radial Fast Blur (100, Brightest).

Also you can (on a duplicatred layer … or not) duplicate, triplicate or quadricate (is that a word?) the Glow Effect and it grows at an amazing rate.

Also, depending on what it’s applied to, you might need to Grow Bounds to see your effects.

Ciao.