[Mike Clasby]

Here’s an out the front window shot, Driver’s Ed from San Jose to Santa Cruz, CA.

https://www.archive.org/details/tmp_50522

You might have to shot you own if you want a side window shot.

[Mike Clasby]

If you have CS3 you should be able to do it with this:

https://www.motionscript.com/design-guide/sample-image.html

Dan is sampling the color of the area under to Solid, then using fill to color the solid.

If no CS3, then…

There is a “Yikes, I can’t believe I’m doing this” work around, like this:

Layer 1- New solid 100×100 named “dropper”, I choose red for this, so it’s easy to find. Mask off with Pen Tool so the point of the dropper (I just did a simple triangle) is touching the Anchor Point, or in the middle of the layer. Wherever we move this it will sample the color of the video layer below.

Layer 2- Video Layer. This will become the “Solid” as we’ll fill it with the sampled color, with the Effect>Render>Eye Dropper Fill. It maybe somewhere else in a newer version of AE, I’m on AE6.5.

I resized this layer, Scale to 20%, so you can see around it to sample, otherwise it blocks the view when sampling.

After you apply Eye Dropper Fill, add an expression to Sample Point, Alt-Click the Sample Point Stopwatch, then pickwhip to the “dropper” Position, to get:

thisComp.layer(“dropper”).position

Or you can just Copy the expression, Alt-Click the Sample Point Stopwatch and Paste in that expression.

Layer 3- Duplicate of Video Layer, so you can see what to sample.

This is just so you can see what’s being sampled. We’re really sampling layer 2, but it’s also changing it’s color, so we need this third layer to really see what we have. I realize this sounds incredibly unclear, but it works. Anyway, if you’re still with me, wherever you move that wedge layer named “dropper” the second layer down will change to that color. Incredibly this seems to work even when the layers are 3D.

Hopefully you have CS3 and don’t need this work around.

[Mike Clasby]

That should work. Filip had a nifty Projector aep, here:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/891148?univpostid=891054&pview=t

His is the 11th post down, the one with the big movie in it. There is a link to an aep. Sounds like he used lots of layers, like what you’d get with a beam of particles. While not answering your question, I think the principles are similar.

[Mike Clasby]

How about capturing the screen. I think most use Camtasia:

https://www.techsmith.com

[Mike Clasby]

The object, layer in front needs to be above, in the layer stack. The layer behind needs to be below.

If the layer in front is larger than the layer behind it will completely cover the object behind.

To move a layer to the right, set a Position keyframe, click the Position Stopwatch, then move down the timeline and drag to the right, to where you want it to end up, AE will put another position keyframe there. Now the bottom/behind layer will slide from behind the top layer(which looks like it’s in front).

If that bottom/behind layer is larger than the upper/in-front layer, you’ll see it peeking around the edges. If you want to mask off that layer, so you can’t see the edges peeking from behind, try this.

On a new Black Solid (Ctrl Y) that is between the front and back layers, therefore second in the stack, add a mask (Rectangular Mask Tool, or Pen Tool), that covers the behind layer. When the behind layer slides right, it will slide from behind the mask and appear on the right of the front layer. This is not needed if the front layer is larger than the back layer.

[Mike Clasby]

Two options, see these Scripts:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/916999

[Mike Clasby]

Tow Scripts, in some detail, here:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/915452

[Mike Clasby]

Colin wrote an expression for a spiral, here:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/912900

I hacked it to add Z movement. Add this expression to the Null’s Position (Copy the expression, Alt-Click the Position Stopwatch, Paste, Click outside the box):

//begin expression
//Expression by Colin Braley then hacked by yikesmikes
//Modify these first few variables to change the effect

centerPoint = [360 , 270];
beginRadius = 25; //pixels
beginZ = 0;
endZ = 800; // how far you want the spiral to move over time
endRadius = 100; //pixels
startTime = 0; //seconds
endTime = 3; //seconds
howManyRings = 3;
clockwise = false;
//if you want the spiral to spin the other way make clockwise = false;

//–
t = time;
if( time < startTime ) t = startTime; if( time > endTime )
t = endTime;
radius = linear( time , startTime , endTime , beginRadius , endRadius );
theta = linear( time , startTime , endTime , 0 , (2 * Math.PI ) * howManyRings );
if( ! clockwise )
theta *= -1;
x = radius * Math.cos( theta );
y = radius * Math.sin( theta );
z = linear ( time, startTime, endTime, beginZ, endZ);
//–
[x , y, z] + centerPoint
//end expression

Change the parameters in the first 9 lines of code to make any spiral you want.

If you want keyframes you can always convert the expression to keyframes (select Position, then Animation>Keyframe Assistant>Convert Expression To Keyframes).

[Mike Clasby]

One way:

Create a Null, make it 3D

Duplicate it.

Parent one Null to the other Null

Move the child away from the Parent as far as you want the Radius of the spiral to be.

Rotate the parent over time (Y rotation keyframes).

Animate the X Position of the Child (or parent) over time.

[Mike Clasby]

Ooops, I lied, it’s to 14 decimal points. Do you want something different?