[Mike Clasby]

Sorry…

Thank you for the gift.

And I got to see how you can combine shapes, a cone and cube combined, still exploring that.

[Mike Clasby]

Make a preset by selecting the Time Remapping (with the expression on it), then click Animation>Make Animation Preset and name it something like “RythymToMarkers”, then Save to the Presets folder.

Unfortunately if you run this preset on a new layers, without first having enabled Time Remapping, you get then original time remapping keyframes that were on the Original (Where you made the preset From), and unless this clip is the same length, it messes the timing up.

The workaround is to Enable time remapping first, then run the preset. It will add the expression. Now you’ll have three keyframes instead of 2, you can delete the middle one the preset just added, but it doesn’t seem to hurt the effect. I don’t know if it hurts if the layer you’re doing is shorter than the Original (you made the preset from).

It might just be easier to add the expression normally.

[Mike Clasby]

From The Modern Polish Mind: An Anthology by Maria Kuncewicz

…one of the “permanent features of the Polish genius, ” we read, is the “very Slavic propensity for the ab- stract”…

Being different didn’t stop Nicholas Copernicus… well his abstract-crazy ideas didn’t help Galileo much with the Inquisition… but then he was cranking out those awesome Cow tutorials, now was he?

[Mike Clasby]

Filip has a downloadable CD Jewel case he made, here:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/865087

The whole thread has details, and near the bottom, Serge has a link for his CD Jewel Case for Invigorator, but the link in that thread is dead, but… over in the Invigorator Forum a link is still lively:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/41/855325

You do need Invigorator for that, but it’s a gem.. err Jewel.

I assumed you’d need Invigorator to do this, but Filip’s just uses psd files and gets an amazing result. He uses Calculations to combine channels which is a little beyond my paygrade, he lives over at the AE Expressions forum if you have questions, he looks around here from time to time.

With both, to get you rounded corners, you’d have to modify the sides or modify/rescan layers in Filip’s version, but at least you can see how it’s done. Amazingly well in both instances, methinks.

[Mike Clasby]

I found a smoother way to do this, smooth like in the example you showed.

Overview: It’s an expression on time remapping that is triggered by markers on the beat. No sliders to reference.

You can get the markers on the beat by tapping the * key on the numeric pad (asterisk) on the beat, after you’ve pressed the dot (.) or zero (0) on the numeric pad.

Or a slick way to get markers on the beat is with Filip Vandueren’s bpmMarkers.jsx script, here’s the link:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/867359

You can read the thread for details. Before you start up AE you need to copy the jsx file into your AE Script folder. You need to know the beats per minute before hand and then put the time marker on the first beat, run the script(File>Run Script>bpmMarkers.jsx ), I tested it out on that music video you linked to (I recorded the music as it played, imported the wav into AE, then found the first beat (LL reveals the audio waveform and I listened), anyway I ran the script and the default 128 bpm was exactly right for that music, placing a marker at each beat.

So to get the markers on the video I wanted to rhythm, I put the Current time indicator on that first beat, then selected the video layer to be rythymed, Ran the script on it, giving me the markers on the beat (once again). I Enabled Time Remapping and add this expression to the Time remapping stopwatch:

backSlide = 11; // number of frames to skip back
fps = 29.97; // change to your comp frame rate
n = 0;
if (marker.numKeys > 0){
n = marker.nearestKey(time).index;
if (marker.key(n).time > time){
n–;
}
}
value – (backSlide+1) * n/fps

So, this is a hack off of a few Dan expressions and I’m sure it could be cleaned up, but it seems to work on my test.

You need to put the comp frame rate into the “fps” on line 2.
Make “backSlide” in line 1 how far you want the vid to slide back on each beat.
So at 128 bpm like this music was, that’s 14 frames for each beat, so with it sliding back 11 frames at each beat, you get a 3 frame advance with each beat, that accumulates over time, at least it did on the 22 second clip I tested it on.

This is very smooth like your linked video and gives you same forward>backward>forward>backward-but-always-progressing look, progress 3 frames per beat. So if you set the “backSlide” to 13, yours only get a very slow 1 frame total progression per beat.

It’s not nearly as complicated as it sounds.

I tried tying this in with Audio Amplitude but it gives you erratic look, not smooth like above.

[Mike Clasby]

I mailed it to the address from your website. Tell me if you don’t get it in awhile.

It’s a whopping 5KB, but saves a whole lotta time.

[Mike Clasby]

If you hold down Alt (Option)you can reposition the track point but keep the same Attach Point, that should do what you want, methinks. Here’s a tut from Adobe:

Tracking obscured objects in video

https://studio.adobe.com/us/tips/tip.jsp?p=1&id=399&xml=aft6tracking

You could reset it when the hair gets out of the way.

[Mike Clasby]

Saw this too late, sorry ’bout that.

Did you add a camera and put it on top?

[Mike Clasby]

AE renders out the active camera, or no camera at all as far as I know it won’t do those views like Top or Custom 1.

You can always duplicate the Top View, add a new camera (Layer>New Camera) choose the standard 50 mm and it will look the same as AE without a camera, then take the Orbit Camera Tool (C rotates thru the tool) C until you get to the Orbit Camera Tool (not the Tracking ones) then pull down until the camera rotates around to mach the top view, that you had when you setup your leaf animation.

If AE5.5 doesn’t have the Orbit Tool, then just put in these position numbers for the camera, x = 320, y = -650, z = -35 or so.

Note: If the Camera Auto Orient towards the POI is on, then it will flip or get wonky when it crosses the XY plane. You can switch it off by Selecting the Camera, Right-Click>Auto Orient> then choose and click the “Off” radio button.

If you disable that, setting the camera X-Orientation to 270 will get you that straight down look.

AE’s camera is a challenge at the best of times. Probably more than you want but here are two post about using Nulls for camera control:

This post by Chris Smith on how he uses Nulls with camera movements:

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=878237

Here is an AE project file (aep) for a nifty camera move Australian commercial by John Dickinson, very cool:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/872881?

There’s more in this thread (read the whole thing for the complete lowdown);

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/917935

[Mike Clasby]

The link is wonky, takes you to a blank Cow page.

No offense, but except for being 16 bit, the freebie plug-in is like CC Scale Wipe or Pete’s Smear, but without the flexibility and options of those plugins.