[Mike Clasby]

There are a couple of potions, but I like this script for roto work:

https://del.icio.us/escruz/Rotoscope

Put the script in you Support Folder>Scripts.

Duplicate your layer, then draw a mask over the poster.

Then File>Run>Script, choose rotAE.jsx.

Select the mask, and clcik on the “Apply Tracker’, an you get a tracker setup with as many points as you had on the mask (4 I’m assuming).

Run track on the poster (you might want to set the mask to Nonw for now), when it right… select the mask, and the Track (track 10 and clcik the Apply mask.

Now if you apply Blur to that top layer and turn the mask to Add, feather and expand as necessary, you should be good to go.

Alternatively (new to me):

There is a similar script here:

rotoTool
converts a mask to tracker points and transforms tracking data into a mask

https://www.nabscripts.com/Downloads/downloads_en_3.php?id=0

The walking in front is just roto, do it with several masks, each to a body pat, like torso, head, legs, etc, then animate Mask Shape… not much fun, hopefully they walk quickly.

[Mike Clasby]

ismanimal, do you mean this?

https://www.motionscript.com/expressions-lab-ae65/undulations.html

It simulates how waves (ripples) on a pond affects floating layers.

[Mike Clasby]

ismanimal, do you mean this?

https://www.motionscript.com/expressions-lab-ae65/undulations.html

It simulates how waves (ripples) on a pond affects floating layers.

[Mike Clasby]

Don’t really know what you want. “All the cameras need to be moving at the same speed. ” There is only one Active camera in AE, the top one with it’s eyeball on.

Here are the only two automated camera setups I know of.

1) Dan’s, Building the World’s Greatest Cameraman, the last comp “—pan, tilt, focus, and zoom—“, here:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/ebberts_dan/expression_cont.php

It uses keyframes on a Slider (under the Null) to tell the camera which layer to focus on next.

There’s a lot going on there, but if you turn off all the expression on the layers larry, james, evol and dan, then line them up in the order you want them seen top to bottom, then change the keyframes to 1,2,3 and 4 in the Slider in the Null, along with moldyboot’s expression on camera Positing (to give you the constant speed, you get (maybe ) what you want. If you arranged the keyframes to match the shot lengths (inpoints and outpoints) you might just have exactly what you want, but that final, tying the shot length to keyframes placement with expressions is way beyond my paygrade, if it’s even possible.

Methinks you’re asking for a miracle.

2) And this script:

autoOrientCamera

https://www.nabscripts.com/Downloads/downloads_en_1.php?id=1

The camera speed is not constant, it changes focus depending on where you place markers in the top layer, before you run the script, it then creates a camera with keyframes.

[Mike Clasby]

If your using solids, I like this script named “Box”:

https://www.nabscripts.com/Experiments/experiments_en.php

But it uses scale expressions on a slider to control the x, y, z dimensions, so swapping in photos and such doesn’t really work, because when you swap them in, they’re scaled up as per the sliders. But for solids it’s magic, move the slider and the box grows instantly.

[Mike Clasby]

First off, for whiter whites and Brighter Bright, see Andrew’s tut here, where he sets up a 32 bit comp, that’s if you have AE7 or above.

https://www.videocopilot.net/videotutorials/earthquakehdr/index.htm

Maybe this is what you want if you’re just using two images, oor add a flicker expression below to the top layer.

For a neon sign I like AudioWaveform on a mask (Path:Mask1), with no Audio layer referenced, you get a nice inner/outer color tube, very soft and neon like.

I like to chase that with CC Radial Fast Blur, Amount at 0, with this wiggle expression on Amount:

wiggle (30,2)

Change the 30 (frequency) or 2 (Amplitude ) to taste.

This Radial fast blur is fine by itself, without the opacity flicker, if you don’t want the light to go completely out, just an electric surge kind of thing.

For a flicker, I like this from Dan, it’s for a 3D light but works fine on Opacity of a layer.

https://www.motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/random-3.html

segMin = 1.0; //minimum segment duration
segMax = 1.5; //maximum segment duration
flickerDurMin = .5;
flickerDurMax = .8;

end = 0;
j = 0;
while ( time >= end){
j += 1;
seedRandom(j,true);
start = end;
end += random(segMin,segMax);
}
flickerDur = random(flickerDurMin,flickerDurMax);
if (time > end – flickerDur){
seedRandom(1,false);
random(100);
}else{
100
}

Change those top four variables to get the look you want.

[Mike Clasby]

Or here;

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/ink.php

[Mike Clasby]

On a 3D layer, twirld down (the little triangle to the let of the name) until you get Material Options>Accept Shadows>On.

[Mike Clasby]

You probably have the Standard Version, no tracking there.

[Mike Clasby]

‘Tis curious, I bet that’s on the top of the list for next version.