[Mike Clasby]

Have you seen Dan’s site? That’s where the magic lives:

https://www.motionscript.com/

Also click on hishead above and you’ll see his cow tuts, each one a gem. Enjoy.

This is older but great for fundamentals:

https://jjgifford.com/expressions/basics/index.html

[Mike Clasby]

Here’s a script for making a cube easily (choose a size you want, comes with Null):

https://wemads.com/stuff/3d_cube.zip

You need to keep everything square pixels, otherwise things get wonky.

You could then sub in your own images for the cube layers by Alt Dragging them from the Project Window onto selected cube layers.

If your shopping cart isn’t a perfect cube, you can sub in your picks, then move the position of that layer to make them matchup.

Good luck.

[Mike Clasby]

Here, here.

[Mike Clasby]

I’m no Andrew, but…

He showed a similar trick hitting himself at the NY AE meeting back in Feb.

You saw him do a little acting… walking, then throwing himself to the side… no truck anywhere is sight…

Don’t move that camera. And the truck crossed the intersection several seconds later, On a duplicate layer, he rotoed the truck, quick roto really, here is a similar method to make the truck appear before it actually did, when he was crossing the street:

https://www.creativecow.net/articles/oconnell_pete/roto/index.html

Very Cool Tut.

Then with the truck now striking him after that roto above… He rotoed himself and threw himself off to the right (just a few frame duration)… I recall a little bending of the roto of himself, I think the roto was with two masks, the top one rotated to wrap onto the hood as it struck him, you could try CC Bender or Bend It if a single roto. Basically that was it, took Andrew 10 + minutes from scratch in front of a crowd.

[Mike Clasby]

I don’t know if it will do what you want, but you should look at Transition>Gradient Wipe.

[Mike Clasby]

This handy-dandy expression by Dan Ebberts (refined minutes ago on the Cow Expression forum) will do what you want. Just add a marker wherever you want the dampening swing. Put the expression on X Rotation of a 3D layer and where you set a marker, SWING-SWing-swing-rest. Adjust amp, freq and decay to taste. The numbers below work good for about a second to settle down.

amp=70; //amplitude (pixels)
freq=2; //frequency (cycles per second)
decay=2.5; //decay time (seconds)

// find previous marker

n = 0; // assume haven’t reached a marker yet
if (marker.numKeys > 0){
n = marker.nearestKey(time).index;
if (marker.key(n).time > time){
n–;
}
}

if (n > 0) t = time – marker.key(n).time else t =0;
a = amp*Math.sin(freq*t*Math.PI*2)/Math.exp(decay*t);
if ((n > 0) && ((marker.key(n).index % 2) == 0)) a = -a;
a

It is setup so that the text will swing away from the viewer, looking correct if the first rotation of the text if fall down and toward the viewer. Then the next marker will make the text kick out the other way, toward the viewer, then next marker away, so you can alternate the rotations and swing-dampening. You’ll see what I mean.

If you want the dampen to always kickout in the same direction then change the last three lines to this:

if (n > 0) t = time – marker.key(n).time else t =0;
a = amp*Math.sin(freq*t*Math.PI*2)/Math.exp(decay*t);
a

Or to this:

if (n > 0) t = time – marker.key(n).time else t =0;
a = amp*Math.sin(freq*t*Math.PI*2)/Math.exp(decay*t);
– a

depending on which way you want to kickout (the same every time).

[Mike Clasby]

Thank you berry, berry much (the blackberries are blooming here).

Works a charm.

[Mike Clasby]

This may be helpful:

https://www.motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/lst-lens-flare.html

[Mike Clasby]

Works a charm, except before the first keyframe where I get this error message:-(

After Effects warning: Bad method arguments: This property has no keyframe number 0.
Error occurred on line 17.
Expression disabled.

[Mike Clasby]

I still the best intro to AE was from the Editor’s Guild, but they’ve pulled the pages down… but, Internet Archive has archived the old pages on “The Way Back Machine”, here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051210071307/https://www.editorsguild.com/AfterEffects.html

The materials buttons still have the source materials, but the aep’s and mov’s are no longer available, but you can follow the text of the tut with the materials easily.

Andrew’s AE 101 is a good place to start:

https://www.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/aftereffects101/index.html

Click on “Adobe After Effects” just below all the Moderators pictures on the main page to see all the Cow AE tutorials.

Aharon Rabinowitz’s tuts (clcik his head) are clear and concise and easy to follow, even the complex ones.

Here are all the Adobe AE tuts, many for beginners:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/designcenter/search.cfm?product=After+Effects&go=Go