[Mike Park]

I use XP64 bit with no problems. I had installed Vista64, but was running into problems with a variety of apps. Didn’t know when all the kinks would be ironed out, so formatted and reinstalled XP64 and everything works great. Talked to an adobe guy a couple of weeks ago about when a 64 bit version would debut. He didn’t know and didn’t think any thing was on the drawing board for CS4 at present.

[Mike Park]

In my opinion, it is usually better to take a frame of your live action footage into 3d max and use it as a reference or background for setting up the 3d max camera. Once you match the camera position and orientation, you render out your cg elements with alpha channels and import them into afx. If you are using footage with the camera locked off or still on a tripod, you can create masks from your footage to superimpose over the cg elements and really place them into your scene. If you shot the footage freehand or if the camera moves, you have a whole new set of problems to deal with.

Hope this helps

[Mike Park]

I took a minute to look at the shot in question and think that this is close to how it was pulled off. You need two video cameras. One at the start of where you want your animation and one at where the matrix/bullet time effect ends. You then rotoscope the segment of time you want for both cameras. you piece together a panaroma picture for a background and use a afx camera for the move. Then you position the start of the camera move at the first camera, and the end of the move from the second camera. Next turn your rotoscoped layers into 3d and crossfade/morph them over time from the images from the first camera to the images from the second camera. If you look close, the footage shows a 3d move, but the layers look flat. The effect is pulled off because the layers are in 3d with respect to each other and they added a bunch of blur. Great effect and time consuming with all the roto work. That is my best guess, or at least, how I would have done it without any expensive waterproof equipment. For another example of this, perhaps a little better to see, check the scene from about the 6 min mark frame by frame. You can see the cross fade between the two shots composited together – check the shadow on the thigh as you scrub. You can also see some slight color variation in the background where the shot and background footage/plate were blended together.

[Mike Park]

What resolution is the comp you are making and are you using the text tool or some graphic for the text. Next, make sure you have the quality switch on the layer on “best” – that is the little diagonial line dialogue box third from the left on the layer. If you have this set to draft, the text will look blocky.

[Mike Park]

Yeah, it is a newer function. I can’t remember exactly which version it started in. I am currently using CS3. It is the little things that sometimes make the upgrades helpful.

[Mike Park]

Just a quick follow up. If you need to have the words fly in some other way than equal time, all you need to do is keyframe the range selector and you can sync the text movement to whatever you want.

[Mike Park]

This is easier than you think. First create your text. Next, enable per character 3d under the animate tab of your text layer. Next, click the animate rollout again and choose position. Next, under Animator 1, set key frames for the range selector. Change start from 0 to 100 over whatever duration you need. Next, go back to frame 0 and change the z position of the text. If you scrub through, you will see the text animate forward into position one character at a time. The last thing you need to do is go under the Advanced rollout and change the “based on” from character to word. Now, the words should fly forward one word at a time from back in z space to their initial position. Finally, turn on some motion blur for the text layer for an even more polished effect.

If you really want to make it look good, try changing your comp from 8 bit to 32 bit. That way your can use high dynamic ranges and when your text blurs, it will leave cool color gradient trails. Andrew Kramer has a good tutorial on this on his website, http://www.videocopilot.net. It is one of the more recent ones.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you run into any problems.

Heck, it was so quick, I made an example file and uploaded it here:
https://www.mediafire.com/?gnyymtdi0yj

[Mike Park]

I don’t know about after effects, but I would try this effect using 3d max and the plugin glu3d and pwrapper from 3d aliens. I would have a black and white pic of the logo you want to create and use it as a particle source. I would bind those particles to a spherical gravity warp and draw them to one point. I would then use pwrapper to transform all of the particles into one mesh. Apply a shader and render it out. Then, in afx, simply reverse the direction of the footage and the particles will look like they splash up from one point. Then just time it up with a water drop and you have the effect. I hope this helps give you some ideas.

Best of luck

[Mike Park]

You could also use the motion path feature of Particular to accomplish the same thing.

[Mike Park]

why don’t you try keyframing the opacity. You could use an expression, but don’t need to. Just put the period on a seperate layer and animate the opacity

best of luck