[Mike Park]

I am not sure what your problem is. I am assuming you applied cc sphere to a flat layer and keyframed the rotation value under the transform rollout. This should rotate the texture on the ball. Next, if you duplicate the layer and apply cc hair to the layer, you should see just hair. If you keyframe the rotation of this layer, the hair should rotate also. For ease use, i would pickwip the rotation of the hair layer to the rotation of your sphere layer so they always stay the same. If you are still having problems or if I have completely misunderstood what you are trying to do, let me know.

[Mike Park]

I am not sure of the effect you are going for. If you apply compound arithmatic to a layer, convert the layer to 3d and move in 3d space, the texture stays with the layer as the camera moves in 3d space. Is this not what you want?

[Mike Park]

try this:

1. track the motion of the bus sign you want to replace turning on position and rotation.
2. apply the track data to a new null object layer.
3. alt-click on the position of you replacement image and pickwip it to the position of the null object layer.

Your new replacement layer should now track with you original footage

Good luck

[Mike Park]

Sure you can. Your best bet would be to track the movement of the sign in your video and apply the tracking to a null layer. Then create a new adjustment layer and pickwip the position of the adjustment layer to the null. Then apply a blur effect to the adjustment layer and mask out the effect using the mask tools so that only the sign is blurred. If you have done it right, the blur effect should track the sign in your footage.
As for people walking in front, you have a couple of options. One would be to key frame the opacity of the adjustment layer. Two, and probably the best, would be to key frame the mask of the adjustment layer. Third, you could duplicate your footage and rotoscope the person walking in front and place the rotoed footage above the adjustment layer.

Good luck

[Mike Park]

Jerry,

Is there anyway to post a small image of the picture you are attempting to manipulate without breaching any of your clients confidences. I would like to see just how complicated the bg is. Also, have you considered placing another element in the hole left by the people you are rotoscoping out so that you dont have to precisely clone things like people’s faces which may have been cut off.

[Mike Park]

look to the bottom of the after effects window. This is where the render queue dialogue and composition tabs are. In the extreme lower left hand corner you will find three icons. If you move your mouse over them, the first will say, “expand or contract the layer switches plane.” The second will say “Expand or Collapse the Transfer Controls pane. The third will say, “expand or collapse the in/out/duration/stretch pane. You want to click the second which will expand the comp window to include the “TrkMat” dialogue drop down menus. simply use this dialogue box and choose the alpha matte of the layer directly above as I described above.

Hope this helps.

[Mike Park]

I am not sure what type of animation your client wants with the individuals, but I might try to photoshop a clean bg plate from surrounding areas.

[Mike Park]

are you talking about using the track mattes where you base the opacity of one layer on the alpha or luma of another. I so, just place the layer whose alpha you want to use above the layer upon which you want to apply and select “alpha map” of the layer above. The switch is in the composition window.

[Mike Park]

check out the tutorial by Emanuel Eriksson : Text that Blows away like Sand, hosted on this site

[Mike Park]

two questions – first, are you rendering out into a file which supports transparency, and second, are you turning off your black bg layer before you render?