[Mike Sevigny]

I think the wiggle() expression is what you’re looking for.

Expressions can be overwhelming at first but it’s worth it the moment you can wheeled their power
Spend some time on Dan Ebberts’ website (https://www.motionscript.com/) and check out some of the COW expression video tutorials.
The pros on this forum are quick to help, post your questions as you go.

Mike Sevigny
https://www.torusmedialabs.com

[Mike Sevigny]

You’re right, for some reason it’s not recognizing the Item’s parentFolder. I changed a few things around so that it uses the folder you’ve selected intead of trying to find it by name. I commented the script to give you an idea of what’s going on at each step.
Give this a try:
sourceFolder = app.project.activeItem; // Collect the currently selected Folder
customScale = [150, 150]; // Custom Scale

if (sourceFolder instanceof FolderItem) { // If the selected Item is a Folder
targetComps = new Array(); // Create blank Array to store the Compositions
for (e= 1;e<=sourceFolder.numItems; e++) { // Cycle through the Folder Items
if (sourceFolder.item(e) instanceof CompItem){ // If the Folder Item is a Composition
targetComps[targetComps.length] = sourceFolder.item(e); // Collect the Item into the Array
}
}
// Duplicate the Compositions
newFolder = app.project.items.addFolder('dupComps'); // Create a new Folder for the duplicate comps
for (a=0;a<=targetComps.length-1;a++){ // Cycle through the collected Project Items
thisCompDup = targetComps[a].duplicate(); // Duplicate this Composition
thisCompDup.name = targetComps[a].name + '-dup'; // Rename the duplicate
thisCompDup.parentFolder = newFolder; // Place the duplicate composition in the new Folder
thisCompDup.layer(1).transform.scale.setValue(customScale); // Change the scale of the first layer in the duplicate composition
}
}else{ // If the selected Item is not a Folder, throw error.
alert('You must select a folder to be processed')
}
Before running it:

After running it:

Hope this helps,
Mike Sevigny
https://www.torusmedialabs.com

[Mike Sevigny]

Here’s a script that will duplicate the compositions in the folder, resize the layers to 150% and place the new comps in a new folder. Check the ‘settings’ at the top of the code to set your custom folder name and custom size.

// Settings
folderName = 'myFolder'; // Folder with |Original Compositions
customScale = [150, 150]; // Custom Scale

// Find target Compositions
targetComps = new Array();
for (e= 1;e<= app.project.numItems; e++) {
if (app.project.item(e) instanceof CompItem){
if (app.project.item(e).parentFolder.name = folderName) {
targetComps[targetComps.length] = app.project.item(e);
}
}
}

// Duplicate the Compositions
newFolder = app.project.items.addFolder('dupComps');
for (a=0;a<=targetComps.length-1;a++){
thisCompDup = targetComps[a].duplicate();
thisCompDup.name = targetComps[a].name + '-dup';
thisCompDup.parentFolder = newFolder;
thisCompDup.layer(1).transform.scale.setValue(customScale);
}


Hope this helps,
Mike Sevigny
https://www.torusmedialabs.com

[Mike Sevigny]

Hey Gabe,
You’ll want to look into Mocha. It will allow you to track the logos (with perspective) and import masks/tracking data into After Effects. Mocha should also do a good job at tracking the logos as they leave/enter the frame.

Some Mocha Tutorials:
How to replace a logo with mocha Pro: https://www.vimeo.com/93455754
Mocha Pro Tutorial: How to Remove Objects and Logos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVSMOPUmhd4
Mocha is definitely the method you should be using but IF it doesn’t work: The other option is to use AE’s Camera Tracker to track the shot then create 3D Mattes to mask the logos (more complex).

Mike Sevigny
https://www.torusmedialabs.com

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[Mike Sevigny]

hey Mahesh,
What you’re describing is not an easy shot but is completely doable. It sounds like what you’re having trouble with is the animated camera.

The fist thing you’ll need to do is track the camera (matchmove). There are a number of software packages that can accomplish this task, including After Effects. To launch AE’s Camera Tracker, select the clip in the timeline and click Animation>Track Camera. AE’s Camera Tracker is fantastic for 95% of shots you throw at it.

In cases where the track is more complex, you will require a dedicated matchmoving package. For this, I recommend SynthEyes https://www.ssontech.com/ because of its ease of use, robust tools and price. When you track a camera in a matchmoving package, it helps to know what physical camera was used. Once you have the camera model, look it up on https://vfxcamdb.com/ and write down the ‘Sensor Size’ which is also known as ‘Filmback Size’. Together with the lens info, the sensor size will help track the camera accurately when using a dedicated matchmoving package like Syntheyes. Here are a few other matchmoving packages you can look into, PFTrack, 3D Equilizer, Boujou..

Once the shot is tracked: You can either add a 2D image of the desert where the ground plane is and roto the stadium back on top of it. OR if the desert asset is 3D, you can take the tracked camera over to your 3D package and render the desert from the tracked camera’s perspective. When you import that 3D render into After Effects, it’ll line up perfectly with the footage so you can roto the stadium back on top of the 3D render and composite.

It’s impossible to tell what the best method would be without seeing the shot. In some cases, using Mocha to track the ground and replace it with an image (of the desert) can also work without the need to track any camera. However, if there is parallax in your desert scene, you will want to use a 3D render instead of a 2D image.

Note: You used the term ‘Zoom’ but I think what you mean is that the drone is flying out of the stadium into the sky revealing the stadium exterior as the shot gets wider. Animated ‘zoom’ means that the focal length of the camera is animated which is more complex to track.

Hope this helps,
Mike Sevigny
https://www.torusmedialabs.com

[Mike Sevigny]

As of the latest version of After Effects, Cinema 4D is at version R16 (16.028) (Build RB113929)
After Effects should launch the Studio version if you have it installed but the Lite version included with AE is not the latest.

Mike Sevigny
https://www.torusmedialabs.com

[Mike Sevigny]

Hey James,
That does look like a rock and a hard place. I’m not sure how Mettle’s tools work but if your map assets are 2D cards in 3D space then you should be able to angle them correctly for each 360 still. I noticed that your horizon line is not a straight line, are you doing this in each cube face and then outputting from there, or are you working in a 360 comp (in the attached still)?

There is another 360 toolkit for After Effects you can try, Canvas 360 Pro.
You can get the (free) Lite version here: https://torusmedialabs.com/
Canvas 360 Lite has limitations but if you’re only using stills and a handful of layers in your composition then you should be fine (no watermark).

Here are some tutorials:
https://torusmedialabs.com/tutorials/
(scroll down and click on Canvas 360 Lite for the Lite tutorials)

Mike Sevigny

[Mike Sevigny]

If you like to animate static images I would check out Mettle’s Freeform Pro:
https://www.mettle.com/product/freeform-pro/

It’s basically a 3D Meshwarp.

Mike Sevigny

[Mike Sevigny]

Although AE’s 3D Tracker is very powerful, it has very few settings. I wouldn’t count on it for something like this, you’ll need an actual Matchmoving package like PFTrack, Boujou, Syntheyes or 3D Equalizer. Any of these will let you identify the distance between markers among other things.

Mike Sevigny

[Mike Sevigny]

Hey Philipp,

I’ve done a few of these for corporate website ‘How-To’ videos. I tried several solutions including recording the screen in real-time. For this I found that ‘Snag-It’ (Windows) was the best solution, it gave me the best framerate (~10fps). Since I do a lot of screen capturing I’ve since dedicated a separate machine to do the capturing using a BlackMagic Intensity Pro. My main working computer has dual monitors (TitanX) with a 3rd output mirroring one of the monitor’s outputs into the Intensity Pro on the other computer which is recording in realtime. This allows me to record in 1920×1080 @ 23.976 with no dropouts whatsoever.

However.. I found that using video screengrabs was detrimental when making these videos because any changes had to literally be re-recorded and creatively spliced in. Since I was working on corporate websites things would change on a daily basis (new button, text body, graphic, etc).

I found that the easiest and most flexible way to achieve this was to create a library of stills of the website and anything I needed. This meant taking screengrabs of the website (in all states, like dropbox clicked & unclicked) in highres, piecing the different pages together in photoshop and downloading all the different mouse cursors I needed (from google). The benefit of doing it this way was more than just being able to swap the graphics easily, it also allowed me to dynamically animate the page with motion blur, really narrow down the timing, creatively animate between the pages and add custom highlights anywhere I wanted. It sounds like a huge undertaking but once you have all your assets ready to go it’s pretty straight forward and produces the best results in my opinion.

Mike Sevigny