[Nate Hanson]

Yes! Add an expression control to the layer you want to wiggle.

Effect -> Expression Controls -> Slider Control

In your wiggle expression, highlight one of your parameters and pick-whip the slider control. Now your wiggle parameter is linked to whatever the slider control shows.

The slider control is keyframeable, so you can start your wiggle amount at 20, and have it gradually become zero at a later point in your timeline.

Here are some COW tutorials related to this topic:
Expression Controls Parts 1, 2, and 3
https://cowcast.creativecow.net/podcast/after-effects-expression-controls-part–32
https://cowcast.creativecow.net/podcast/after-effects-expression-controls-part–31
https://cowcast.creativecow.net/podcast/after-effects-expression-controls-part–30

Here is another one from Andrew Kramer:
Basic Training 9 – Expressions
https://www.videocopilot.net/basic/ae_expressions.html

Good luck!

Nate

[Nate Hanson]

I’ve only been using AE for the last 6 months or so, and this aspect ratio thing has confused the heck out of me. My videos (all shot in 720 x 480) sometimes come out slightly stretched.

I solved this by using the Stretch option in the rendering process:

When you add your comp to the render queue, click on Output Module. Then in the window that pops up, check the Stretch check box. This area allows you to output to any aspect ratio you want. I had to output to 720 x 534 (found that number in the help file on aspect ratio) to make mine come out as intended.

I don’t know if that helps you out or not. Good luck.

Nate

[Nate Hanson]

High five!

Nate

[Nate Hanson]

I think you are right about why they are disappearing, but duplicating the layer (3 times) made no improvement.

I’m just going to create them above the adjustment layer. It looks fine that way. Plus duplicating the precomp changed the look of the other elements quite a bit.

Thanks for the quick response, Darby!

[Nate Hanson]

I posted a response, but I had misread your post. You were already sort of doing what I was suggesting so I erased it.

Nate

[Nate Hanson]

My guess is he motion tracked a given item in the video (microphone, person’s face, bottle, etc.) for position and rotation and then stabilized the image around that object. You’d need to scale up your footage so the edges don’t appear to be moving into frame once the tracking data has been applied. Watch this tutorial, as part of it accomplishes what you are asking about:

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorial.html?id=11

Midway through the process he has the whole image rotating around the guy’s face which is perfectly still.

Nate

[Nate Hanson]

I don’t think pink will work very well. I think the main reason they use green or blue screens is because those colors are very different from most skin tones. Pink is much closer to the colors in skin so when you try to key it out, you will probably pull from the subject’s skin also.

But the experts in here may know how to work around that.

Nate

[Nate Hanson]

Is this a keyframe interpolation issue? Right-click on the keyframe in question and select Keyframe Interpolation. Then make sure the Spatial Interpolation is set to Linear.

Sorry to waste your time if that is not the solution.

Nate

[Nate Hanson]

If you click on this link, you can see pictures of his workspace for the Evolution promo:

https://www.videocopilot.net/blog/?page_id=103

After looking at it, here is my guess: He appears to have one solid layer in the background and he placed a texture (set to “overlay”) on top of that. If you make your solid very large, and then add a ramp effect to it, so that it starts as blue in one area (where your 3D camera will start) and then slowly turns to green in another area (where your camera will end up), you will get the effect that you see in the promo. The texture will appear to change from blue to green, but really it is a ramp effect applied to the solid behind the texture.

That may or may not be how he did it, but I tested this method and it works.

Hope that is helpful,
Nate

[Nate Hanson]

There is a setting you can change in Google Earth so that it doesn’t show any of the labels or balloons on the screen. Check the left side of the screen and look for (I think) “Labels” and uncheck everything.

Then just spin the Earth until you find your location and take screen shots at different levels.

But, like Dave said, it’s copyrighted. So…actually…don’t do that. But if you did…it would work.

Nate