[Oki Pienandoro]

Nah, not stupid,
Rotobrush was rarely ever used under normal workflow, i guess people only use if keying is too problematic.

You didn’t have to roto every frame, rotobrush can propagate frame forward & backward.
The problem is, is often missed, so you have to fix certain frames (use alt+click to delete wrong area).
In practice, it’s kinda reviewing every frame. But at the very least you didn’t have to manually roto every single edge.

Btw, how many frame you dealing with?
Because i have an idea, and i tested it. Instead keying in AE, why don’t you use magic wand in Photoshop.
It really looks great (kinda, you probably need a 2nd or 3rd pass).
Use action to automate the process. Then batch processing.
Load the result as image sequence.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

I’m still not sure what you mean by “panel” because any windows in AE is called panel.
Timeline panel, render queue panel, effects panel, etc

But in case you mean Split into different layout in the same comp, maybe you can use this :
https://aescripts.com/splitimage/
It’s a “Name Your Own Price”, you can actually put zero dollar, so it’s free.
But if this is helping you, i strongly suggest you buy at the suggested price.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

Have you tried using rotobrush instead ?
I tested it, and i don’t think it was too time consuming process since the edge is really crisp.
I can see why this is difficult to key-out.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

Not sure what you mean by “an image slides onscreen in 2 or 3 panels.”

Not scripts/preset per-se. But perhaps a workflow like this ?
https://www.schoolofmotion.com/making-content-for-jumbotrons/

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

I’m sorry, did you not read the first reply by me and from Walter Soyka ?
We already said, Use symlink.
Was that not clear enough ? Have you tried it ? I guess not.

That is literally a step-by-step how to create symlink.

Here, i posted the URL gain :
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/
or this
https://zacklovatt.com/syncing-ae-addons-via-dropbox/

If you can’t comprehend that step-by-step tutorial, i’d say you have to ask someone that have experience to tinker with windows.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

No it will not help if you increase the bitrate no matter how high, it’s a lossy codec, you will lose color.
Only use H.264 as final delivery (if that’s what the client want), not as intermediate files.

Unless you use x.264 (noted : not “H”).
x.264 have lossless option.

But as far as i know, you can’t export with x.264 directly from AE,
Perhaps there is a plugin for that, but i never search for it. Also because (IIRC) Adobe didn’t support importing lossless x.264 yet.

Personally i only use 2 codec as intermediate, either Ut or Animation.
I use Ut almost exclusively when i work alone, but when it comes to exchanging files, especially if the other party using Mac, i always use Animation.

Why ?
In my test, i find that Ut is faster to playback, almost no stuttering at all in my low end PC, whilst Animation can only sustain a brief period of time (30 sec or so)on playback before start stuttering.

QuickTime PNG, while producing the smallest file size, stutter even more in my PC.

And actually there is an even smaller lossless codec, called lagarith.
It produce even smaller file.
The catch is, the decompression speed is horrible, also is not being actively developed for years.
Only use them as an archiving codec if the space is a concern, or perhaps delivery concern (low upload speed, tight deadline). But still, the receiving party must convert that into more usable codec.

PS: I’m not sure what you mean by PNG can’t produce audio.
Did you export as image sequence ?
No, you can use PNG as codec inside Quicktime container, and it can carry audio stream just like any other lossless format.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

I already told you, use symlink, i even link the how-to URL.
Other user said the same thing, he also posted another how-to link.
What do you expect more ?

I haven’t use element3d for years, but if i remember correctly, the big size you’re talking about is actually the Assets, not the plugin itself.
The plugin itself (*.aex) is only couple of MB.

On plugin installation, the assets goes to your documents folder, not inside C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CC 2015\Support Files\Plug-ins.

You can actually safely moving your documents folder to other drive, windows have built-in tools to do this.
Just go to documents properties, there is a location tabs, in there you can see the option to move the folder elsewhere.

If in doubt, just contact VideoCopilot support, i’m sure they have an exact answer unlike me.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

You mean lossless as in “uncompressed” AVI?
Yes it’s big, but you can always install a “real” lossless codec. The size was MUCH smaller.
I use “Ut video codec”, not open source, but free.
Also, mainly because i can use it outside Adobe app, unlike QT codec.

If you didn’t want to install/trust 3rd party codec like Ut, you can use Quicktime Animation or Quicktime PNG.

I’ve been using Ut for years. Also Ut can also be used on Mac, so you can exchange files with ease.
If you decided to use Ut, and want to encode higher than 8 bit per channel, make sure you open the “Readme For Adobe User” files by the end of installation, this is to add Ut to codec list that support 8bit+ encoding.
Or you can read here :
https://umezawa.dyndns.info/archive/utvideo/utvideo-16.1.0-readme-adobe.en.html

If not, you can still use it in normal 8 bit.

Here’s the link, download the latest version:
At the time of writing, it’s v 16.1.0

https://umezawa.dyndns.info/archive/utvideo/

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

First question, why ?
Plugin on average only took couple of Megabyte, it’s not that much.
If you really want to save/monitor your primary, it’s better to move the cache elsewhere (and you should) to the fastest drive you have, preferably SSD or RAID.

To answer your question, maybe, using symlink in folder. IDK if Adobe will work properly though.
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Oki Pienandoro]

Actually yes, i already mentioned that in my first reply (maybe you missed it), i have tested it using mp4 to mp4 with AME, and the xmp is retained within the new mp4 file.
The problem is, if your client decided to use a conversion tools that didn’t retain xmp metadata, it will get stripped (i tested this using basic command line in ffmpeg).

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.