[Paul Hennell]

If you highlight the path and use edit copy, you can then paste it as a motion path on the position property of your object.

Note – you need to select the Path not the whole shape layer, and your destination object must have a position key frame already applied.

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[Paul Hennell]

To get 3D layers inside a pre-comp to react with the 3D camera of a parent comp you need to hit the “Collapse transformations” switch on the pre-comps layer. That’s the little sun like icon next to the Shy switch, that doubles as ‘continuously rasterize’ on vector layers. Click that and your shadow should turn 3d again.

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Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
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[Paul Hennell]

Totally off topic, but my dyslexia confused me completely on seeing Dave Johnson and John Davidson in a row on the forum. I first thought someone was just speaking to them self..

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Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
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[Paul Hennell]

Quickest way is probably add an adjustment layer above text with fast blur effect. Add a mask with feathering to fade it out a bit – then scale adjustment layer to fit and animate its position to reveal.

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Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
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[Paul Hennell]

Yeah the expression linked was just to show how to add a list of words to the source text, (which you want) but it’s current purpose is to chose a random word from the list each time you duplicate (which is the bit we’ll now change).

The key part of the tutorial expression is the last line which says “MyText[Myindex]” which basically means ‘choose the item from the “MyText” list which corresponds to whatever number MyIndex is“. If you replaced the end with “MyText[1]” the text would always read the 2nd item (lists start counting at 0) so we just need to change that value once a second.

Happily that’s very easy – AE has a time keyword which gives the current time line value which will will cycle us through the list (Provided we use ‘Floor’ to keep it a whole number”). So our end expression looks like:

myText = ["After Effects",
"Encore DVD",
"Photoshop",
"Premiere Pro",
"Final Cut Pro",
"Motion",
"Broadcast",
"Commotion",
"Cinema 4D",
"Particle Illusion"]; // obviously add your own list here

t = Math.floor(time) //this makes time a whole number.
myText[t] //This will cycle through your text once a second.

That should work fine, and you can even make it faster easily by multiplying the time: “t = math.floor(time * 2)” will make it cycle through twice as fast.

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
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[Paul Hennell]

When you say ‘change the words based on those from a list’ I’m not entirely sure what you mean. I think point number seven from this tutorial might help, but you might need to explain further.

(Also it’s always a mistake to rule out exploding dancing girls – they add to every effect)

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Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
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[Paul Hennell]

They edit the footage somehow.

/I have no idea what we’re talking about.

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
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[Paul Hennell]

This tutorial might prove handy – It’s different to the average rain shot you get, and you could mix in some ‘zooming down from above effect’ to get a kinda ‘following a rain drop’ thing going.

Is there anything else that stands out about the video you can incorporate as well? Common colours or sounds might help sell the link, or even just a single object seen briefly might give you some good ideas.

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
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[Paul Hennell]

Yep, what others said CC world is what you want. Only reason I’m here is too throw out the Nasa Earth Maps link, which is a great source for your realistic earth globe or a good starting point for tracing your own stylised version.

(Tip – if you want a seamless globe use the Offset filter in photoshop and edit the sea join so it’s invisible. Faster, cheaper and just as cool as a trip to space(sort of))

Have fun –

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Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
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[Paul Hennell]

Well with a little fiddling I’ve worked out a part method based on Daves suggestion above – Add a null with an Anchor point directly on the solids left corner – put the solids own anchor on it’s own right corner. Parent the solid to the null and add an angle control – then the following expressions to rotation –

Null:
if (effect(“Angle Control”)(“Angle”)> 0){
0
}else{
effect(“Angle Control”)(“Angle”)
}

Solid:
if (thisComp.layer(“Null 1”).effect(“Angle Control”)(“Angle”)< 0){ 0 }else{ thisComp.layer("Null 1").effect("Angle Control")("Angle") }

You can now rotate the angle control and the solid will tip on either corner, however you can’t move it properly through 3d space because it always follows the null anchors position… anyone see how to solve?

—
Only in after effects do children get to pick and whip their parents.
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