[Paul Roper]

If your wiggle effect is applied to the position of the first object, then anything parented to it (ie. the child of the first object) should inherit the wiggle. Is the wiggle applied to an effect within the first object? To get the second object to inherit an effect, you’d have to apply the same effect to the second layer and use some expressions to link the parameters.

You could also use an expression to link the position of the second object to the first one; just option-click (or alt-click on a PC) the keyframe stopwatch next to ‘position’ on the second object, then using the curly pickwhip, select the position of the first object. The child object’s position should then say something like:

thisComp.layer(“parent object”).transform.position

If you want to add an offset, you could do something like this (in the second/child object’s position):

x = thisComp.layer(“parent object”).transform.position[0];
y = thisComp.layer(“parent object”).transform.position[1];
[x, y+50]

This will place the child object at the same x position as the parent, but 50 pixels below it (the “y+50”).

Hope that helps.

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

Thanks, Walter.

I suspected that I “would need Maya and AE installed on all the nodes”, but the way Qmaster describes itself in the instructions kinda suggests otherwise. I thought it’d be too good to be true, and indeed it is.

I do occasionally use a single machine AE render ‘farm’ (smallholding? chicken shed?) with a ‘watch folder’ just so I can offload renders and carry on working on the project. It’s great that Adobe lets me install as many render nodes as I like, and would love to automate a way of loading AE Render Engine on other peoples’ machines in the office when they’re not using them – kind of like an AE screensaver! But those other people keep USING their computers for other stuff!

[Paul Roper]

Six and a bit years later, I just had the same problem and a search brought up this thread. I suspected it was the references causing the problems, so I unloaded them, but the problem remained. But I hadn’t actually REMOVED them – after removal, the .ma file loads fine into AE. So yes, as you suspected all those years ago, it was the references causing the trouble.

I just thought I’d add this to the thread in case anyone else comes across the same problem. Would have been nice if Adobe (or whoever wrote the Maya import plugin) might have improved things since then, or at least made the error alert box a bit more helpful! I’d have thought it would be fairly easy to adapt the import plugin to completely ignore all parts of the scene file other than the camera(s) – after all, that’s the only thing that actually gets imported anyway.

But I’m still VERY HAPPY that AE has the ability to import Maya’s camera data!

Paul

[Paul Roper]

I managed a kind of workaround, from some recommendations on Apple’s forum:

1. create a new sequence

2. put a generator (text, color solid etc.) on the timeline

3. adjust duration, color, etc.

4. drag the clip off the timeline into the browser, and use this instead of a generator.

The clip obviously won’t show up in any other projects, but it’s a handy workaround for now. Maybe in Final Cut X……

[Paul Roper]

Thanks, Kevin for all the suggestions. I’m on some really boring job at the moment but will try out the joyous exploding particallic ideas as soon as I get a spare few minutes!

[Paul Roper]

Nobody got any ideas? At all?

[Paul Roper]

I base my “Apple has abandoned professionals” on what I’ve seen over the past couple of years, not just this presentation. It’s logical really – the profit margin on a top-end $699 iPad (a circuit board, a touch screen and a case) must be huge in comparison to a low-end $2499 Mac Pro (various circuit boards, big transformer, hard drive, DVD burner, aluminium case, etc. etc.). The same goes for their other mass-market trinkets – 16GB iPod nanos can be knocked out for pennies and sold for $179. I even heard rumours of “Final Cut on iPad” recently. This would fit right in with Apple’s policy of gimickry over usefulness.

So why would they continue to develop software that is targeted towards pro users who need the processing power of a high-end machine, when they are probably* planning to stop the manufacture of anything above the level of iMac? The answer is to aim at people who want something more than iMovie but would be afraid of using (& paying for) a professional application – hence the introduction of this new Final Cut Consumer.

*based on nothing more than my feelings.

[Paul Roper]

….but more importantly, do we suspect that Apple’s pricing of this ($299?) and the lack of news about the other ‘pro’ apps is yet more evidence of Apple dumbing down its product line to target consumers and not pros? I was in a large Apple store yesterday (to return my dead MacBook Air – lasted only 4 months) and there was a noticeable absence of Mac Pros…well, there was ONE – a bottom of the range single processor thing, stuffed in the corner. Compare this to the probably about 200 other silly little fashion trinkets filling the shop – MacBooks, Airs, iPad, iPods, iPhones…

Is there really a future for professionals using Apple gear? I suspect not.

[Paul Roper]

I, too, am suspicious. Timeline editing has evolved to what it is over many years – because it works. I use FCP on a daily basis, and I have tried to use iMovie once or twice – it leaves me completely baffled. All Apple really needed to do was fix some bugs and bring the application into the 21st Century with 64 bit, multi core processing. That’d make me happy. Also, people get used to an interface – it really is very annoying when a software vendor moves something you click on hundreds of times per day to another location for no apparent reason. It’s like a car manufacturer deciding to put the accelerator on the left and the steering wheel under the seat because it looks nicer.

In the olden days of Quantel Henry/Editbox, I could edit stuff without even looking at the screen because nothing was customisable and all the buttons and menus were in the same place, so I knew exactly where to click. This resulted in a blazingly fast editing process. This kind of fixed layout is still used for Smoke and Flame. I think.

Just take a look at Gmail for an example of a company trying to do something different just for the hell of it. Every other email program/website has evolved into what we recognise and like – Gmail’s ridiculous ‘conversation’ crap is just misleading and silly. Let’s hope FCP X’s interface isn’t just misleading and silly.

Oh – and what happened to FCP 8?

[Paul Roper]

I think some of the evidence of the inevitable render-test-redo cycle is in the name of the After Effects CS4 comp on the screen at about 15 secs. into the YouTube piece – it’s called “Final comp resized 3 THIS IS THE ONE”. And it’s about time he checked his 135 unread emails!

It is impressive how spot-on the co-ordination between hand gestures and animation is – I wouldn’t be surprised if there was probably also a bit of “if we take down China’s wealth in 1850 by a few million, nobody will notice and it’ll hit his hand exactly!”