[Paul Roper]

I knew Dan would have an easy answer to this…which I found 6 years later!

[Paul Roper]

I previously sent a feature request to Adobe for this (the ability to set a keyframe to default to easy-ease). Hitting F9 constantly gets a bit boring. Maybe you could send a feature request for this, too – the more people ask for it, the more likely it is to appear in a future version of AE.

[Paul Roper]

If I were doing it, I’d do it the old-fashioned way:
1. Lock off the camera. You can see from the lack of parallax in the perspective (look at the “horizon” line) that the camera does not tilt up to follow the ball – the ugly, clumsy, stupid “hand-held” camera look was added in post.
2. Have a couple of people on some kinda stepladder above the guy – one to catch the ball and one to drop the shoe.
3. Do as many takes as it takes to get a fairly seamless throw the ball up out of frame (and caught by one person), and the second person drop the shoe into frame.
4. Do a simple set extension to add some more height to the frame.
5. Create a couple of layers that are a still of the ball and a still of the shoe. Use these to continue the motion where the throw goes out of frame.
6. Do a quick Distort > Reshape to go from the ball to the shoe.
7. Add that crappy camera move to follow the ball. I hate deliberate camera wobble, whether added in post or deliberately done by the cameraman. It just looks stupid. Shame on you, NYPD Blue for making this ridiculous style popular. It looked utterly crap then and it still looks crap now.

The changing pattern on the ball is probably just a few animated shape layers tracked onto the ball, plus a decent amount of motion blur to blend it in.

That’s how I’d do it, anyway. As with all thing visual effectsy, there are many ways to skin a cat (where did that expression originate?!).

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

Thanks for that, Teddy.

I think you’ve confirmed my suspicions – making the jump to the world of Windows is probably the way to go. I need to do some serious research on what’s out there in the world of Windows boxes that’s great for AE. I’ll be reading through the results of your new benchmark test with great interest.

Thanks again,

Paul

[Paul Roper]

If you want to do it within AE, the Reshape effect is the closest thing AE has to morphing. (Effect > Distort > Reshape). You basically specify a start and end mask shape (set the masks to ‘none’) and then animate the ‘percent’. You’ll have to apply the same effect to both layers and mix between them – not quite a perfect Michael Jackson Black or White effect, but I’m guessing you don’t quite have the same time or budget (even though that was TWENTY THREE years ago!).
Michael Jackson Black or White

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

So…after all this research and testing, can anyone suggest where I could get a reasonably high-end AE system, preferably a Hackintosh, built? I haven’t got mega-money to throw at it, but I’d obviously like something that’s future-proof(ish) and can run AE (plus Premiere, Photoshop and some 3D – probably C4D) at a decent pace. I don’t need any video in/out. Most of my work will (for now) be 1920×1080, so no need (yet) for 4K support.

Ideally, I’d like the power of a new Mac Pro (preferably with more powerful graphics) for the price of an iMac. Or less! I’ve had a quick look through some other Hackintosh sites, but most people’s ideas of a powerful computer is not the same as an AE user’s idea of a powerful computer; hence asking in this forum for some advice.

My Mac Pro (on loan to me from my previous employer) has been taken away – I’m now properly freelance again, but I’d like something of similar spec. It was 2011 model with 2x 6 core 3.06GHz Xeons, 64GB RAM and 2x 2GB Quadro 4000. And it cost a lot!

If I can get more power for less £££, then I could be persuaded to make the jump to a PC.

I know this is all a bit vague, but I’m trying to get an idea of what price/performance I can get.

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

I’d have expected someone with more Element experience to have chimed in by now – maybe everyone’s living it up at NAB!

I noticed you said you’re using After Effects 5.5 (that was launched in from 2002!) – I assume you mean CS5.5. Maybe updating it to CS6 (if you can find it) or making the leap to the Creative Cloud version might help.

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

That’s interesting. I came to this forum today for some information because I need to buy a reasonably high-end AE system, and the HP Z820 is an obvious (if pricey) option.

Assuming your processor(s) is/are something decent, then your system (as it currently is) should fly through AE. It’s hard to pinpoint what might be causing the delays, but giving some more info would help you get a better response from other users on this forum with similar specced machines:

Do the delays happen when you’re doing anything specific (eg. zooming, scrubbing through footage, rendering, RAM preview, etc)?
Are your comps huge – like 4K or larger?
Do you have comps with hundreds of layers?
Are your models in Element very complex (high poly count/large texture maps)?
Do you have lots of layers using the Element plugin in one comp?
Do the delays happen when you’re using a comp WITHOUT the Element plugin? If they don’t, then you can isolate the problem to Element, and maybe post some questions on the videocopilot site too.

Hope that helps…a bit, maybe.

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

Thanks for the suggestion, but that does allow me to select and highlight something without having to click the circle, but I still have to click each object individually.

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

Thanks! I didn’t realise shift would constrain a view rotation.

– Paul