[Paul Stevenson]

Dan thanks for the response and sorry for the delay in getting back to you, I have been busy on other projects and just got back to this today.

I am not quite sure what your code is doing and I definitely couldn’t get it working, but I am a bit of an expressions noob.

However I did manage to find a solution.

As I said, I am passing values from the parent to the child, so I merely adjusted those values. Instead of using a straight…

timeToFrames(thisLayer.inPoint)

…on a slider that is then read by the child, I adjusted it a little:

TimePoint=timeToFrames(thisLayer.inPoint);
TimeOffset=timeToFrames(thisLayer.startTime);

TimePoint-TimeOffset;

For the benefit of anyone reading this that doesn’t understand the above:

This now takes the in point and the point in time on the layer that it starts (subtly two different things – one being a shifted time and one being a cropped to time – It’s quite probable that both can exist at the same time) and takes one from the other. This calculates the time adjusting for offset. The child can then read this.

For anyone looking for code on how a child can read something from the parent, this will get you started:

comp("Parent").layer(thisComp.name).effect("Slide START")("Slider");

Just in case anyone is searching for the same things I was a few days ago.

[Paul Stevenson]

Yes, sadly I have come to that conclusion.

I can see why it works the way it does, but I see how it could work the other way. Never mind, I shall just have to do it by duplicating the comp in the project window.

Thank you.

[Paul Stevenson]

Sort of.

I have the main comp, which has a completely different comp inside it (sub comp). That sub comp in turn has a shape layer inside it.

It is the sub comp that I am duplicating. But yes you are correct, it’s not actually duplicating the sub comp, but more duplicating the instance on the sub comp on the timeline. However the controls that are on the sub comp (at the main comp level) are then independent as they are in the main comp and sub comp merely references them.

This image probably explains it better than words:

And then the shape comp:

[Paul Stevenson]

Dave, sorry, when I said “super” I meant slower than what I would get by reinterpreting the footage down to 25fps.

Walter, yes the footage is 50p, sorry I should have stated that.

I have tons of 50p footage floating around and I was thinking of playing around with dropping in some slow mo here and there, just playing about really. I just wanted to make sure I was looking at the right method (with the available tools and footage) and not wasting my time.

Thanks chaps.

[Paul Stevenson]

As Ridley says, you really need to go NV over ATI at the moment.

Have you tried looking at a PC instead of a MAC? You could save yourself a small fortune and in turn you can put this money back into the computer and get a much better specification…or a monitor or two.

If you can find a small, competitive, local PC builder (or do it yourself it’s not difficult) then your quids in.

I built a PC for around £1k, it blew the socks off everything Apple had and for half the price. I then overclocked it and it’s still faster than anything Apple produces and it’s nearly two years old.

Just an idea anyway.

[Paul Stevenson]

Try changing your layers from difference to something like overlay, or add and see what happens. You could compound your problem with the difference setting.

It looks a basic setup you have there, so if you want to upload it I will fire it up and see what happens.

[Paul Stevenson]

Two options you could try, both very similar.

1) Duplicate the red text layer and place it above the red text layer. Now set the colour of the text to black/white and set it’s transfer mode to saturation. *I am going from memory here so I apologise if this transfer mode isn’t available.*

Now reduce the transparency of the black/white layer over time to “fade in” the red text.

You may have to play around with some other settings to give the precise shade of grey your after.

2) Duplicate the layer and place it above the red text layer again, but this time set it to the colour you want (grey). Now simply animate it’s transparency over time.

Note:

If the colour is still “choppy” (I don’t actually know what you mean by this, I am assuming) you could try turning up the bit depth for that comp. This will give you more colours, in other words, you will get more steps in your colour changing. It may be worth just turning up the depth value to start with, it might make what you already have work.

[Paul Stevenson]

I don’t, but I would suspect it would be fraught with problems if your doing anything beyond using the standard tools and building the whole thing in AE.

I mean the amount of 3rd party plugin’s, tools, fonts and the sheer size of your input media, would all count severely against it being a viable online service…I would think.

[Paul Stevenson]

Adrian,

Sorry it was my mistake. I was thinking of Prem. After effects was fine, it was the footage I was putting into it that was broken. Sorry I wasn’t thinking straight yesterday.

However I always convert my footage to uncompressed AVI before I put it into AE, always have, it did help once on a project so I have always stuck to doing it.

As for the settings I use in AE, I just use the standard uncompressed option as well. I always render out as uncompressed and then compress in Media Encoder. It’s faster if your doing multiple output types and better quality as it will/can do multi-pass. So with that said I would fix your problem rather than leaving it exporting as MP4.

[Paul Stevenson]

Which uncompressed AVI where you using? The one marked as uncompressed or the AVI one and then switching the codec? I was using the first and wondering why things didn’t seem quite right (options wise), until I realised my mistake.

Anyway, using the first I was getting all sorts of oddities, for instance random frames not rendering completely. But instead of getting “noise” I was just getting black. You could actually see the point it had stopped as the “scan line” tended to be half way through drawing a frame.