Rhett Robinson
3
AE Expressions Coins
3
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Judy,
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the question, but that does seem rather simple… choose the layer with the mask in the timeline, hit “mm” to bring up the mask properties, then click the stopwatch next to the “mask shape” Move forward in time a while, then make a change to the mask (the quickest way to select the entire mask, and not a single point, that I’ve found is to click on the mask name.) If it’s not visible, make sure that the “toggle view masks” button is depressed at the lower left corner of the comp window.
Let me know if I’m not understanding the question, or if you have any others.
Rhett -
You can also try the Cycore effects… I put a huge panoramic in an even bigger comp, and then rendered that with CC Sphere (rendered “inside” only). Alternatively, if you only need it to wrap, the you can use CC Cylinder, and do the same thing…
Rhett -
matthias, Serge really is the expert here, you might want to download the demo from Zax and check out some of Serge’s work. You can use reflection maps, bump, etc. But if you animated a piece in lightwave, you’ll bring that animated video into AE and composite it with other elements. You can animate “sets” in Invigorator, but you won’t be able to change the mesh of your lightwave parts or do really complex 3D work like that. I’d check out a tutorial or 2 in the Invigorator forum… at a basic level, it’s easy to make something cool in a HURRY in Invigorator without needing a 3D app, and it’s capable of more complex work… anyway, it fits a unique niche.
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If I think I’m happy with a hard-to-render part of a composition, I will sometimes render at a final resolution, which still dramatically speeds up the work, instead of AE having to process it again and again while you add items on top… but usually I do low-res versions, just to speed up the work process in general. Make sure and look at your render settings during your final render, to determine if you want to continue using the proxies to render or not.
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Matthias-
Zaxwerks will allow you to import 3D models into it, and pose or animate them. If they are not too complicated, with textures, etc., it really works FANTASTICALLY, because you can use the comp camera in AE, and that helps your 3D space look aligned easily. It’s not really for designing 3D models (although I’ve seen a few pretty cool tricks), but for importing 3D objects, converting Illustrator art into 3D with an instant depth, or some of those things. It excels at a number of those tasks, but heavy duty work would be rendered in Maya, Lightwave, etc, then brought into AE to composite stuff together.
my 2 cents, anyway-
Rhett -
I was thinking there probably is a way, by changing some of the info (in a text editor) to fool it to open in AE 6.5, but it very likely would lose some info. I did this with Quark, using 4.0, until 6.5 came out, and rarely did it comletely destroy it, although there were definitely things that had to be fixed.
Just a thought… does copy-paste work from 7.0 to 6.5? Keyframes and all?
Rhett
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Greetings!
As someone that has spent many, many hours putting together projects on an iBook 500 (I render using the render engine on an even slower Mac when I do projects on the Mac – a 233 machine that just ticks away for a few days), with lights, shadows, and the whole 9 yards. I guess it depends on how “excellent” your preview has to be. I have a custom setting I use (instead of 1/4, I tell it to use 1/8), leave all the layers set to draft, and use the shift-ram preview regularly to check animation speeds, and usually don’t turn on shadows, etc. until the last moment, and even then, I turn on the caps lock, and usually “spot check” specific areas in full res. If I want a “great” RAM preview, I hit the 0 key, and do something else for a while.That said (for the lower end way to achieve workability), more RAM won’t hurt, for sure, because your OS is using up most of that. Frequently the problem with a PC however, is the other running processes, or often spyware on the machine. I’d make sure that it’s clean, then disk defrag, and consider making sure that a lot of background apps aren’t always running (usually, but not always visible on the lower right in the menu bar). These are all taking a small bit of CPU and memory.
Good luck!
Rhett -
I think I’d try to do it using a slider control (under expression controls). You can name them whatever you want…
anyway, I’d just link the thing you want to change (you will want to adjust the range by context-clicking on the number), then keyframe the slider control (not the final thing that you want changed) with some hold keyframes so it won’t interpolate. You may also be able to take advantage of the time-remapping stuff. Aharon Rabinowitz just did one for making a talking face, that really clearly explains the concept. The way he makes his tutorials is really great too, and it’ll be easier to understand.
On second thought, I’m leaning more towards the time remap, depending on how many different values you’re talking!
Rhett -
I think I’d try to do it using a slider control (under expression controls). You can name them whatever you want…
anyway, I’d just link the thing you want to change (you will want to adjust the range by context-clicking on the number), then keyframe the slider control (not the final thing that you want changed) with some hold keyframes so it won’t interpolate. You may also be able to take advantage of the time-remapping stuff. Aharon Rabinowitz just did one for making a talking face, that really clearly explains the concept. The way he makes his tutorials is really great too, and it’ll be easier to understand.
On second thought, I’m leaning more towards the time remap, depending on how many different values you’re talking!
Rhett -
Hey, sorry I got caught up in the opinions part… if you’re a complete noob to 3D, and just need to learn/have a rendered animation with alpha to put in AE, I’d look at some free options. There are a BUNCH for PC, and several for Mac.
Blender comes to mind, because it’s really knock-your-socks off powerful for FREE, although I really had to fumble with it, although I feel comfortable in several 3D apps. Things like Wings 3D etc… anyway, there are a number of free programs to try your hand at first, and get to know the lingo etc.
check it out!
That said, if I was going to buy a new 3D app today, and wasn’t comfortable in Maya already, it would be C4d.
Rhett