[Rhett Robinson]

Check out the tutorials here by Aharon Rabinowitz on displacement mapping (miss his regular contributions already!),that will get you going, If you don’t want to buy add’l software…

there’s also a nice vid tutorial on Artbeats

https://www.artbeats.com/s3/assets/episodes/full/episode_003.mov

as well as a PDF from a number of years ago that gives some really good tips. I think to really get what you’re hoping for you’ll have to make a text comp, then do the displacement mapping to that comp, not a plain text layer.

Good luck!

[Rhett Robinson]

I’ve used this, and depending on the level you’re trying to get to, this may be it:

https://www.artbeats.com/assets/articles/pdf/projected_text.pdf

which is similar to the “Sons of Anarchy” effects. The 2 photo examples don’t really convey the power available here, mapping (not just text) to the bumps of an object. You don’t “wrap” anything, so as stated by others (in fact, the TV show probably does use something more powerful, as some are pretty complex, but most would have tattoo animation in addition to this technique).

There are some other good things on their site too, and Chris & Trish Meyer have some GREAT books!

[Rhett Robinson]

This isn’t quite the one; I found a few others as “clone”… really, as described above, if you don’t interact with yourself as others, easy. If you try to pan the camera and have yourself as the front man of the band with other people… really hard; green screens, roto & all

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=after+effects+clone&search_type=&aq=f

okay… I uploaded this short version of mine, revealing the limitations of the hi-8 I shot this on, and some problems… there’s a long backstory, and it’s not great, but wanted you to know that I wan’t just talking out my a**. I had to laugh, because it showed how I act the same way over & over…

anyway, hope this is just among friends!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdTHSu7AR2g

[Rhett Robinson]

At a limited level, it’s easy. I made a film with 4 versions of myself; 3 on a couch, 1 free standing. You can find where a young man hands himself a cup of water, etc. on YouTube, and he does a good job. It is possible to make this complex, but I did it the easy way.

Basically, for the couch shot, I put a camera in place (locked down), filmed each role with dialog(made 3 runs at each, as I was shaving /cutting hair and changing, so there was no going back), then it was VERY easy to lay the 3 “characters” together with a mask between each. I fixed a little of the dialog problems using time remapping, and it worked out pretty darn good. I did have to combine 2 separate versions of dialog together, and do a little rotoscoping because the middle version held his hands wide for a “fish story”. I was able to find a place where the position was almost exact, and then morphed them slightly…

Anyway, if there is no REAL interaction, it’s easy!

[Rhett Robinson]

Posts aren’t marked as “answered”, they just fall by the wayside…

One of the best ways I’ve found to do as described above is to take a high-res still with your digital camera. Leave it sitting on the tripod for however long it takes for the action to happen, and take another picture, then pan that in AE, instead of “real” panned footage. It’s a lot easier to duplicate your motion, if you’re low-budget like me.

[Rhett Robinson]

Thanks Mike – I’ll try this today! Looks like there are some other nice things (and work) there as well!

Bookmarked!

I appreciate it. The description does sound like what I need!

[Rhett Robinson]

Hi Ken,
I’m an Illustrator guy (been in prepress for years), and so I try to bring a lot of things into AE with AI if I can… these *may* be answers, or I may have to see a file…

1. Layers not in order
I’m assuming that you did frame animation, and each layer (above) is the next frame. Did you rename the layers? If not, do you see behavior where frames 1-9 are out of order (bad, but normal computer sort)in addition to other layers. I mean, if your highest level of layers is 3 digits, does it seem to sort correctly if you think about 1,10-19,2,20-29,3, etc? If so, then you need to name your layers differently (I think there’s a javascript out there, with a little searching). Of course, none of that *should* matter, but describe in more detail exactly what happens in AE. I use both platforms, and am currently on a PC, but am unable to replicate this error.

2. Changing dimensions
That’s the “cropped layer” choice. Don’t pick that. I would also assume that you’re copying the layer you’re working on making an adjustment, ad nauseum (that’s the way I’ve done it). Next time, I recommend on your start layer making a rectangle the size of your comp (I use 720X540), and making it a crop box which propogates to each succeeding layer; AE likes that.

[Rhett Robinson]

This caught my attention
“I’m pretty sure we won’t have plugin issues, but I’m checking on that…we didn’t last time. And we have CS3 on all the systems, only 1 isn’t licensed, but we don’t need it for the rendering part. ”

You sound very knowledgeable, but wanted to be sure you knew that you don’t have to have a full AE install to be a net render client, although all machines will have to have the same plugins –

[Rhett Robinson]

Well – they were put there for organization (so that I understand what I was thinking when I made the thing), So either I move the comments to another comment spot,or I’ll work around them… if deletion of work is the alternative; I can live with them.

They really are “legacy” projects to the new workflow plan, and I’ve lived with them until now. I just thought there might be a *hide* or shy function somewhere. I did look pretty hard for the answer, but sometimes people shock you with a new revelation –

[Rhett Robinson]

Hi Ben,
There is a place here, and the AE Help file can get you started without putting the hurt on you too… I am no expression expert, but I make a lot of use of the pickwhip and the expression control effects, as well as modifying other’s scripts… I think you’ll enjoy it.

Anyway, the short of it – alt-click the stopwatch for a property, and you get an odd looking “=” sign there, and an area in the timeline that you can enter the code others have made, use some that are built-in, or a whole host of things…

Spend a little time at Dan Ebbert’s site motionscript.com; it’s a treasure trove of resources to play with, and he’s a regular.

Good luck