[Rjf E:613]

Several things going on here…

For lasers:
Create a new solid (doesn’t matter what color) and apply the “Beam” effect. Here’s a link to get you started:
https://www.durbnpoisn.com/films/BeamTut/page1.asp

For lightsabers, watch this tutorial:
https://theforce.net/fanfilms/postproduction/sabres/aesabertutorial.mov

For glowing text, objects, etc., go through this AWESOME tutorial by Dean Velez:
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=2&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/velez_dean/glowing_stroke/index.html

Warning… the last one is rather lengthy so make sure you download the project files and follow very carefully. I love the effect this produces.

Hope this gets you started.

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

Sure is! Get the move tool and shift-drag to constrain to vertical or horixontal axis, just like photoshop. I do this all the time.

You can select the text layer in the timeline and hit “P” for Position, revealing the position parameter. Then you can scrub the vertical (or horizontal) position parameter this way as well.

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

You again! Just kidding… 🙂

If you’re referring to the infamous Ken Burns effect, then…

Just a thought but you could do the “Effect -> Distort -> Transform” thing as described in your previous question (you wouldn’t necessarily have to do this to an adjustment layer… in fact if I were doing it, I wouldn’t)… Go to the beginning of the timeline, keyframe the scale (again using the Transform EFFECT, not the scale command), go down a predetermined length of time, say a second or two, set another keyframe. Then SAVE YOUR EFFECT SETTINGS AS AN ANIMATION PRESET. Finally select the rest of the layers that should have these same settings and apply your presaved animation preset to those.

As I’m thinking about this… if you don’t want every single image to always have the same settings… (always zooming in, how boring), you could have a couple of animation presets.. one that zooms in, one that zooms out, one that pans left, one that pans right, etc. You’d have to create each of these one time and save them one time of course (giving it an easy name to remember like “kbZOOM” or something). But that’s what I’d do.

Hope this helps.

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

No problem. 🙂 Though I must give props to Dean Velez… who I learned it from.

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

Yes you can… kind of. This will NOT work by simply scaling the adjustment layer. Rather, this is what you do:

Select your adj. layer. Go to Effect->Distort->Transform. This will give you the typical transform properties (scale, position, anchor, etc) but within an effect. when you scale up the effect on the adjustment layer, all layers below it will be affected (or is that “effected?”), just what you wanted.

Hope this helps.

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

sure you could do it in After Effects… actually two ways you could do it.

Option 1: select the 30-second layer that you’d like to “cut the fat” out of. Go to the point where the cut needs to be. Then select “command+shift+d” on a Mac or “control+shift+d” on a PC. This will turn your one layer into two layers. The first will contain your video UP TO the point you parked on the timeline. The second layer will include everythign AFTER the point on the time line. THen drag your added graphic between these two layers. All that’s left is to move the top layer after the graphic. You should have a total of three layers this wa.

Option 2: duplicate your 30-second layer. Go to your cut point. On the bottom layer, hold down opt+left bracket. On the top layer, hold down opt+right bracket. This will give you the same effect as above… two layers, one containing your video UP TO the timeline point, the other containing video AFTER the timeline point. Again, put your graphic between these two layers, move the top layer after your graphic and you’re done.

Hope this helps.

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

Probably the easiest way is to first precompose your layer(s) containing the shatter effect (move all attributes to the new composition).

Then time-reverse the precompoosed layer.

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

Just a thought, any chance of you getting the book from your local library?

[Rjf E:613]

It’s too large by how much? if it’s 10 – 20%, my guess is that you didn’t have the title-safe guides on and/or didn’t compensate for this. If you’re unfamiliar with what “title-safe” and “action-safe” areas are, read this:

https://www2.hawaii.edu/~ghoeffke/video_basics/rules_of_editing1.htm

You can also view the free tutorial at this link (it is the one that says “Safe zones”)
https://www.vtc.com/products/ae65adv.htm

Bottom-line, you’ll usually want the motion that HAS to be viewable to be within these two guides. You can access these guides in After Effects by hitting the apostrophe key on your keyboard.

If it’s a different issue, please advise… maybe someone else has a pointer.

rjf

[Rjf E:613]

In the bin window (upper left), select the footage, and hit control+f on a PC or command+f on a Mac to interpret the footage. Or you can right-click the footage and select “interpret footage”.

Either way, you’ll be presented with the interpret footage window. On the bottom you’ll see a “Loop _ times” option. It is defaulted to 1. In your case you’ll want to choose 6 or more.

Once you do this, you will see a change in your layer in your timeline, but it will STILL only encompass 10 seconds. You can then drag the right-side of the layer to the end to fill all the space.

rjf