[Roland R. kahlenberg]

One of the best parameters to use is Amount. Keyframe this from 100 to 0 and your Animator properties will stop animating, resulting in you rtext appearing as it is, without any animators in action.

Think of it as your main switch for text animator properties.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I atually meant two instances of Shatter; one for each layer. IOW, you’ll need two layers and not just two instances of Shatter on a single layer which is what you’ve done.

Let the instance with th ebigger pieces contain ALL for the render parameter. For the smaller pieces, set Render to Pieces. And since you don’t want too many pieces, create a smaller image here. Since the un-Shattered layer will not be seen prior to them shattering, it doesn’t really matter what the layer is made up off, as long as it mixes well with the bigger pieces.

I hope this is clear cos’ i’m like juggling a bunch of stuff now and I’m flowing with pure, freshly brewed adrenalin.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Advanced Lightning can be setup to be affected by an Alpha Channel. Trapcode’s Shine would be ideal for the Lightning Hit effect. A wee bit of smoke after the hit would be nice. Check the COW’s AE Tutorial base for creating smoke.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Use two instances of Shatter. For this to work, you’ll need different settings for each. Other than setting different values for Repetition to adjust particle size, you’ll want one copy set to render just pieces, and since you’ve set up the big pieces, this copy should be set to render to smaller pieces.

Importantly, for this duplicate, set the Render parameter to Pieces. Other parameters to look out for would be Gravity and other settings that affect the velocity of the smaller pieces.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

This COW Tutorial should help you out –

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/kahlenberg_roland/coolsville.php

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I believe that this could be a case of user-error. go back to your precomp and view your setup from different POVs, especially the custom views.

Chances are that they look out of sorts there too and not only after they have been nested.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Yes, I noticed that auto-orient Y-only distorts the layer. What you want sounds like a 3D layer behaving very much like a 2D layer. This sounds like something layer space transformations should handle, possibly with some other kungfu scripting bits thrown into the fray.

Have you posted at the COW’s AE Expressions Forum?

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

You’ll find QuickTime components in two areas – ProgramFiles>QuickTime and Windows>System32. There should be two QT-related files in the former folder. You can’t miss them, they’re named appropriately

Best to use the ControlPanel’s Remove/Add Programs function to uninstall. Then dive into the two areas to ensure that there ar eno leftovers after their removal.

Then start off with a fresh install of QT. Lots of stories of QT leaving behind legacy files after an auto-removal process. So it’s best to do a manual check.

And should that also fail, then you’ll want to look into reinstalling DirectX.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[Empathetic1636] “I am curious with everything added to that shot….why does only the bus have green screen on it? Is it because it is moving?”

Yup. Because the bus is moving you’d want to be able to track the part of it where the video plays. And since this area is independently shaped from the bus, it’s best to create an area for tracking. I doubt that the green area was used for keying – more for tracking purposes. Once tracked, one could use the perspective tracked points to create mattes.

They would also have to track two different rectangular shapes to crete the effect that you see. Some simple extrapolation of the tracked data would yield the numbers for the two overlapping tracked areas.

The buildings are stationary and the area where video is to be composited is essentially shaped according to the building. So there is no need to have additional tracking information.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Doesn’t Google now have a Google Sky thingy? Or am I again imagining things.

Your only issue would be to muck around with the Glow plugin. Check AE’s Effects Help under the Help Menu – where else.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace