[Roland R. kahlenberg]

It seems that you’ve not read the manual or any 3rd party books or tutorials on how to work with AE’s 3D environment.

It sounds like you’ve plonked in a 2D layer over your 3D layers, in your timeline. Hence, re-ordering the 3D engine’s render order.

Put the 2D layer at the bottom of your timeline. But if you haven’t read the manual or at least tried to get going in a more steady and assured manner, chances are that you’re going to hit more walls down the road – just a gentle nudge.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Hi Tyler

In cases where renders do not match RAM Previes, it is almost always a case of render settings. You may want to to post your AEP here or provide us with all of the Output and Render settings. You could also do a screen capture of the settings and a frame of te RAM Preview and one of the rendered movie.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

This one is near impossible without rotoscoping.

The color at the bottom right of your car – the area between the front and back tyres are near identical to most of the grass. I managed to get everything out except for that said area.

And you should crunch the two pillars closer together so that you select purer yellows.

Looks like some rotoscoping is in store. But you’re lucky in that the shapes are not organic.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

What a weird day it is. First we get a 30MB, 12-sec clip and now a PSD!

Dude! Have you ever heard of JPEG? It’s Web-friendly. Use it.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

First off, your movie is ridiculously huge. You would be doing yourself a favour if you compressed it more for Web delivery. Put a couple of stills at high rez and a compressed movie.

The effect you’re doing looks like it’s achievable with Echo, and you may not require to rotoscope. The end-result won’t be identical but it’s close enough plus it gives an interesting aura which may actually be better for this video of yours; taking its content into consideration.

You may want to look at SilhoutteRoto for an AE plugin. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s a plugin or a standalone application or both. Do a Google.

BTW, how lon did it take you get this far and have you broken up the subject into parts for the roto work. It doesn’t look that difficult but it is tedious and mechanical work. Can get pretty boring and hit the wrong nerves at times.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Take a look here – https://www.mindthink.de/. Scroll down a wee bit and you’ll see something related to your needs. Caveat is that I’ve not tested it.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[Alex Kuzelicki] “Rork, I’d like to buy you a drink… it’s just that I live in Australia.”

I’m in Singapore – not too far away.

BTW, look under the Help Menu for a link the Keyboard Shortcuts.

[Alex Kuzelicki] “PS – Mind if I have that drink on your behalf?”

Then you owe me two. The one you offered plus this one which you took. 😉

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Essentially, there are four ways for you to pick up AE –

1) Online Tutorials
2) Books
3) DVD Training Materials
4) Classes

To get up to speed quickly, classes are the best – provided you have a good trainer and his course outline have been well-planned. They are also more costly. The great thing is that you can start doing stuff in AE and know what the heck you’re doing and why you’re doing certain things. Folks who just jump in almost always have no clue as to why they’re doing what – they just do it.

But for AE, it’s best to know what you’re doing.

The Meyers’ CMG books are great, especially the Creating Motion Graphics series. They are essentially the encyclopedia on AE. AE Studio Effects is an excellent book for tutorials.

TotalTraining’s DVD and now online tutorials sort of compete with books in the manner that the lessons are planned.

Then there’s the COWs Master Series to get you in-depth on a select number of very-good-to-know topics/plugins. And Andrew has some pretty good topicalised tutorial DVDs.

And you shouldn’t forget the COW’s AE tutorials. It’s definitely the largest collection on the Web.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Did you set your Shadow Map as per the recipe?

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

It’s “ALT+[” (the left square bracket) and ALT+] to make an inpoint. Both points dependent on where the Timeline Indicator is.

Best to set CompMarkers as guides before precomposing. That ways, you’ll know exactly where to trim.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace