[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I have a couple of Particle Playground tutorials here at the COW. Just head on to the AE Tutorial section and do a quick search for Particle Playground. The tutorial entitled Particle Playland has an example that uses kinetic friction to have particles stick to an object.

HTH
RoRK
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

If it’s a flat-colored wall with no shadowing or other visible light-related sprays then the Clone Brush would work nicely. A faster workaround would be to scale up the footage and reposition it such that the mike gets pushed into the pasteboard area.

HTH

RoRK
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Add position as an Animator Property and change its value so that the first character moves offscreen. I normally invoke the Line Anchor, in conjunction with Tracking to get more control.

HTH
RoRK
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[Ben Waggoner] “I sure HOPE I didn’t mention a WMV10.”

My bad. After reading WMP10, I realise that I missread the P for a V. I promise to get those right the next time. 🙂

It’s getting clearer now, but I wished there was one table/matrix that spelled things out with more clarity. As it is now, I understand that VC-1 is WMV9 Advanced Profile. And VC-1 Main Profile is the same as WMV Main Profile.

There are three things that I still need clarity on –
1) Where does one, now, find an encoder that does WMV Advanced Profile?
2) Since VC-1 (WMV Advanced Profile) works with a newer 4CC and requires players to be updated (to which version again?), woulnd’t it be best, for compatibility sake, for the next few months, at least, to simply encode with VC-1 Main Profile (WMV9 Main Profile)?
3) For straight on encoding of SD video for Web, are there any major compression benefits to VC-1. Right now, the new features seem more placed to tackle HD material for the Web.

Thanks in advance.
RoRK

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

You should be able to pick WindowsMedia in the Output Module. The downside to compressing your movies this way is that you will not be able to take advantage of 2-pass encoding.

I would still suggest that you perform an A-B test to see which method works best for you. When it comes to encoding videos for the Web, the visual and temporal quality of the delivered video, its file size, and its datarate settings are crucial.

Good Luck.

RoRK
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

My thoughts on segment encoding are that it sounds a lot like manual, 2-pass VBR. A lot of the features mentioned in VC-1 don’t really interest me in as far as encoding videos are for the Web are concerned.

Cheers
RoRK

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

VC-1 seems to be SMPTE VC-1. So Microsoft may not have to call it WMV10 if they want their CODEC to have a wider adoption. I wonder how Flash’s On2 CODEC will fare with VC-1.

Cheers
RoRK

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Sorry about that. There were, however, other literature on their site that made it seem that Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition Beta was already available.

Cheers
RoRK

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[Craig Seeman] “I believe Microsoft announced a Beta of the next WME which will include VC-1 support. I’m going to grab and play with it as soon as I can.”

You’ll find the VC-1 in the beta of Studio Encoder. It’s already out. I was thinking of tinkering with it myself but I’m on a job now and although Microsoft says that it’s best to use VC-1 for compatibility with SMPTE etc. I’d rather reserve that judgement once the dust settles.

Cheers
RoRK

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[Craig Seeman] “BTW, Flip4Mac can encode WMV9Advanced. It can’t play it back yet but that, I suspect, will change at some point.”

Yes, I noticed that in the Flip4Mac Techdocs. I thought that was strange. I’ve been doing some WMV9s using Microsoft’s Media Encoder application and was quite pleased with the results. But for the life of me, I can’t determine if its WMV, WMVA or VC-1. Sometimes, reading too much can be a bad thing.

The WMVAdvanced that you are alluding to with Flip4Mac is WMV9 and not VC-1 right?

I really like the WMV9 CODECs, which includes WMVA and WMV, right? They work great when played back at 200%.

Cheers

RoRK