[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Good post. Your thoughts and concerns are mucho appreciated as I do recall tuts here that refer to PS when the same result can be achieved in AE.

Having said that, AE is a rather deep application, much deeper than PS and perhaps even 3D applications – depending on how you’re going to use AE.

But let’s not forget what AE really is – a compositing application. It is the end all to most everything. IOW, on many occasions, work has to begin somewhere else before one even starts AE. That’s a fact of life/AE.

If you were getting into visual effects, production would inevitably form a large part of any tutorial – for it to be a full-fledged tutorial. If you were working in a 3D application, chances are huge that you may have to create textures and vector outlines in another application.

For AE, PS is an indispensable tool. Think of AE as your fork and PS as your knife. There are times when you can slice a fish steak or have most meals with just a fork. And then there are times when there’s a juicy, 2-inch thinck tenderloin that requires both the fork and a knife.

So, don’t just hate the fact that there are AE tutorials here that require PS. Just accept the fact that its a juicy tenderloin, medium-well please, that’s awaiting your response.

I strongly suggest that you sign up for a course, online, in-class, or disc-based to get you going with PS. You really don’t need to get too deep into PS to do most of the stuff that we do. And you really do want to get into PS if you’re going to want to work with a compositing application. I suggest that if AE had just the necessary tools that PS has for us to do our work entirely within AE, that you wouldn’t be writing this post- much appreciated as it is.

And let’s not even get into Illustrator. 😉 Take care and it’s never too late to learn new stuff. You’ll be so much more efficient and you’ll find your work even more rewarding.

If you have any specific Qs regarding an AE tutorial here that uses PS and you are curious to know if AE can perform the same task (or even better or NOT at all), then by all means let us know. That’s what we’re here for.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Paint, Eraser, and Clone Tools are used in the Layer Window. Double click the layer in the timeline to open its Layer Window. Then grab one of the aforementioned tools to do your thing. Best to check out the manual for more info.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

See if this works for you.

// Start of Script
posX=position[0];
posY=position[1];
NewPosX=this_comp.width-posX;
NewPosY=this_comp.height-posY;
[NewPosX,NewPosY]
//EOS

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Check out
Mylenium’s Website for a possible solution.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Use the Pan Behind Tool (shortcut key “Y”) – if Iam understanding your issue correctly.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMcustomizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Two things you can do:
1) Set a maximum output size in the preferences>output dialog window. Set a value for max single filesize. Should AE require more space than the value you sethere then you will end up with more than 1 movie.

2) Use a CODEC that provides a high quality output without requiring storage space equivalent to having no compression – essentially you’d want a lossless CODEC. Use QT’s Animation CODEC with a quality setting of between 92-96%.

Of course this answer is provided without knowing your actual workflow requirements.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMcustomizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I just used this Expression. Got it from the Dan Ebberts bag of Expression tricks a while back-

Switch off the Back Layer. Apply the following Expression to the Front Layer. Ensure that the Blend effect is applied to the Front Layer. Then apply this expression to the “Blend With Original” parameter

LayerName=effect(“Blend”)(“Blend With Layer”).position;
a = to_world_vec([0,0,1]);
b = LayerName – to_world(anchor_point);
c = dot(a,b)/length(b);
if (c > 0){
0
}else{
100
}

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I just used this Expression. Got it from the Dan Ebberts bag of Expression tricks a while back-

Switch off the Back Layer. Apply the following Expression to the Front Layer. Ensure that the Blend effect is applied to the Front Layer. Then apply this expression to the “Blend With Original” parameter

LayerName=effect(“Blend”)(“Blend With Layer”).position;
a = to_world_vec([0,0,1]);
b = LayerName – to_world(anchor_point);
c = dot(a,b)/length(b);
if (c > 0){
0
}else{
100
}

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Audio works fine for me in AE. If experimentation is out of the Q, then the good ole’ eyeball should do the trick. If you’re comfortable with masks, then I suggest you animated the mouths in AE. You can re-name the masks according to the type of sounds that you make, then copy and paste those sounds that are repeated as and when required.
HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Audio works fine for me in AE. If experimentation is out of the Q, then the good ole’ eyeball should do the trick. If you’re comfortable with masks, then I suggest you animated the mouths in AE. You can re-name the masks according to the type of sounds that you make, then copy and paste those sounds that are repeated as and when required.
HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files