[Roland R. kahlenberg]

My email’s been funky the last few days. I suggest that you watch Rick Gerard’s 5-minute COW Tutorial. In one of them, he does a pickwhip routine – sorry I’m not sure which one.

If you think you are pickwhipping correctly then all you have to do is to add the following text, including the = sign to the front of the script that was created by your pickwhipping. Just click within the Expression textbox area and you will be able to type it.
KeyframeVal=

Then type the following line, after the first line of script.

[KeyframeVal,KeyframeVal,position[2]]

The preceeding line will ensure that only the x and y axes are affected by the keyframe values created by SoundKey and the z-axis (denoted by position[2]) is unaffected and will maintain whatever values it has.

You can perform math operations on the x and y axes independently. As an example;
[KeyframeVal/2,KeyframeVal+25,position[2]]

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Without looking at the source footage and its properties and not knowing what your comp and render settings are, I really can’t put a finger on the issue.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

It’s a default plugin. You’ll find it in Effects->Text->Numbers. There are a few number types that you can choose, including ‘normal’ numbers, SMPTE timecode, dates etc.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

If you pickwhipped from the target parameter to the source layer it will automatically create the script for you. If you already have a script in the target parameter’s Expression text box then ensure that the new script overwrites the old one.

[Alex] “I also DID change the script that you gave me to add the name of the relevant layer with the audio. All of this did not bring about a resolution. Instead, I still have the same problem, where the image flies off into z space.”

I suggest that you perform the steps again. If you still have an issue then come back here and let us know which layers are the target and source for the Expression and which parameters are being affected.

From there, it will be much easier to sort things out.
Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

If you pickwhipped from the target parameter to the source layer it will automatically create the script for you. If you already have a script in the target parameter’s Expression text box then ensure that the new script overwrites the old one.

[Alex] “I also DID change the script that you gave me to add the name of the relevant layer with the audio. All of this did not bring about a resolution. Instead, I still have the same problem, where the image flies off into z space.”

I suggest that you perform the steps again. If you still have an issue then come back here and let us know which layers are the target and source for the Expression and which parameters are being affected.

From there, it will be much easier to sort things out.
Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

What are your comp, render, and output settings? Does the comp look ok and the issue is only visible for the rendered movie?

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

There’s a Preprocess parameter in Shine. Adjust the parameter so that only the brighter areas will shine through.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Use the Numbers plugin instead.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

A yahoo search for CCTV images brought out quite a number of results. They seem to have a green tinge and quite a bit of noise although there are varying levels of quality.

For noise, HSV Noise does a good job as you can adjust the size of the noise. For the greenish effect, there are lots of choices available. You may also want to mess about with Posterize Time to lower the fps to mimic a poor recording.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Flash gives you an option to convert an .mov to .flv when you import the footage. Won’t that work?

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