[Roland R. kahlenberg]

There are two tutorials here at the COW that covers the creation of LED meters:
&page=/articles/simpson_mark/jamrack/index.html” TARGET=_blank>Mark Simpson’s – using Card Wipe

&page=/articles/kahlenberg_roland/led/index.html” TARGET=_blank>Mine – using Motion Math (to create the audio keyframes and Expression scripts to animate and finetune the results

To get started on Expressions, visit JJ Gifford’s Website. For more advanced Expression scripts, goto Dan Ebbert’s, MotionScript site

And of course if you search the forum here, you’ll find lots of references to and examples on Expressions.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Audio Spectrum renders as a bitmap – you’re vector mask/solid loses its vector properties. Further, once you apply continuous rasterization you effectly change the rendering order; from the normal MET to TME. That is why you lost your 3D moves – transforms were calculated before the effect was applied. Hence the effect couldn’t ‘see’ the transforms.

To make this work. Start with an extra large comp to create your Audio Spectrum effect. Nest that into the camera comp, change it into a 3D layer and zoom in as large as you need to. Go back to the precomp and adjust it’s comp and layer size to prevent any pixel distortion.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Barend’s got a great article here at the COW that covers interlacing with AE.

As for your Qs:
1)Either way is fine since you’re not rendering to fields. Stretching in the Output Module may create field mush IF you render out with fields.

2)Your footage, when interpreted correctly would have its fields merged to create a frame in AE. So effectively, you are rendering out from AE, not the original interlaced footage. And AE will be looking at the frames. You don’t lose any pixel resolution but you will lose some motion smoothness going from 29.97 interlaced to 29.97 progressive.

3)Asking any computer to playback 59.94fps in realtime may be a bit too much to ask for. The fact that it is destined for the Web only compounds the issue. There’s always a compromise between quality and efficiency when delivering movies for the Web.

In fact, you may want to look at a lower frame rate than 29.97 for your Web movie. Try 18fps. That will lower the bandwidth requirements; making your movie more accesible to viewers.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[mksalva] “The problem showed up right after the latest upgrade of Quicktime was installed. (7.0.2 or something like that. Whatever the latest one is.)
I am using AE 5.5; would this problem go away with 6.5?”

It’s never a good idea to upgrade too quickly. 😉

The latest version of AE is 6.5.1. I really can’t answer your Q if it’ll work fine after upgrading. What I will suggest however is that you download the tryout for 6.5 and also the update to 6.5.1 . You will be able to install both versions on a single system as long as you are careful not to install them into the same location.

The tryout if fully functional for 30 days.

In terms of fixing your problem, assuming that it is a QT issue, then try converting the audio to .mov and see if it helps.

Good Luck
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adoeb After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Ensure that the layer where you draw the mask shape in has the same dimensions as the layer you are pasting it into.

Masks are calculated before any transformations under normal Render pipeline rules. If the affected layers are of a different size then you will get translational issues due to the fact thath you are working under two different spatial spaces.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Once you’ve pickwhipped, create a variable for the pickwhipped property. For example, the following line of Expression script

AudioValue = this_comp.layer(“Solid 1”).position[1];

creates a variable called AudioValue for the y-position of a layer called Solid 1.

Once you’ve got the variable set up, all you need to do is to follow it up with another line of script such as this:

[AudioValue, AudioValue, position[2]]

That’s all there is to it. HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs – customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Once you’ve pickwhipped, create a variable for the pickwhipped property. For example, the following line of Expression script

AudioValue = this_comp.layer(“Solid 1”).position[1];

creates a variable called AudioValue for the y-position of a layer called Solid 1.

Once you’ve got the variable set up, all you need to do is to follow it up with another line of script such as this:

[AudioValue, AudioValue, position[2]]

That’s all there is to it. HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs – customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[butter] “I need to animate a mask to some music. Ideally it would be great to have a few elements in the music dictate how a few masks animate (Bass, beat, etc..)”

Only Trapcode’s Soundkeys will be able to do this. AE’s builtin Audio-to-Keyframes only handles an audio waveform’s amplitude.

If you have AE6.5, you can create pickwhip Expressions for mask properties, such as expansion after converting an audio’s amplitude to keyframes. A bit of elementary math (+/*) will be required to tame the results of the audio-to-keyframe routine to make it work effectively with mask expansion. It will also allow you to create different effects for separate masks, based on different math formula.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[butter] “I need to animate a mask to some music. Ideally it would be great to have a few elements in the music dictate how a few masks animate (Bass, beat, etc..)”

Only Trapcode’s Soundkeys will be able to do this. AE’s builtin Audio-to-Keyframes only handles an audio waveform’s amplitude.

If you have AE6.5, you can create pickwhip Expressions for mask properties, such as expansion after converting an audio’s amplitude to keyframes. A bit of elementary math (+/*) will be required to tame the results of the audio-to-keyframe routine to make it work effectively with mask expansion. It will also allow you to create different effects for separate masks, based on different math formula.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

If it’s a bitmap, it’s going to look pixelated if your camera is too close to the layer. A 3D layer’s REAL scale value is dependent on it’s Z-position and scale and the camera’s Z-position and zoom settings. That is why you solved a similar issue previously by bringing the camera further back.

HTH

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