[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Get the free update to Version 6.5.1 (Mac) from the Adobe Website – if you’re using ver 6.5.

Seems to work for most users. HTH.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

It’s going to be a rather huge layer by the time you’re done. I hope you have sufficient RAM to get it done.

As Steve said, Motion Tile should do the trick for you. Particle Playground’s Grid also does this sort of thing efficiently – but with 100’s?

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Take a look at this Cross-processed.
You may also want to look at Filip Vandueren’s COW AE Tutorial on creating a bleach bypass look.
Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

They seem to be the only one AFAIK. They used to have a downloadable demo. Why not head on over to their site and do the necessary. It’ll be nice if you let us know of the results once you’ve taken it for a spin.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

You’ll first need to use either Offset or Motion Tile to animate your text in a scrolling, ticker-tape manner. Once, you’ve got that, turn the layer into a 3D layer and adjust Orientation (Y-axis) to your liking. Duplicate the layer. Adjust the Anchor point of the duplicate so that it is vertically centered either at the left-most (or right-most – depends on your setup) side of the layer. Then adjust Orientation (Y-axis) for this layer so that it forms a right-angle with the original layer.

Thereafter, you only need to stagger the start point of one of the layer’s – IOW, both layers shouldn’t start at the same point in time – this trick ensures that the animated text looks like it is moving across both layers in ONE move. Once you’ve got the stagger done correctly, the text should animate around the corner, across both layers, perfectly.

Hope all this makes sense. Good Luck.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[Tim Scarpino] “I can create an AE element, and then make it a QT movie that’s got an alpha channel upon import into Avid, but when I choose to make it a .omf movie, the “RGB + Alpha” get’s ghosted out in the Output Module Settings.”

OMF doesn’t support Alpha Channels.

Is there any reason why you are rendering your movies with the OMF format?

I’d suggest that you render your composition(s) using an Avid CODEC that is directly supported (natively) by the Avid editing software from which you will be outputting your movie to tape. As far as I know, only the DV version of the Avid CODEC doesn’t support an Alpha Channel. Any other Avid CODEC will NOT gray out the RGB+Alpha option.

There are a few Avid systems out there. best to check which on eit is.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backgrounds with Adobe After Effect project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Hi Angus
I wasn’t sure if it was you. Good to see you back at the farm after all this while.

Cheers
Roland

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

AE is pseudo 3D, more like 2D 1/2, but actually is still 2D – especially when you hit a POV that doesn’t see the layer.
It sounds like you’ve got a few things happening with rotation/orientation across one or more layers.

I suggest that you :
1) Duplicate the text layer
2) Offset its position by 1 pixel – it could be either of the X, Y, or Z property. It depends on the POV. Only you will know if it works by giving it a good eyeball.

Step 2 above will artificially give your text layer an extrusion effect so that it doesn’t disappear from view. If it looks decent, you may want to duplicate more layers and offset subsequent duplicates by 1 pixel from its ‘copy’.

Before you perform Step 2, you will want to select all the keyframes (if there are any) for the axis that you want to affect with the 1-pixel offset. This way, you will offset the layer for the duration of its entire path.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Depends if you’re on Mac or PC. With PC, and with version 6.5, you can output directly to MPEG2, but I doubt if it’ll be contained within the QT architecture.

Actually, MPEG-1 or 2 are independent video architectures and can reside within a QT container or otherwise. If you can output to MPEG2 using DVD specs, it will open up in any application (QT-based or otherwise) that can receive an MPEG2 file.

If you’re on the Mac, then FCP would do the trick using Compressor.

I’d suggest that you also ask the folks at the DVD Authoring Forum for apps that will allow you to output MPEG2 (DVD) movies.

What you then need to do is to render to an intermediate QT CODEC such as Animation and bring it over to an application that can output an MPEG2 movie contained within a QT file.

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

[Roland R. kahlenberg]