[Ron Coy]

Shine doesn’t do anything for alphas, but if you have element in your scene with an alpha channel, obviously, Shine can effect just the edges of the element as opposed to the entire thing, or just the alpha channel itself. It’s a drop down menu within the plugin settings box, I believe it’s Composite and the options are “On Original, Alpha, and Alpha Edges”. There may be another option, but I don’t have it open and in front of me right now.

With Alpha Edges selected, you can adjust the settings to give an edge glow type effect that’s more dynamic than just a standard glow. As far as extracting the path from an alpha, I just don’t think there is a tool for that. Maybe someone should or will make one, but I don’t know of one.

Try going to Toolfarm and looking for something there. They are basically plugin central.

[Ron Coy]

Actually, I don’t think you have to render the comp, as Premier will render it for you, but I think it’s best to render it out and import it into Premier as footage, instead of having to render it in Premier.

[Ron Coy]

You’ll have to parent the position of the layers to the longest layer and move only the longest layer, or to a null object and move the null (which is a better idea) to get them to move at the same rate.

[Ron Coy]

you could take the map into photoshop and offset the image so the edges are against each other, then use the clone tool to try and get rid of the seam, then un-offset the image again to map it onto the sphere.

[Ron Coy]

also, you can stretch the write on to happen over a longer period of time, then make a new comp and time remap it to fit in a shorter period of time. That would fix the sparseness of the emitter, and allow you to still get the write on to happen within the time you want it to happen.

[Ron Coy]

look at the other one, that deals with using the streak effect with footage. it may help you too.

you want to disable or delete the wiggle, parent the emitter to a null object, and make the null or the emitter follow the path you want it to take, or manually keyframe the motion

You will also have to delete the keyframes and wiggle for the camera (or just delete the existing camera and add a new one)

The real problem is that if you make it write words, the paths won’t be using any Z space movement, and that willl make the effect look flat, to an extent. Of course, if you move the camera around the path, you’ll see that it’s more 3D.

[Ron Coy]

The reason this is happening is due to the After Effects image cache. Particular doesn’t update the image cache unless it’s forced to.

The fix is go to Edit>Purge>Image Caches and re-preview or render.

I think Andrew discussed this in one of the tutorials, but it can be missed…

Unless of course, it’s something else…

[Ron Coy]

have you tried using the project files from his earth CC Sphere tutorial and using the map files as a template for your map?

[Ron Coy]

most of the time, it’s done with 3D. They animate part of the dog (his mouth) and composite that with the footage of the dog.

I don’t know how you would make it work convincingly without a way to manipulate the lips and teeth

[Ron Coy]

even if someone else has no problems, I wouldn’t upgrade until you’re out of your crunch.

I have a similar situation right now, so I’m only going to update my G4 laptop and see how that goes until I’m done with my deadlines. I would suggest you do the same.

Though, I know how tempting updates can be…