[Ryan Hill]

There’s an expression function called valueAtTime(t) which you’d use something like this:

thisComp.layer(“trainSlider”).effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”).valueAtTime(time+1)

[Ryan Hill]

Yes, with anti-aliasing, there are some semi-transparent pixels around the edge of each dot, and shatter is treating those as a separate colour.

I would suggest:
1) Version of the logo with transparent background
2) Version of the logo with the size of the dots slightly increased (But not so much that they touch) and no anti-aliasing

Use version 2 as the shatter map.

[Ryan Hill]

Well your example is already animated, so I’d bet it’s brush setting in however they drew it. If it had been hand-drawn I’d call it dry brush.

[Ryan Hill]

His shoulder and the corner of the truck are pretty brightly coloured orange, you may be able to get somewhere by keying the orange and reversing the alpha.

[Ryan Hill]

Any advice on the hand keyframing? Like I said, it’s a dolly shot, so it’s moving in a straight line. I know the lens was 105mm, the camera was approximately 16 inches from the surface it was shooting.

So in theory I’ve got a lot to work with but I don’t really know where to start using those real-life measurements to match the camera position in AE.

[Ryan Hill]

Okay. I never really understood what Bridge was for, but it looks like it’ll do the trick. Thanks.

[Ryan Hill]

I might compromise and go with the 3D solution.

But now it makes me curious, whether there’s a way…

1) Is there a way to split a block of text into a bunch of compositions, one for each letter? (But it’s important that there’s one composition for A, B, … Z, a, b, c, … z, so then I can change all A’s)

2) Maybe a way to grab a list of the characters using an expression, but also each character’s x and y position?

Of course, without an obvious solution, I guess it would be quicker to position each one by hand in Photoshop.

[Ryan Hill]

I’m not so sure that I want reflections that correspond with their positions. I like it having this artificial airbrushed look.

I guess I could do an orthographic render and then filter and touch up the resulting image a little.

But now it’s got me curious.

[Ryan Hill]

I could create an image for each letter in Photoshop. It’s kind of a mirrored bevel. I manually divide the letter into sections according to what angle it would face and do a gradient fill on each section, plus some airbrushed highlights.

[Ryan Hill]

If you wanted to be Rube Goldberg about it, you could motion-track the position of the playhead.