Simon Bonner
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Brian,
I have a pair of tutorials on my youtube channel (link below) that deal with this type of project.
After Effects: Using the motion tracker
After Effects: Obscuring one layer behind another
You might also want to make the text layer 3d and adjust the rotation property to make it look like it’s lying on the road surface, plus perhaps play with the layer transfer modes.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
Uncompressed QT, or AVI, are virtually impossible to play unless you have a nasa supercomputer. They are intermediate renders, designed to prevent you losing quality when you do further work on them. If you’re rendering a final file to view, you probably don’t want it to be massive anyway: try divx or mpeg. Or QT photo jpeg at 90% looks as uncompressed as it gets, but should be playable.
If youre doing further work on your render and have the drive space, lossless codecs are the way forward.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
In the tracker controls panel, hit the track motion button again and you’ll start a new track. Then you can change the target of that track to be the new null. Track as usual, apply the track and you’re done.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
I started out with Aharon’s AE podcast here at the Cow and had no problems getting up to speed. VideoCopilot.net’s beginner tutorial section is one of the best places for complete beginners to get going at the moment, and it’s FREE!
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
Check out Eran Stern’s digits man podcast tutorials here at the Cow. If you quickly fade in the effect while zooming into and fading out the original video you might get something that looks good.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
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No yelling here 😉
You could do this with a window. What you might want to do is film it on a tripod, and just use a static shot. Then there would be no worries about looping. If you want slight movement of the window, you could set position keyframes at the beginning and end of the window layer and then add wiggle keyframes between them. You would have to scale the layer up slightly so that the layer had room to move without the edges becoming visible, but it would look ok.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
Maybe you shortened your work area? The work area is defined by the bar at the top of the timeline panel that has blue bits on either end. When you drag a blue bar left or right, the work area is made bigger or smaller. This is to help you define the area you want to RAM preview or render.
Go back into the comp and hit HOME, B, OUT, N in succession. This will position the start of the work area at the start of the comp and the end of the work area at the end of the comp.
If this doesn’t work, I might be stumped for ideas…
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
It is not necessary to upgrade to CS3.
When you render out, use the render queue and not the export command. They are not the same thing. Once in the render queue, choose an codec such as quicktime animation which is lossless. Be warned that the output video will be immense – seriously immense – but the quality will be A1. Assuming you’re outputting to Blu-Ray, Encore CS3 will transcode the video for you so that it will fit on a regular disc.
To find out more about rendering, see the basic tutorials at videocopilot.net
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
We would need more information on how you’ve created the fire. Is this a particle effect, or a fire element you’ve brought in from outside?
If it’s an element, it’s not strictly speaking “an effect”. In that case, you would bring up the position property of the fire layer and alter it over time, adding keyframes where appropriate.
If it’s a particle effect, you may want to keyframe the position from which the particles emanate (the name of this property differs between the particle effects).
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX