Simon Bonner
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Jerry,
I think as long as you move the ‘people’ layers (the layers with the bg masked out) towards the camera in Z space, and perhaps up a bit as well, there is no need for the holes in the background to be shown. You could also move all the layers forward in Z space to begin with, then when you move the people layers further forward you could move the BG plate backwards slightly. Another thing that could be done is duplicating the people layers and then adding a blur or glow effect to the lower layers, so that the edges of the people layers appear to shine. I’ve seen this in other people’s work, and it gives a nice separation between the bg and the people. Anyway, just some ideas.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
Hi Pat,
From the still, this looks good. Obviously a big part of keying is making it look good in motion too, which is notoriously difficult with DV footage. But yeah, good going! What I might also suggest – because it doesn’t seem like you’ve done it already – is that you add noise to your image layers to match the noise in your footage. Andrew Kramer has a cool preset that can help you do this in the presets section at videocopilot.net.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
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Once you have a loop of the street (a few seconds, the end of which blends back into the start), render out the comp as an image sequence. Then reimport it (import multiple files), select it in the project panel, hit cntl+f to get the interpret footage dialogue, and set to loop as many times as necessary (just set it really high so you don’t have to keep on going back and increasing the number). Then drop the sequence into your final comp. The animation should loop, and you only need to dedicate one layer to it in your comp.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
As for the red line:
1) Make a new comp size solid. It doesn’t matter what colour.
2) Using the pen tool, draw the path you want the train to follow. In case you don’t know, holding down the mouse button and dragging away from a point will make it curve.
3) Apply the stroke effect to the solid.
4) Change the colour to red, and any of the other properties you want.
5) Change the paint style to On Transparent, so you can see the map layer below the solid.
6) Keyframe the end property to 0% at the start of the animation, and to 100% at the end of the animation. If the train is moving at a constant speed, the stroke will emit from it.
7) To ensure that the train moves at a constant speed (and along the same path as the stroke) copy the mask and then paste it onto the position property of your train layer. The anchor point of the train layer will stick to the start of the stroke.Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
Checking out the first quarter of an hour or so of the CG Snake tutorial at maltaannon.com will help you with the first two questions. Ok, it’s about animating a snake, but the same principles can apply to a train.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
Hi Aaron,
I’ve posted a three-part tutorial on youtube showing one way of achieving this effect. If I’d started recording it after the time remapping method was suggested I may have gone that way, but ah well…
Typewriter effect playlist at youtube
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
It will depend upon how advanced you are. Are you completely new to the programme? If so, you could do a lot worse than checking out Aharon’s podcast tutorials here at the Cow. All the basic (and a lot of not-so-basic) concepts, and for the bargainous price of $0!
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
Maltaannon’s slo mo tutorial at maltaannon.com gives a way doing this i think.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX -
Is the audio clip compressed? AE doesn’t handle MP3s well. I tend to play it safe and add my audio with Audition after rendering.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysFX