[Steve Bentley]

While there is nothing wrong with using a null (just create the null and pickwhip the text object to the null and then animate the null around – the text becomes a child of the null), the text object has it’s own position parameter. You can just animate that.
Be careful though. Dragging text vertically (and to some extent horizontally) can create judders if not done at certain speeds – its all to do with the way video refreshes (and film fps rates). Using motion blur helps too.

[Steve Bentley]

I don’t think you can change the thickness (that would make doing other things harder with a great thick line depicting something that has no dimension) but you can probably change the color – preferences/schemecolors

[Steve Bentley]

What GFX card Mark?
And to keep on topic: there’s an “educational” version of Houdini that’s free and that comes with a compositor. And no you don’t have to be a student to get it.
I wasn’t aware Fusion had gotten so cheap! We gave up on it when they couldn’t get around to adding a paint package (like some other app I know! – if only AE had a sister program that was a world glass paint package they could borrow from… sigh), so I haven’t kept up with the takeover by BMD.

[Steve Bentley]

First to mind: (assuming colored solids) make a 3D solid that is thin and tall. Next attach an expression that sets the z position to a random number with a large range (code later) and the x value to a random range the same size as the width of the comp (or width of some object you want to match like N in netflix). Set the color to a random value using an expression. Then duplicate like crazy: either keep bashing cntrlD, or do a few and then select them all and hit cntrlD and then grab all those and repeat again. You’ll get huge numbers of layers in no time.
Make a 3D camera and fly into them. If they don’t fit all the way to the top of the screen due to the solids being too far back, just precomp the whole thing and apply a motion blur effect or Gaussian blur and set the direction to 0 degrees, and crank up the blur effect until they do fill the frame.

Here’s the expression that has to be on each layer:
Put expression on the Position attribute

seedRandom(5,true); // the number here can be anything really its just to get the seed started
zDistance=random(-5000,5000); //Set these numbers to something that works for your comp This value is basically how far away from the camera the solids can get – adjust as needed.
xDistance=random(0,1920);// this will place the solids between the left most side and right most side of frame in a 1920×1080 comp.
yDistance=940;// anchor point half way up the comp
finalPosition=[xDistance,yDistance,zDistance];// these are the three values of an xyz coordinate (don’t forget the square brackets)

By using the seedRandom function every time you duplicate a layer that seed is changed so each layer gets a gets a different seed, and therefore a different random number within the range. The seed is tied to the index of the layer (the layer number). The “true” paramater in the first line keeps the random numbers for that layer the same for the whole timeline.
You can also use this type of thing on the transparency with a random time statement that brings the opacity level up at a random time so they don’t all “turn on” at once.

[Steve Bentley]

Don’t forget to tell us if you are exporting the object for AE through the Cineware software or you are just rendering the cube as frames to bring into AE. If the former, you will need an external compositing tag on the cube in C4D.

[Steve Bentley]

Just tested the points follows nulls idea. It works.
You have to make two copies of your animated mask. One gets “points follows nulls” and one gets “nulls follows points”. Then you can pickwhip the position value of the nulls AE generated that control mask (that has suddenly stopped animating because you used points follows nulls and the new nulls have no animation on them) and link those to the nulls AE generated that are following the first mask around. After you do this pickwhipping, both masks will be back moving around the way you have animated them. Then pick the one you want to stop moving and apply an expression to the null that controls that point (not the null that is following that point around)
It would be something like:

a=thisComp.layer(“MySolid 1: Mask 1 [1.0]”).transform.position // this sets a= to the position of the null that is following the node on the mask around
if(time>20 || time<60) { // this defines the spot in time (in seconds) where you want the null to freeze
b=[20,30]; // this sets the position of the null during the freeze (here’s its x=20 and y=30)
}
else { // if not within your time parameters do the following
b=a; // set the null to the position of the null that is following the mask around
}

You could also have the null figure out where it is in time so it sets the static position correctly (using the valueAtTime() paramater.
In the first line of the code the “Mask 1 [1.0] stuff is just the index of the node point. So the third node would be[1.2] because the node indexes start at zero.

[Steve Bentley]

So Mark, are the Boxx boxes all they are touted at being? Whats the percentage of a social security check needed to pay for a Boxx?

[Steve Bentley]

You could probably use MaskAvenger too – its a plug in on aescriptsdotcom. It gives you access to each point on a path.

[Steve Bentley]

Sooooo many ways to make this. All need a camera to pass through the 3D “lines”.
Particular would do a nice job of this. Boring old solids set in 3D space would too. The beam effect set on solids in 3D space, Element 3D would give you an extra little kiss of reflections that might be nice (ok you could do that too with 3D solids but I think it might be nicer with Element). 3D stroke would do it too with a number of layers each with a set of paths set at different camera depths. Its a nicely executed simple effect.

[Steve Bentley]

Once you have a mask you can go under the Windows menu and scroll down near the bottom to find “Create Nulls from paths”. From there you can choose either “points follow nulls” or “nulls follow points”.