[Steve Bentley]

The simplest way is to split the blue box layer into two sections ( go the frame you want on the second section and hit cntrl/ShiftD on a PC and CommandShiftD on a Mac). One goes above the red layer and one below. Its best to get your animation the way you like it before you split the layer length. That way the layer matches perfectly at the seam.

If the layers are in 3D then the z depth in the position attribute determines where the layers are in space, or you can force a layer to appear above a lower layer by putting an adjustment layer between them, regardless of where the upper layer is in z space.

[Steve Bentley]

Keeping in the theme, Andrew or Walter I wonder if you could suggest a workflow.
Final output: ProRes444 compressed on a Mac.
Originating file from AE on Win7, in a 32bit comp and larger than normal size 5760×1080 (but still adhering to Cineform’s divide by 16 rule) If I could compress ProRes right from the PC I would but I don’t think there is a writable ProRes on the PC.

The catches: Mac is 10.6.8 so the current Cineform codec is not available (and I’ve searched for an older one – no luck)
The total running file is massive (running length is long) so I’d rather not render a bunch of EXRs (or any non-RLE still format )and send them over to the Mac, hence animation best and cineform being ideal size-wise. But the former of course has a limited color space and the latter has a codec issue on that age of Mac.
We’re not loving the Avid codec solution.

Is there another intermediate that we could choose that would be readable/recompressable by the Mac side?

Suggestions?

[Steve Bentley]

Re multiple uses of QT: good point Walter. Adobe has never been the best at descriptive labels. I had whipped that post off quickly.
I had assumed Animation Best was part of the deprecated lot since it no longer showed up in 15.1, at least for us, but was still an option in 15.03.
I saw the listing of supported codecs past 15.1 on Adobe’s info page (still including Animation) and just assumed (like so much of their color space info) it was just wrong since Animation vanished from our options. Are you saying that through some voodoo we can have Animation Best back again, post 15.1?

[Steve Bentley]

You don’t always have to use bounce. Often you can use another particle system that shoots out from the surface you want the first set of particles to bounce off, then you can go back to your Air system. It will look like a bounce, especially with nondescript particles like the white dots in your example.
You can also use the Aux system as that second particle set – so at least the Aux particles leap out from where the main particles strike.

[Steve Bentley]

As for some AE 2018 versions still supporting codecs like Animation: version <=15.03 (of 2018) still supports Qt but as soon as you let CC upgrade you to the 15.1 or higher, you’re done. Yes there are some bug fixes in 15.1x but you have to decide how bad you want that RLE codecvs the bug fixes. Without ProRes available on the PC, we too miss this clean small mb format (mostly for mattes).
Many of our AE outputs on PC have to travel to a client’s Mac to be encoded to ProRes and are massive enough even in Animation best so using EXRs would be out of the question. I’m not a fan of the Avid one but I hadn’t thought of the Cineform one. We’ll give that whirl.

[Steve Bentley]

Hard to see without seeing the keyframes for that mask. But the mask can only change its shape with a keyframe. So you can just delete that keyframe where it becomes a big square. However something else might be happening because you go from a mask with many points to a big square with only 4 points – which can cause issues. (I’m assuming this as I can’t see that second image at any size – its not on the cow).
Is it possible you have two masks on that layer that are both magenta and the roto mask is offscreen somwhere or not selected and instead you are seeing that second mask that defaults to the image size?

[Steve Bentley]

I think you could do that with a shadow catcher object (a copy of the stairs) and assign an object buffer to this copy. Remember to put a compositing tag on the stair object so it doesn’t cast shadows itself.
In R17 and higher the shadow catcher shader is built in. But before that there is a free add on that you apply to the transparency channel of the material on your shadow catcher object.

Here’s the old version https://www.thepixellab.net/cinema-4d-free-shadow-catcher-plugin

[Steve Bentley]

I haven’t made the leap yet to R20, but what about the Coffee node in Expresso? Is it still there?

[Steve Bentley]

What version of AE and C4D do you have? There are various work flows for this depending on versions.

But, any 3D null, Solid, camera and light will get sent to C4D when you export from AE, (or any 3D layer, but those will come in as either a null or a solid in C4d). And any camera and light and any object with an external composting tag on it will get exported from C4D when you export to AE.
With that in mind, you could put 3D nulls at the corners of your box for exact placement and then export the project. Use the imported nulls as positioners in the other app. And “look through” the camera that came from the other app.

The differences through the years are due to: in AE when you increase the Y value objects go down, and the origin is top left of frame. In C4d neither of these is true. Over the years the exporter has learned to compensate for these differences. So if you count the object’s origin to place objects in the other package this may not work as you might expect. Neither app knows about size of the incoming assets, it just knows about the anchor point of the object and its position.

Remember to choose the C4D camera that got imported into AE in the viewports “views” list or have the imported C4D camera turned on and on top of all other cameras in AE so it gets selected when Active Camera is set in the view port.

If you have a newer version of AE (>2016 I think) you can use Cineware (it comes with AE) to pull the camera from C4D into AE, or you can bring the C4D project into AE as a layer. AE will render that layer as though it was being rendered in C4D (with some limitations).

[Steve Bentley]

What about just nesting the object (less the added “back” and sides) inside a cloth object ) then you can set the thickness. Is that what you are after or do you truly want a flat plane to span the back?
In this instance you can think of the cloth as a normal-directed, full object extrude.