Steve Roberts
Forum Replies Created
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Most folks work in the Quicktime Animation codec. TIFFs or TGAs are fine, too. If you’re stuck for space, try Quicktime Photo-JPEG or Microcosm by Digital Anarchy.
Steve
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… and go into the secret prefs by holding down the shift key when accessing the preferences (release shift when the dialog box appears) then within the secret prefs, setting AE to purge every 5 frames or so during Make Movie. This slows down renders to a degree, but prevents crashing. Your mileage may vary.
Big layers are RAM suckers, and potential comp killers as a result.
Steve
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… and go into the secret prefs by holding down the shift key when accessing the preferences (release shift when the dialog box appears) then within the secret prefs, setting AE to purge every 5 frames or so during Make Movie. This slows down renders to a degree, but prevents crashing. Your mileage may vary.
Big layers are RAM suckers, and potential comp killers as a result.
Steve
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You need Forge Freeform for that. Or a 3D app. AE doesn’t bend anything in 3D space without a plugin. And if you want to do some really complex bends, you’ll have to go to a 3D app, since FF makes your layer a NURBS patch, and there’s only so much you can do with one NURBS patch. You could also do it with Invig by extruding a wavy shape, then mapping your text onto the side of it.
More and more users are experiencing AE’s 3D limitations because they expect 3D motion graphics nowadays, but they expect to achieve them in AE, since it is a motion graphics app.
This is actually a transition period for most of them, since they now need to learn how to use a 3D app for motion graphics. A 3D app is not just for robots, cars and VFX, it is now being used for motion graphics. The app of choice for motion graphics seems to be Cinema4D, since it has a flexible (for me) workflow for those clients who like to make changes and don’t understand the usual 3D workflow. Among other reasons. I wouldn’t do realstic VFX with it, but I really like it.
my 2 cents,
Steve -
You need Forge Freeform for that. Or a 3D app. AE doesn’t bend anything in 3D space without a plugin. And if you want to do some really complex bends, you’ll have to go to a 3D app, since FF makes your layer a NURBS patch, and there’s only so much you can do with one NURBS patch. You could also do it with Invig by extruding a wavy shape, then mapping your text onto the side of it.
More and more users are experiencing AE’s 3D limitations because they expect 3D motion graphics nowadays, but they expect to achieve them in AE, since it is a motion graphics app.
This is actually a transition period for most of them, since they now need to learn how to use a 3D app for motion graphics. A 3D app is not just for robots, cars and VFX, it is now being used for motion graphics. The app of choice for motion graphics seems to be Cinema4D, since it has a flexible (for me) workflow for those clients who like to make changes and don’t understand the usual 3D workflow. Among other reasons. I wouldn’t do realstic VFX with it, but I really like it.
my 2 cents,
Steve -
All you can do in AE is make sure that the render ends 1 frame before the loop begins anew. If it works on the RAM preview, you’ve done all you can in AE. Afterwards …
… I can’t speak for the clip server, but loopable DVDs always hiccup. You should design your loop so a hiccup would not be noticed. For example, if you slowed the action down so it stops momentarily at the looping point, a hiccup would just appear to be a slightly longer pause.
Or make the loop long enough that the user would have exited the loop by then.
Also, know that most of us accept the hiccups if the loop is long enough.
My 2 cents,
Steve -
You use different techniques depending on the shot. Every technique is valid.
I seem to remember that Chris Smith has posted wise on this subject before, so start an advanced search with “camera” and “null” as the search terms and “Smith” as the author.
There are also tutorials on the COW that should help.
Steve
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Try downgrading your Quicktime back to 6.5. There should be a link on the apple site.
Hope that helps,
Steve -
You can render a QT movie on one instance while you work on another instance, another file, but you can’t use two instances to render the same QT file — it has to be an image sequence that you render with two instances simultaneously.
Unless I missed the memo … 🙂
Steve
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You can search the COW on “instances”. You might need to search the archives.
The response above referred to rendering faster by using two instances of AE to render a sequence of stills. One instance renders frame one, the other frame 2, then they leapfrog odd and even like that. It allows you to use your processors to the max. Yes, it should work on a single-proc box, but not as quickly, obviously.
For your situation, launch AE, set up a render, and go. For the second instance, copy/paste the normal AE shortcut, then add space-minus-m as mentioned to the target field of the shortcut under its “properties”. To launch the second instance, click this shortcut and work normally.
If you’re on the mac, duplicate the application icon and rename it “copy of AE” or whatever. Click this icon to launch the second instance. Or the first. Clicking one specific icon before the other isn’t crucial.
Hope that helps,
Steve