[Steve Roberts]

Try double-clicking on the “pan behind” tool, just to the right of the magnifying glass.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Sorry, but I don’t think it can be done. It would be a nice feature, though.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Well, based on my limited experience with blood and walls, I’d say that the blood only changes course in proportion to the variations in the depth of the wall surface. It’s a fluid, following the easiest course of flow. Rough walls produce variations, smooth walls would not. Another variation source would be the amount of oil or moisture on the wall, where sometimes liquids detour around dry spots.

You could use the displacement map effect to detour the rivulets somewhat — maybe use a shot of a wall, then use the same shot as your displacement map.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

ctrl(cmd)-click on the time display button at the bottom of the comp window.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Indeed.

I’d add that you should study the movement (over and over) first, then place keyframes at places where the direction of motion changes, whether that motion is shape or position. Another way to look at it is: animated mask vertices move from location to location at each keyframe, and AE interpolates the location of each mask vertex between those keyframes. If you place the vertices carefully, AE will interpolate in such a way as to follow the motion of the masked object.

It’s much more efficient than choosing to place keyframes at a specific frame interval, since most roto’ed motion doesn’t work on a regular time interval.

Watch the motion, then set keys according to that motion.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

RAM doesn’t speed up a render, it just makes a render possible. Without the RAM, large images can crash a machine during the render. This is what the secret prefs are all about — purging the RAM during a render, by the way.

AE’s render times are affected by processor speed and sometimes disc speed, if you have a lot of footage and images to access during the render.

AE doesn’t really use both processors during a render unless you create two instances and render a still sequence with both instances.

Your performance gains due to RAM and the second processor relate more to multitasking while working, an ability to preview more frames through RAM and an ability to render larger images and projects without crashing … and of course, less likelihood of running out of RAM and swapping on disk while working.

So, in other words, you’re just comparing 3.2 GHz to 3.0 GHz. Sorry.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

You need to add a highlight and shadow to make a circle look like a sphere. Try effect>perspective>CC sphere, applied to a rectangular solid.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

I prefer masks, not necessarily animated every frame, but only at extreme positions, rotations and shapes, kind like, er, keyframes. 🙂 Also, it’s a good idea to draw separate masks for shapes that don’t deform if you can.

… and sometimes you can key part of the image so you don’t have to roto the whole thing.

In other words, I can’t see a way to eliminate flutter on hand-painted roto if you need it to have a sharp edge.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Thanks. How about the other questions? 🙂

[Steve Roberts]

Can you describe the motion? Straight-line? Horizontal?
Do you see the breaks on a still image?
What are the sequence settings in FCP? Do they match your footage size?
Do you see the breaks on a television monitor?
Are the breaks spatial (picture) or temporal (motion)? (you mention breaks in image but also un-smooth motion)

Steve