[Steve Roberts]

I only use “export” when I have to make an SWF. Otherwise, I use “make movie” and render.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Have you upgraded your Quicktime to 7.0.2 to work with FCP 5?
Can you downgrade to 7.0.1?

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

I’m not sure of what you need, so chew on these:

1. You don’t have to render fields for video. I rarely do. Video can still accept the non-field-rendered footage and be “satisfied” that it is getting field-rendered video from you … it’s just that both fields are identical. You see?
2. Generally, when rotoscoping interlaced footage, you drop the interlaced footage into a 59.94 fps comp, so you can see each field, then you render at 29.97.

Does that help?
Steve

[Steve Roberts]

You have two choices within AE:

a) buy Zaxwerks Invigorator
b) apply the Shatter effect to shatter everything but the text. Shatter allows you to give z-depth to a layer. You do have to know how to massage Shatter so it does what you want. Check the COW for shatter tutorials.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Try RE:flex for morphing. Lots of control.

As for shooting … sorry, no tips.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

To the masses:

Your time between incremental saves should be equal to the amount of work you’re willing to re-do. A day? An hour?

If you save incrementally once a day, be prepared to re-do a day’s work if your project goes south. If you don’t save incrementally at all, be prepared to re-do all your work from scratch.

And if you’re short on time, you might miss the deadline and blow the job.

’nuff said. 🙂
Steve

[Steve Roberts]

You can also scrub the layer’s position values in the timeline.

Or are you thinking about value graphs? You can drag those in AE in the timeline, but for position, you need to tie each position axis to a null, then move each null’s value graph.

Sorry, AE isn’t a real 3D app. It’s a compositing app that has grown, bit by bit, into a motion graphics app. Now it is a compositing and motion graphics app, but the flat layers now reside in 3D space. There are many limitations to AE’s 3D-ness.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Indeed. AE is quite limited in a 3D sense.

[Steve Roberts]

Indeed. AE is quite limited in a 3D sense.

[Steve Roberts]

Did you try layer>transform>auto-orient, then orient along path?

Steve