Steve Roberts
Forum Replies Created
-
You could try setting a position hold keyframe, then at the point where the order shifts, set another one, but move the clip up or down one pixel. That will shift the field order back to the other order.
Give it a go …
Steve -
It’s too bad that there’s no “AE lite” for relatively simple projects, at least on the Windows platform. On OSX there’s Apple’s Motion, which uses a different paradigm. Adobe used to sell LiveMotion, but I know of no replacement for it.
Steve
-
That would be done in a 3D app. Although 3D Stroke is very useful, it has its limitations. You can’t have that (AT&T) degree of control and flexibility with 3D Stroke in After Effects.
3D stroke is applied to a 2D mask on a 2D plane. If you want it to bend in Z-space, you can do it, but without that degree of control.
Note that nowadays, 3D apps are being used to create clean, graphic designs because of the flexibility afforded by such apps in 3D space.
Cinema4D is well-suited to tubes, ribbons and such.
Steve
-
That’s the kind of error that shows up when you don’t have the latest version of a Trapcode plug. Try going onto the Trapcode site and downloading the latest build. If that doesn’t work, Peder from Trapcode may see your post here, but you might also want to try writing him directly or posting on the Trapcode COW forum.
Steve
-
There are no metaball plugs for AE. The closest thing may be the CC Mr. Mercury effect which ships with AE 6.5, but I don’t know if you can control it the way you want.
Otherwise you’d take a solid and draw a circular mask, adding extra points, then animating that shape from a circle to a stretched circle, then two circles, but you’d have to use some trickery by hiding the stretched circle just before it splits, and showing the two-circle masked solid. Because … I don’t believe you can animate one mask turning into two. And to make it look 3D, you’d have to add the bevel effect. I think it could look stylized, which may not be what you want.
Basically, if you want to do this easily, you need a 3D app with metaballs, in my opinion. AE is not a 3D app: it’s a bunch of 2D planes in a 3D space, with the occasional plug that fakes 3D by creating 3D “movies” on those 2D planes.
Basically. 🙂
Anybody else?
Steve
-
Ah … you didn’t mention Invigorator. 😉
It has its own needs, as John D can confirm. Text has to be outlines, for one thing. Search his recent Invigorator posts for more info.
AICB-preserve paths.
I don’t know how you can determine the Illy file version.
Size of solid does not matter, AFAIK.
Regarding the rotation (within Invig?) you must have the characters on separate layers. John and Serge (among others) are the Invig experts, though. Hopefully, they’re watching …
Steve
-
You should move the grow bounds effect above the shatter effect in the effects palette so it’s applied before the shatter.
Steve
-
Twixtor will actually generate a new image between each frame. I’ve gotten good results in tough situations (field of tall grass), but you should download the demo and try it on your footage.
Steve
-
1. Import the AI file as footage or as a comp if you want to maintain the layers. You will not be able to edit the paths. If you want to edit the paths, you have to copy the paths in AI, then paste into a solid layer so the paths become masks. Make sure that in AI, your clipboard prefs are set to AICB. You can change the colour of the text in AE 6.5 by applying the render>fill effect, but the text has to be in a separate layer. If you want to scale up the imported file, you need to click the continuous rasterization button. There should be more info in the manual/help.
2. Not sure how to help — I just used Motion Sketch, selected all KFs, and Smoother was available.
3. You need to select the keyframes, hit copy, the select the mask shape property of the receiving layer and paste. If that doesn’t work, make a keyframe for the receiving mask shape first.
Steve
-
Hmm … don’t know of a free plug for that, but if you search the COW posts (include the archives) on “film look” you should find some recipes using stock AE effects. Once you try them out (in your own project) and get something you like, save the effects as a preset and you’re in.
Steve