[Steve Roberts]

Nice one, John! Much simpler than mine!

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Hmm … well, the particles shouldn’t follow the path, right? Each particle should be emitted, then stay right where it is and die (or shrink and die) as the emitter moves on.

If the aux particles followed the path of the emitter, you wouldn’t see the trail, right? You would see a fat emitter, surrounded by all the aux particles that are still with it.

If you change the aux velocity to , say, 50, you’ll see how the aux particles behave. They are emitted from the main particle. Here’s the rub: they do not have a direction parameter. So they only emit outward.

Have you considered moving the Particular layer?

So … unless I’ve covered the problem, I’m not sure what you want to see, or what the preset is doing that isn’t adequate. Say … don’t tell me what you want the effect to do … tell me what you want to see. Describe it as if you knew nothing about After Effects.

You want to see a moving light?
You want to see it leave streaks behind?
Do the streaks hang in the air and disappear?
Do the streaks move? If so, how?

HTH
Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Good question.

The only way that I can find is to use ctrl/cmd+M to Make a Movie, then check the work area duration in the Render Settings. Pretty clunky.

Or you could set the work area, then add a null layer, and make the “duration” column visible in the timeline. Hit shift+home to go to the beginning of the timeline, then select the null layer and hit alt/opt+[. That will trim the layer’s in point to the start of the work area. Do the same with the out point by using shift+end to go to the end of the work area, and alt/opt+] to trim the out point. The layer’s duration will show the work area duration … but if you change the work area duration, you need to keep trimming the null layer to keep up. Clunkier, yes?

Now, if the null layer automatically trimmed itself, that would be cool. Profound Effects has a Useful Assistant that does just that, or something similar, apparently.

Anybody else?

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Check the COW’s Cinematography forum.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Are you sure the emitter is following the path? Did you select the mask shape parameter, then copy, then select the emitter parameter, then paste?

Have you tried using one of the organic presets, just to see one way of how the effect can be done?

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Nope … the AE app and all the included effects (Cycore or CC) are all on the same install CD.

Can’t speak for Zaxwerks Invigorator. It comes with a new license and I’ve been buying upgrades.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

You know what I would do … I’d take some DV footage (of the dog, for example), convert to VHS if necessary, and play it on TV. Then I’d shoot the room with that playing on TV. Then I’d bring the room footage into AE along with the footage of the dog. I’d then composite the dog footage over the TV, masking off half of it so I can compare the composite with the real thing.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Method A:
1. shoot the person on greenscreen or bluescreen. Make sure the screen is evenly lit, and the colour is saturated on the screen. Do tests.
2. Use one of AE’s keying effects to remove the green/bluescreen.
3. Use the render>fill effect to fill the person with colour.
4. Place a differently-coloured solid layer under the filled person layer.

Method B:
1. With the pen tool, draw a mask around the person to separate them from the background. Use the rotobezier feature. Keyframe the mask shape.
2. Look for other frames where the person’s shape reaches an extreme, say, when a hand extends out, for example. Keyframe the mask shape parameter at those frames.
3. RAM preview, and tweak the keys, or add more. This is tedious, by the way, and called rotoscoping. For more info, search the COW.
4. Fill and add solid layer as in method A.

Remember, you need to treat the person and background separately. AE can only tell them apart through brightness and/or colour. The person and background need to have no colours in common if you want to avoid rotoscoping.
It is possible that a combination of the techniques will get the job done, depending on your scene.

At any rate, it’s only a quick job if you’ve shot a perfect keying setup in a studio. Or if you’ve shot in front of a clear blue sky, and your talent isn’t wearing blue.

Hope that helps,
Steve

[Steve Roberts]

1. You would use a 320×240 composition if you eventually wanted to render that comp to a 320×240 movie. Is that your intent?

2. If it is your intent, then you can scale down the 720×480 movie to fit the 320×240 comp. The quick shortcut is ctrl+alt+F on Windows, cmd+opt+F on Mac.

3. If it is not your intent, and you eventually want to render your movie at 720×480 (DV), you should not use a 320×240 comp size — your final render will appear pixellated. You should use a 720×480 DV preset size (under the composition settings) then set the magnification button at the bottom of the comp window to 50% and the resolution button to half. These will not affect your final render, only the viewing size and res of your comp window.

4. Please read the manual. It’s apparent that you’ve jumped into AE without reading the manual, and AE does not reward such a choice. If you don’t want to read the manual, get Adobe’s Classroom in a Book to take you through your first project. Then get Trish and Chris Meyer’s Creating Motion Graphics, Volume 1 book.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

You need to upgrade to the latest version of 3D stroke. Check the trapcode site.

Steve