[Steve Roberts]

That would be a nice feature … an audio equivalent to reducing screen res/mag for RAM preview. If it’s technically possible without adding to the delay, that is.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

That would be a loooovely feature … but sorry, no can do in AE.

You can only edit masks in AE, and they only have thickness/stroke if you apply effect>render>stroke or Trapcode’s 3D Stroke. You can mess with taper in 3D stroke, but other than that, I think you’re hosed, as we hosers would say.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Here’s an old post, found by searching the COW under “wiggle” and “axis” — you can figure out how to apply it to a Y-axis wiggle. 🙂

To wiggle on the X axis only, enter this in the layer’s position property expression field:

foo=position.wiggle(4,100)[0];
[foo,position(1),position(2)]

You set up the wiggle expression, then substitute it for the first position value in the position array. The first(0) is X, the second(1) is Y and the third(2) is Z.

You don’t have to use “foo”. It could be any word or character that doesn’t have another purpose in the expression language. You could use “blat”, “xwigg” or “zac” if you like.

For more wiggling, go to the Adobe Studio Exchange.

Hope that helps,
Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Here’s an old post, found by searching the COW under “wiggle” and “axis” — you can figure out how to apply it to a Y-axis wiggle. 🙂

To wiggle on the X axis only, enter this in the layer’s position property expression field:

foo=position.wiggle(4,100)[0];
[foo,position(1),position(2)]

You set up the wiggle expression, then substitute it for the first position value in the position array. The first(0) is X, the second(1) is Y and the third(2) is Z.

You don’t have to use “foo”. It could be any word or character that doesn’t have another purpose in the expression language. You could use “blat”, “xwigg” or “zac” if you like.

For more wiggling, go to the Adobe Studio Exchange.

Hope that helps,
Steve

[Steve Roberts]

To make a smooth curved mask, use bezier curves (you know, with the little handles) and use fewer points.

Rotobezier can do it too, and with a little practice picking the right places to mark the points, you’ll be a whiz.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Also try searching the COW using “premultiplied” as a search term.

Steve

[Steve Roberts]

You can’t pause the timeline playback in AE. What? You think this is Macromedia Director? 😉

Try this:

1. Drag the comp into a new comp.
2. Add the voiceover here.
3. Apply time remapping to the comp layer that you just brought in.
4. Set keyframes for time remapping so the playback of the layer proceeds to the pause point, holds, then resumes at the end of the pause. The graph should slope up, level off, then slope up again. Make sure the two middle keyframes are equal, and playback speed is 100% when the graph is sloping.

Hope that helps,
Steve

[Steve Roberts]

You can’t pause the timeline playback in AE. What? You think this is Macromedia Director? 😉

Try this:

1. Drag the comp into a new comp.
2. Add the voiceover here.
3. Apply time remapping to the comp layer that you just brought in.
4. Set keyframes for time remapping so the playback of the layer proceeds to the pause point, holds, then resumes at the end of the pause. The graph should slope up, level off, then slope up again. Make sure the two middle keyframes are equal, and playback speed is 100% when the graph is sloping.

Hope that helps,
Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Tips:

1. Contact your editor. Find out what he/she wants from you, regarding format/codec/alpha.
2. The editor probably wants straight RGB (often referred to a “straight alpha”).
3. To render TGA with alpha, set your output module to render TGA, RGB+alpha, Millions+, and click the Options button for the TGA format and choose 32-bit. Here’s where you choose “straight” or “premultiplied”.
4. https://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/317477.html
5. If the editor cannot accept files with alpha, you need to set up two output modules for your render: RGB only, and Alpha only. Once these files are rendered, send both of them to the editor and tell him/her to use the alpha image as a luma matte for the RGB image.

Hope that helps,
Steve

[Steve Roberts]

Without third-party keying software, keying is best done with the Keylight effect in the AE Pro version, in my opinion. There are other keying options in the Pro version, but Keylight seems to work the best.

Another AE-only option is to apply the Color Keyer multiple times to the footage layer. You just choose a different color each time and tweak the settings. Sometimes it does the job. Check out “greenscreen” or “bluescreen” in the COW tutorials section.

As for masking, you can search the COW or the tutorialfind site, but I don’t know if you’ll find any beginner masking tutorials. Start with the manual. Draw with the pen tool, try selecting “rotobezier” when drawing organic shapes. If you want to cut a hole in something, set the mask to “invert”, or to “subtract” if you’ve already drawn other masks. I think you have to jump in.

Steve