[Stuart Elith]

A nifty shortcut for this kind of workflow is Cmd+Option+Shift+N (on mac).

It creates a new comp viewer next to the current one and locks it. So you don’t have to go through the menu for a new viewer, then lock it and dock it. Nice!

[Stuart Elith]

I don’t know if it works for effects too, but in the scripts folder you can put anything you don’t want in a folder with a name in brackets, and AE won’t look in those folders.

For example, “(unused)” as a folder name, without the “” of course.

May be a way to keep the effects around without them getting in the way.

[Stuart Elith]

If you’re talking about a ‘normal’ sequence you’ve edited, a lot of people suggest that a straight cut is the best option, and that others like dissolves are *usually* a weaker choice, when you can’t find any other solution.

Remember that you can cut the audio and visuals at different points!! It’s too easy to just do your cuts and keep everything linked, but sometimes if you cut the audio before or after the visuals it feels very natural and can smooth out an otherwise awkward transition. If you pay attention to interviews (or anything!) in both real and fictional stuff on TV you will realise how often this happens and how little you notice it because it just works 🙂

[Stuart Elith]

Just like you have titled your post, with tracking 🙂

When you are adding elements to a shot you often have to mask/rotoscope bits as well (such as a doorframe that might get in the way of the reflection) and distort the element as the perspective changes, stuff like that.

I think what throws some people off is that the item slides a lot – you really need to get a dead-on track for something to really sit in the scene well. I’ve been doing some phone screen replacements recently and it has reminded me again that even a little wobble for just a few frames is really noticeable.
Get your track great and things will be so much easier… you can search for tutorials and tips for motion tracking in AE. If you have CS4 there is Mocha AE built in which I haven’t used, but is said to be very versatile.

[Stuart Elith]

My only thought is that you may be able to use the Aux System so that when it hits the floor, you produce a new particle that is a still version. I don’t think it will work for you project since it sounds like there is too much randomness and such, but may be worth exploring…?

[Stuart Elith]

I’m not Mr.Camp nor have I looked directly at your project file, but if i understand correctly, you have rendered some keyed footage with alpha, and now want to put it on a clean background plate, but the colors/exposure/looks aren’t matching?

It could be to do with the codec you rendered the footage in – for example, H2.64 has a gamma shift that makes things a bit lighter and washed out, I think mpg4 darkens a bit, etc. So if you are lining up your render with another plate shot at the same time, you might expect them to match but find that they don’t.

One option is to use the comp in which you keyed the footage on top of the plate, rather than a render of that comp.
Otherwise, yeah, you may need to color correct it manually… there are a few tricks that may help – if you push the exposure way up using the Adjust Exposure controls in the Comp viewer you can find the place where black first appears, and then match the two clips black levels like that. Also looking at individual color channels can help too (also in the comp viewer, the RGB circles icon, you can select a single channel).

[Stuart Elith]

Ahh thanks for that Dan, i probably wouldn’t have picked it up!

Well I’ve got it working after more trial and error… i’m not sure exactly why this particular code works but it does, which is good enough for me!
It can only apply to one layer at a time but that’s not a big bother for me either… I thought i worked out how to do it for more but it’s not working and I don’t care enough to spend a few hours getting annoyed while I work it out!

So for anyone else who’s interested :

{
// create an undo group
app.beginUndoGroup(“AddEffect”);

var curItem = app.project.activeItem;
var selectedLayers = curItem.selectedLayers;

// check if comp is selected
if (curItem == null || !(curItem instanceof CompItem)){

// if no comp selected, display an alert
alert(“Please establish a comp as the active item and run the script again”);

} else {

// define the layer in the loop we’re currently looking at
var curLayer = curItem.selectedLayers[0];

// check if that layer is a footage layer
if (curLayer.matchName == “ADBE AV Layer”){

// add a slider and three keyframes
var slider = curLayer.Effects.addProperty(“ADBE Fast Blur”);

}
}

// close the undo group
app.endUndoGroup();
}

Most of this code is based upon someone else’s from something, I’m sorry to say I don’t remember where it was from, so i can’t credit the person.

[Stuart Elith]

Be warned that difference Key almost never works acceptably in my experience (and many others’). Even with locked off footage I have usually found it creates poor results with crunchy edges… partially due to compression and noise, which you can’t really avoid.

But as mentioned, if you have locked off your shot you can draw rough masks around the people and they will sit into the scene pretty well as the backgrounds will line up. When people overlap each other you will probably have to rotoscope them unless you manage to get the difference matte working.

[Stuart Elith]

Within particular you can have animations as the particles, by specifying “Custom” under the particle settings, and you get various options to tweak there.

However when you are using an Aux system (which would be best so that when the raindrop particle hits the ground, the ripple would form) you can’t specify a different custom particle… so I don’t think you can create the best situation which would be a raindrop particle which hits the ground, then plays the ripple animation there.

You could just create the ripple animation and have a lot of them playing on the water surface randomly… wouldn’t line up with the actual raindrops but still might work convincingly depending on your needs.

[Stuart Elith]

Hey, we all have to learn somehow!

Just a few little thoughts from my experiences (mostly in compositing/VFX, but a bit of motion graphics).

I tend to use masks most of the time, for a few reasons : Firstly, they are quicker to apply than a track matte, so for simple stuff, like if you only want part of an image to show up, you can just grab your pen tool and draw away, and you’re done.
Applying a track matte takes an extra layer (which also creates clutter) and while they’re still pretty straightforward, i find it less convenient.

Basically I mainly seem to use track mattes for circumstances where I need to get a more complicated alpha – for example, using a fractal noise layer as a track matte means that the underlying layer will have detailed, varying levels of opacity… good for interesting fades/transitions, or stuff like reflections in water, where you only want the reflection to show up in the brighter parts of the water.
It’s thinking about alpha in a different way than masks.