[Terry Coolidge]

It sounds like your process is backwards. You should be creating a multilayer PSD file and then importing that as a comp when you bring it into AE. Your layers in Photoshop will be maintained as layers in the AE comp. If you edit the PSD, simply reload the footage. If you turn on the 3D switch for the comp and layers, you can transform the comp in 3D space. There shouldn’t be a need to do any corner pinning. Unless I’m not understanding something about what you’re trying to do.

[Terry Coolidge]

If I have a bunch of footage files all in the same place, but then move all of them to a different folder, they will then show up as unlinked media in my AE project. My expectation based on experience is that re-linking one file from the new location will cause all of the remaining files to re-link if they all reside in the same new location as the one file I just manually re-linked. I don’t see why this wouldn’t work for you in the scenario you’re describing. Footage files would need to have identical file names, but simply finding one missing media file should cause all of the others to become “found” as long as they’re all in the same folder as the piece of footage that you re-linked manually.

[Terry Coolidge]

Since you say your audience is already familiar with Photoshop and Illustrator, I would prepare both a multi-layer PSD file and a multi-layer AI file and bring them into After Effects as comps (not as “flattened” files) to show your audience that After Effects basically adds “time manipulation” to Photoshop and Illustrator. Show them how you can have discreet control over each layer (as set up and saved in the source applications) and how you can add keyframes in the AE timeline to the various properties like position, rotation, scale, and opacity. Explain how applying “effects” to layers is similar to applying “filters” in Photoshop. I would show them that you can work with everything in 2D if you think of a composition as a multi-plane camera and your layers as a “stack” of “cells” (old, traditional animation terminology), but I would also touch on the concept of manipulating layers in 3D space and using virtual lights and cameras. I think it would be worthwhile to bring in vector art from Illustrator and turn on the “continuously rasterize” button in AE to show the audience how you can maintain razor-sharp graphic edges when animating scale up (or “zooming in”) on a graphic element since this is very different from zooming in on a raster graphics image that quickly breaks down as it becomes pixelated. As part of the same presentation, but as a different portion, I would show an example of working with video footage and applying effects to that as well as touching on the integration of CG elements with video footage (compositing, match-moving / 3D tracking, etc.). Seems like more than enough stuff to fill an hour without throwing too much stuff at a group of newbies.

[Terry Coolidge]

My email address is still up there a few posts back…

– Terry

[Terry Coolidge]

gotcha…

I’d try to get the font.

😉

[Terry Coolidge]

How much text are you talking about? Too much to type? The latest iOS lets you use an iPhone camera as an optical character recognition (OCR) device. Filip’s solution sounds like it could work, but that sounds like it’s much more involved. I would first try to transcribe or convert your Illustrator paths into text that you could simply paste into a text layer in AE.

[Terry Coolidge]

Hi Michael,

Did you find a solution?

– Terry

[Terry Coolidge]

I guess I have to post my email address. Strange.

terrycoolidge

[at]

gmail

[dot]

com

[Terry Coolidge]

Hi Michael,

As a freelance motion graphics animator, I have had several projects where a client has purchased an AE template and had me customize it for them with their footage/graphics/etc. I would be happy to discuss this further with you via direct messages.

– Terry

[Terry Coolidge]

I was going to say what Walter said. But if you feel you want to stick with 2D, you definitely should have a character be in its own nested comp so you’re only having to ”turn off” a single layer and then “turn on” another single layer when switching from in-front to behind. Regarding your concern about not having the other comp elements visible while animating the character in a precomp, this is where UI customization comes in handy. You can use the padlock icon to keep a comp window open on screen (the comp that has the background and other comp elements), while you work in the separate precomp window that shows the active comp and timeline where you are animating your isolated character. Meaning you can have two comp windows open at once, seeing real-time updates in the main comp while you animate elements in a precomp.