[Tim Bentley]

There’s really not enough information here – what software are you going to use to author (or simply build) the DVD? What’s the composition setup? Either way, I wouldn’t advise using After Effects to encode for a DVD – just render at the same settings as the original, and use a dedicated compression application.

https://timbentley.info/films.html

[Tim Bentley]

Could you attach a screenshot of your project, with the composition added to the render queue, and the ‘Render Settings’ pane opened from the render queue?

https://timbentley.info/films.html

[Tim Bentley]

I’m glad I’m not the only one, and thanks for the suggestion. I tried your method just now and it works, but it’s tricky having to auto-orient my brain along the xy plane. It would be great if anyone knows how to amend Dan’s expression to apply to a camera instead of a layer, as I think that’s the only ‘solid’ solution. I’m going to try it, although expression’s aren’t my strong point so it may take a while… At least I’m not straying far from my After Effects workflow of:

1. Simple 4-hour task to do.
2. Think of time-saving technique.
3. Spend 45 hours failing to make time-saving technique work.
5. Spend 4 hours completing simple task.
6. Cry.

[Tim Bentley]

Thanks for your reply – I’m only using a one-node camera, although have tried with a two-node, animating the point of interest so it is always a few seconds ahead of the motion path. Great idea, but it didn’t work 🙂

I’ll try posting in the expressions forum!

https://timbentley.info/films.html

[Tim Bentley]

This poster has exactly the same problem, with a train and not a camera… There’s no replies though:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/227/19456

There’s also this great expression:

https://www.motionscript.com/design-guide/auto-orient-y-only.html

but I can’t get it to work properly with a camera 🙁

[Tim Bentley]

How fantastic – your adjustment layer suggestion seems to work as well (and I prefer it as a workaround, it’s somehow ‘cleaner’)! I can sort of understand why this happens – like you say, thanks to the client, I’ve had to work in microspace (the camera lens is practically touching the sodding map) so it doesn’t seem surprising that after effects is trying to ‘place’ the layers in 3D space, and in doing so is overriding the layer ordering in the comp itself.

Also, bringing the camera way back helps, although there’s still a bit of hesitant opacity jigging about. It’s funny really, because there must be some kind of ‘conflict’ going on in terms of AE’s render engine, and I like that its conclusion is ‘Well, he probably wants it flickering around like his video is having a stroke.’ 🙂

https://timbentley.info/films.html

[Tim Bentley]

Thank you very much for your reply Dan,

The glow doesn’t affect this issue – I’d already tried.

Your suggestion works for the z-axis. In fact, I had already tried moving each one -1 further along than the previous, but after the 18th layer, it was -18 along the axis and practically in line with the camera, causing lots of problems. Stupidly, I didn’t think of moving them all up together by a small increment.

Having said that, I find this odd. If this is the only fix, it seems counter-intuitive. Maybe I spend too much time in Photoshop, but to me the layer order on the Comp should be telling After Effects where each layer sits in relation to the next, especially where you have lots of layers on the same point in the z-axis. Is this not the case? Do I need to budge things a tiny bit backwards or forwards so it’s clear which one is above or below the next?

Anyway, hopefully that’s solved the problem, and thanks again for your reply. I’d be curious to know why, although I have close to 60 ‘link’ layers, it’s OK for them to sit on the same z position, but not the single base layer beneath?!

Tim

https://timbentley.info/films.html