[Tim Stonesifer]

Thanks for the advice Dave. I think I’ve got it figured out now. I ended up creating a black solid, and copied the masks and Stroke effect onto that. Then I used that as a matte, and removed the stroke effect from the original layer. Seems to work like a charm now. Thanks!

[Tim Stonesifer]

Alright, that’s good to know. I have about 100 individual sections that I have animated on with the Stroke effect. Animating the mask for each section seems like it would be a bit time consuming (if I’m following you right with your idea). I liked how simple the Stroke effect was to animate. Are there any other ideas for things that could work?

[Tim Stonesifer]

I realized what my problem might be. It’s odd, because I noticed parts of the precomp layer of the main comp do actually look fine. The parts that don’t come out properly have a lot of masking going on. The masks aren’t actually hiding/showing anything – they’re there as a reveal for the Stroke effect. Could this be part of the problem? If so, any ideas on how to fix that?

[Tim Stonesifer]

Thanks for the response. I turned on the 3D layer switch for all layers in the precomp. However, it still looks distorted:

If the collapse switches are on (in both the precomp and main), the image looks very distorted in the main composition.

If the collapse/cont. rasterize switch is on in only one of the comps (either or – it looks the same), then the precomp still seems to have very low resolution like it’s not continuously rasterizing.

I’m assuming the collapse switch should be on for both comps. How can I avoid this distortion?

[Tim Stonesifer]

Then is there no way to do this?

[Tim Stonesifer]

Hm. I thought that would fix it, but I failed to mention that I have nested comps creating data based on that variable in “Main_1”. So even though Main_2 has that one variable changed, the nested comps are still pulling values off information from Main_1…

[Tim Stonesifer]

That looks like it’s exactly what I need. Thanks Dan!

[Tim Stonesifer]

Aharon,

Thanks for all the work you’ve done! You’re tutorials are incredible, and you will certainly be missed.

Blessings on you with your family and the new child. That seems like it’s quite exciting, and I’m sure it’s the best place to be putting your priorities.

Tim

[Tim Stonesifer]

Thanks for the advice, guys. It is indeed a smaller place – probably a staff of 25. I was hired as a PA, and that hasn’t officially changed since I was hired. With hiring new PA’s, who actually do the work of PA’s, I thought it was time to change things a bit. It may just be more of a pride thing, since it really doesn’t do much beyond the resume and business cards. I like the CEO idea though…

[Tim Stonesifer]

I have been rendering by adding to the render queue. I am not using footage in the comp; only still images, or shapes and text created in AE. I’ve been viewing this on both a computer monitor, and on an NTSC monitor. In both places I see the jagged lines.

I did throw the Reduce Interlace Flicker filter onto it and that helped a lot, but it’s not ideal at all. I also just tried rendering as a non-interlaced TIFF sequence. The still images look pretty good, but still have a bit of looking jagged. Is this just something I need to accept that AE and NTSC will do with fine lines?