[Todd Kopriva]

expression language reference

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

This page might help.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

RAM preview

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

The ability to import 3D object layers from Photoshop is a new feature in After Effects CS4.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

How about the Write-on effect?

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

The closest thing to such a limit that I know of is a bug that is pretty hard to uncover except with some multitudinous things like paint strokes: After Effects has a hard time showing all of the items in an outline (layers and properties in the Timeline panel, footage items and folders in the Project panel, etc.) if the total number of vertical pixels that would be required to display the whole list is more than a very large number. In practice, this means that it has a hard time displaying more than a couple thousand layers. I doubt that this is what you’re running into.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

This is a huuuuuuuge question, and frequently asked.

Here is the very simple answer:

If you’re encoding for final delivery, then you need to ask your client what they want.

If you’re encoding for intermediate or archival purposes, then you should use a lossless codec. For 8-bpc work, I like QuickTime movies encoded with PNG or Animation, depending on the kind of imagery.

Here’s a link to a section in After Effects Help about compression: “Encoding and compression options for movies”
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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

You have “transcoded”—you effectively converted your movie to being encoded by the Animation codec. The Animation codec is good at preserving image information; it’s not good at making files small.

Your original movie was encoded using a codec that was good at keeping files small. After Effects unpacked this information to make a full image. You just didn’t tell After Effects to stuff the image information back into a highly compressed form.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

I try to explain each of these terms in context in the respective sections of After Effects Help. For example, the section about track mattes gives an overview of mattes and explains what a luma matte is.

You should be able to search After Effects Help and get the basic information. Just make sure that you read the overview and introduction sections, not just the procedural steps.

There’s also a general overview section that links to some chapters from a few books that do a good job of explaining things from the beginning.

And, of course, you can ask here.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

Are you separating fields for this footage when you import it?

“If you want to use interlaced or field-rendered footage (such as NTSC video) in an After Effects project, you get the best results if you separate the video fields when you import the footage. After Effects separates video fields by creating a full frame from each field, preserving all of the image data from the original footage.

Separating fields is critical if you plan to make significant changes to the image. When you scale, rotate, or apply effects to interlaced video, unwanted artifacts, such as crossed fields, are often introduced. By separating fields, After Effects accurately converts the two interlaced frames in the video to noninterlaced frames, while preserving the maximum amount of image quality. Using noninterlaced frames allows After Effects to apply edits and effects consistently and at the highest quality. ”

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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