[Todd Kopriva]

There are a couple of things that happen when you continuously rasterize a layer: the render order changes within the layer, and the items (like effect control points) that were measured in layer space are converted to composition space.

Here’s a relevant excerpt from the “Continuously rasterize a layer containing vector graphics” section of After Effects Help:

“When you apply an effect to a continuously rasterized layer, the results may differ from the results of applying the effect to a layer without continuous rasterization. This difference in results is because the default rendering order for the layer changes. The default rendering order for a layer without continuous rasterization is masks, followed by effects, and then transformations; whereas the default rendering order for a continuously rasterized layer is masks, followed by transformations, and then effects.”

To force transforms to happen after effects for a continuously rasterized layer, you can use the Transform effect, or you can precompose the layer(s) with the effects and then animate the transforms of the precomposition layer.

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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]

As Roland said, here’s an After Effects Community Help search that pulls up a few results here on the COW, plus one in After Effects 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]

If you’re using After Effects CS4, you can use the Center In View command to move a layer so that its anchor point is centered in the current view.

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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 example expression in the “Expression example: Fade opacity of a 3D layer based on distance from camera” section of After Effects Help should do what you want. Just replace the 100 and 0 in the last line with 90 and 20.

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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]

Another way would be to make a solid layer, use it as a track matte, and then animate a paint stroke drawn on the track matte layer.

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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 tutorial from Aharon Rabinowitz might be what you’re looking for.

[update: Heh. It looks like Dave and I were typing and thinking the same thing. He’s just faster.]

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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]

In addition to Kevin’s tip, there are some tips in the “Best practices for creating text and vector graphics for video” section of After Effects Help about both avoiding and mitigating the problems that come from vertical movement of small details together with interlaced video.

Basically, the problem (well, one of the problems) is that thin elements of text can disappear and reappear as they move across fields, unless you make really certain that the thin elements don’t get hidden by the alternating fields. If you time it exactly wrong, you can make a thin horizontal line disappear entirely; but more likely it will be hidden and shown in a pattern that makes a high-frequency strobing or “sizzling”. Avoiding this involves either math or the application of animation presets (in which someone else has already done the math). There’s an Autoscroll – Vertical animation preset in the Behaviors category.

You can also avoid the problem by just making sure that the thinnest elements aren’t so thin. Blurring something spreads it across more pixels, so a vertical blur is basically just fattening the text up in the important direction. That is exactly what the Reduce Interlace Flicker effect is for. It’s a very specific vertical directional blur.

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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]

Please, do submit your requests through the feature-request form. That’s the best way for us to know what people want and what people think. We are certainly listening.

(This conversation is also going on on another forum. I’ll leave it to the other posters who’ve cross-posted to decide what part of that conversation to bring back 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]

Keylight, Color Finesse, and the Cycore (CC) effects are the effect plug-ins that aren’t included in the trial. There are some other things that aren’t effect plug-ins—like mocha-AE and some MPEG codecs—that are also not included in the trial.

Each page in the “Effect galleries” section of After Effects Help lists all of the effects in a category, as they appear in After Effects. At the bottom of each page is a list of the third-party effects that aren’t included in the trial. (E.g., the many CC effects in the Simulation effects category)

Beyond the effect plug-ins, there aren’t very many things that aren’t included in the trial. From the “Installation, activation, and registration” section of After Effects Help:

“The free trial version of Adobe After Effects software does not include some features that depend upon software licensed from parties other than Adobe. For example, mocha for After Effects, some effect plug-ins, and some codecs for encoding MPEG formats are available only with the full version of Adobe After Effects software.”

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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 can do it in two steps: Paste, and then move the layer to the bottom of the stacking order.

Here’s the shortcut for the second step from “Change the stacking order for selected layers” in After Effects Help:
“To move the selected layers to the top of the layer stacking order, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Up Arrow (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift+Up Arrow (Mac OS); to move the selected layers to the bottom, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Down Arrow (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift+Down Arrow (Mac OS).”

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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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