[Tony Kloiber]

If I understand what you want to do…select the layer and double the mask button at the top (make sure it’s the rectangle). This puts a mask at the edge of your layer. Now if you want a picture frame, stroke the layer (using the mask) and adjust as you see fit.

or

If you want a soft edge inset then make the mask’s Expansion setting something negative (i.e. -10) and Feather setting some value you like (i.e. 10). and scale the layer down to suit your need.

I hope I understood what you were looking for.

TonyTony

[Tony Kloiber]

Thank you Jack, that is how I’ve been using it, by picking the pervading foreground color. I will look for the updated manual.

If anyone has more information on how to best use the Foreground and Edge Colour settings I’d like to see it.

P.S.
Just a note for Jack. The file name for the manual in the Keylight plugin folder was Keylight1.1v1.pdf. The file name for the manual I downloaded is Keylight1.1v1_AE.pdf. I saw the version numbers and thought they were the same.

Thanks again,

TonyTony

[Tony Kloiber]

Try opening the shades ;>)

TonyTony

[Tony Kloiber]

Well, If CC Sphere makes use of comp lights and makes an actual 3d object you could get rid of the luma matte and use Lux from trapecode. If CC Sphere doesn’t use comp lights then keep the matte but it does not need to be a CC Sphere object as well, it could just be a layer with a round mask the shape of the planet. The “Sun” could still be a light with Lux. If you don’t have Lux or Shine you can make you own light. Mask a solid layer with a circular shape and feather the mask. By animating size, position and feathering you should be able to create a sun. This layer would be behind the planet layer. Behind this transition from a black “night” layer to a blue “day” layer surrounding your planet.

If you have you plant looking like you want you could pre-render that as a day object and then use the other elements to transistion from night to day.

TonyTony

[Tony Kloiber]

Yep, wrong paint. Paint has each stroke available for editing.

TonyTony

[Tony Kloiber]

Maybe I’m thinking of the other paint, but if you twirl down the effect in the timeline one will see each stroke. Retime the stroke by moving it to a differant place in the timeline or delete and individual stroke.

I’ll open AE and confirm that myself.

TonyTony

[Tony Kloiber]

You can draw and keyframe a group of masks in AE. I’ll point out my usual link that has a very clear and visual explanation of rotoscoping. It’s not AE specific but the ideas are the same no matter what program you use.

https://www.effectscorner.com/podcast/ecroto.p1.mov

TonyTony

[Tony Kloiber]

This is…well I just don’t know what to say. You got to think about getting (and maybe switching to) Shake now. Even if getting Skake means getting a new version of, or giving up, your favorite plug-ins.

For $500 you could work in Shake on little stuff until you got up to speed and then just choose which product you felt would do the job best.

For me the integration with Final Cut is huge (HUGE).

I can see the Vfx stuff moving the Shake but I’m not sure how the Motion graphic design work would be on Shake. It’s hard to keep the ideas going if you have to struggle with the software and I’ve know AE for ten plus years (god it’s really been that long?).

I see a new ProMac Dual Intel and Shake purchase in my future 🙂

TonyTony

[Tony Kloiber]

When you say particles, do you mean the dirt on the lens kind of stuff? Or is it microbes? Hard to tell in that quicktime.

TonyTony

[Tony Kloiber]

In your Precomp Open Comp Settings select the “Advanced” tab check the preserve frame rate when nested or render queue.
I think that is what you looking for.

TonyTony