[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

You can always use the Scale Composition Script that comes with AE to resize your composition to 1280×720. You will need then to manually adjust any elements that do not fit the frame as they should (ex- a 4:3 background that needs now to be 16:9)

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I use Zaxwerks Invigorator, Mettle ShapeShifter AE and Element and I find all to be of great help. To me it depends mostly on the kind of job I will be doing- time, money, client feedback and art direction. Based on these I select my tool. I did not find the need to go to a external full 3d app for title work and even for a lot of 3d work I do. All of the above plugins keep me inside AE. I would not be able to pick one over another- they all have strengths and limitations.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

The name of the game with Element is fast and good looking 3d. Here’s an example of an animation that took me a few hours when I barely knew the plugin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m44KQ_2DS8

It would have taken me a few days before Element to get this result using various 3d plugins and external 3d software.
The Videocopilot website has some great videos introducing Element.
Like Walter, I do not see Element as a “all in all” 3d plugin, but a must have along with Mettle and Zaxwerks. Best thing for me- it works great with my ATI card, no NVIDIA only here….(I think I will add this to all my posts until Adobe changes the situation).

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

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[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

What is the resolution of your project/footage?
It may be that the 2GB of RAM you have are not enough if you try a full frame preview and you may need to purge the cache or restart AE and then work at half or even a third resolution/preview size.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Similar to Dave’s suggestion, I would start by creating a clean plate, but instead of tracking each bird, I would use a 3d tracker like Camera Tracker from the Foundry to track the footage, then, instead of creating a camera solve, I would create a Null from each of the track points that track the birds and parent a layer with the letter B to it.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I for one have never used antivirus on a Mac – never had the need for it. Whenever I used Norton on my pc machines it messed things up, so I quit using it for a long time now.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I understand now better your previous post- if you need real world physics in 2d, Newton is better suited for the job.

https://www.motionboutique.com/en/shop

To use Particular you may get away if you use a long lens on the camera and shoot from far away for the particles in one comp and position that as a 3d layer (the particles will be in a flat 2d plane though) in the logo comp- of course match the position to have the particles on top of your logo.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

To second Roland, ShapeShifter AE is fast and it allows for instant preview of how your 3d text looks like in the final comp. I am a big fan of Zaxwerks also, but there are instances where SSAE is faster. So I got both and use them for different situations.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I use most 3d 3rd party plugins in AE and I can’t choose one over the other- Mettle has great stuff, Zaxwerks other great stuff and now Element, with pretty amazing stuff – all working on my AMD/ATI card ;D

I would recommend saving up for all of these – great new features coming on Mettle stuff and Zaxwerks.

Here’s a short test that would have taken me a couple of days to put together, but I did it in a few hours in Element – I hope the Videocopilot guys won’t be upset that I posted this before the 10th:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m44KQ_2DS8

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

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[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Maybe if you explain why you need that, we could provide a solution, but as far as I know you can not do that in AE.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist