[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I would use the Scale Composition script to change the size of the comp to a NTSC widescreen square pixel aspect ratio (872×480)and render that out. Once you have that in an uncompressed (or slightly compressed- ProRes) version, you can squeeze in a SD NTSC Widescreen format, 720×480 with par (1.185).

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Are you trying to scale down to a NTSC widescreen pixel aspect ratio from a full HD render or did you scale down the original comp to a SD widescreen comp using the Script that comes with AE ?

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Thanks!

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

You can use Free Form (the free version that comes with AE) or FreeForm Pro ( if you want to get a pligin that does a ton more than just flags waving), and use the true 3d distortion to create a flag. FreeForm Pro has a free project with expressions from Dan Ebberts that can be used to animate a flag.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

David recommended a great tutorial, however, if you happen to have Particle Illusion, you can find some great snow presets in there.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Pre-rendering does help and will speed up future renders, however, there are situations in which you can not do that because the transfer modes, the way layers and effects interact with each other. Testing- the way you did- is the best way. You just need to figure out what can be pre-rendered and what not.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I appreciate the effort Adobe puts into making CS a package that caters to all our needs. With some things like the new features in PSD and Speedgrade there’s a great improvement. Other features are great but the fact that are connected right now with nVidia cards only is a frustrating issue, especially in AE where you have 3rd party 3d plugins that work great on almost any card from the last 2 years.
On one hand it’s exciting to get the 3d options and the ray-traced renderer, especially when you think of the future posibilities. On the other, if you do not have an nVidia card – like me, you are stuck with using 3rd party plugins if you want to get something to the client on time. My fear is that all these new 3d capabilities are going to end up like the use of PSD 3d layers- great idea but not a practical one. (After a few frustrating tries I went back to using Zaxwerks plugins)
3D aside, AE CS6 is faster and it seems to be pretty solid.
Overall, CS6 is a step forward, opening up exciting posibilities.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

You can open the timeline of the PSD comp side by side with the main comp and use expressions to link a camera that you create in the cube (PSD) comp with the camera in the main comp. This way the perspective of the cube will change as you move the main camera.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

No idea about the language- that would be a question for Adobe.
The frame size is pretty big though- no wonder you run out of memory. If it’s just one frame that crashes it- rendering file sequences is the best thing to do. Try a smaller frame size – I do not have the details of your project and what you’re trying to achieve, but maybe you can get away with less. Just in case you can do that, you can change the size of your comp by using the script that comes with AE (under File).

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

You can time remap a pre-comp for sure, I’m not sure though of the results when it comes to frame blending. Testing some short clips would be my recommendation.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist