[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

If you do not want to mess with expressions I would recommend using Soundkeys.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I think the key in making the objects look like they have weight is to direct the actor to mime the catching of a heavy object. Have him/her practice a couple of dozen times with various weights and then mime the action. Shoot him/her while catching the real objects and then do a quick track /comp when miming the action. Sit down and analyze together the two and fine tune. It may be a lengthy process but other than having boxes covered in chroma cloth/paint falling down and the actor catching them I do not see another way.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Open the AE project in Adobe Media Encoder, select the comp you want to render and use the presets to export. AE is not really meant to compress files, it is best to render uncompressed from there and then use a compression software to encode for final delivery or use the method described above.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Check out this script- watch the tutorial. I think this can help you achieve what you are after.
https://ik.duduf.com/

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I would go for the Mac, always, if I had my choice. That bing said, an Alienware MX17, i7, 8gb ram is not a bad choice either.
And I would stay away from Acer.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

My advice is to draw tracking crosses under the area where the text is when you shoot the move. Film the portion of the skin straight on as much as possible, “flatten” it and create a patch on which you can animate the text wipe, track and apply corner pin on the patch and then adjust with a distortion tool like Mesh Warp. I am afraid that without Mocha it will be really hard though.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

It looks like you may benefit of some reading regarding alpha channels and compression.
For best result in VFX you want to work at the highest possible resolution and color depth, without any quality loss all the way to the final render. Once you do that then you go on to compressing the final piece for playback. So yes, you will have big size files.
Render settings: “Alpha” renders out the alpha channel only. “RGB+Alpha” will give you the color information and the alpha channel in one file. You want to render to an uncompressed codec or file sequence. Best is to use file sequences- TGA or uncompressed TIFF.
When you work with particles though, it is best to render out the final comp and not the particles with an alpha and then composite, especially if you are using a different blend mode than normal.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Why not just open the master comp, save as- the name of new clip- an then just replace footage and adjust work area/comp length to accommodate the footage… no need to copy.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Here’s another tip – the animations you reffer to are really cool when using they have a reflective floor.
This tutorial can help.
Also this plugin.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

For CS5 there’s Roto Brush

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist