[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I had to deal with a similar situation- I got no quick fix, just open dual view and manually sync the timelines. I only had three nested comps to do this to…
I found this guy who had the same issue- maybe he can give you and answer since he said he found a way around it:
https://boardreader.com/thread/Problem_with_Nested_Comp_Sync_1xsxzXcn68.html

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

since you have a 3d comp it may just be that you get a black frame when the camera passes through a plane in 3d space.

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Here’s a tutorial:
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/delafuente_rene/maya_cam_imp.php

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I’ll start with the second question:
Progressive for sure- even if you shoot 50i you will need to deinterlace for any roto work, so you might as well get the progressive frames from the start.
I do not personally like to use any camera sharpness/filters- just straight capture, no bells and whistles.
So I guess for the first question the answer is shoot progressive.
In case you want some more camera advice there’s a pretty big forum:
https://www.hv20.com/

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

It seems that there is a 30.000 limit to things in AE. You may have reached that limit.
I suggest reporting it as a bug to Adobe and see what they say.
In the mean time a quick solution would be pre composing your image layer, and duplicating&moving the image inside that pre comp to fit the length you need.

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

This may give you a headache but it works.I just did a test to make sure I am right about it and also to clear out the steps in my head.
Here it is:
Do the Lens Flare (LF) animation on a black layer like it was suggested, using a blending mode to visualize. Once you are happy, turn the blending mode to normal.
Nest your LF layer in a comp moving all attributes.
Duplicate that. Now you have two pre-comps: LF1 and LF2
Open LF1. Add Adjustment layer. Apply Hue/Saturation and take out all saturation. Apply Levels- compress white to 211 and move gamma (midtones) to 1.49
Exit LF1 and turn visibility off (the eye)- you got a matte for LF2.
Apply Set Matte to LF2, take matte from layer pre-comp LF1, Blue channel (Red or Green do the same).
You can check the alpha of your comp and you will notice that you have a clean alpha with the Lens Flare included.
Play around with Levels in pre-comp LF1 to adjust the matte for your Lens Flare.
Get a headache pill… just kiddin’.
Hope that helps.

Ted

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Get CS3 or CS4- Mocha comes free with those.
Then use mocha to track the matte- it’s really easy, they got some great tutorials ( Mocha – Imagineer Systems)

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Draw the shape of your trail (either in a vector program like Illustrator or in AE using a mask on a solid).
Draw the tip of the arrow.
Draw path and use the orient option Michael mentioned on the arrowhead layer.
Animate arrowhead ( moving and growing, following the path and turning)
Animate reveal mask on trail shape to match the moving arrowhead.
You got yourself a growing, moving 90 degree turning arrow.
Or buy Motion Designers Toolkit – I believe they got a bunch of moving arrows over there.

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Mocha – Imagineer Systems

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I got this same issue with camera tracking data from Boujou-export for maya (cam data for maya) brought in AE, so I think it should work the same with cam data export straight from maya. For some reason I had to copy the data from the import and paste it to a new camera (or node) and then it worked- hope it does the trick for you.

Ted