[Walter Soyka]

Ae’s cameras are meant to simulate traditional 35mm cameras. If you have a DSLR that you’re trying to match, you should figure out your crop factor or 35mm equivalent.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

Add a Slider Control effect to your layer, Alt+click its Slider stopwatch icon, and paste the following expression:

// generate one random number for this layer for use elsewhere
// set the random number generator to remains constant over time, using the layer index as the seed
seedRandom(index, true);
random();

Alt+click the Dash property stopwatch, and paste this expression:
// define lists of acceptable dashes and gaps.
// these will work in pairs -- the first gap value will always go with the first dash value, likewise with the second, etc.
dashes = [100, 150, 200, 250, 300];
gaps = [25, 20, 15, 10, 5];

dashes[Math.round(effect("random")("Slider") * (dashes.length-1))];

Alt+click the Gap property stopwatch, and paste this very similar expression:
// define lists of acceptable dashes and gaps.
// these will work in pairs -- the first gap value will always go with the first dash value, likewise with the second, etc.
dashes = [100, 150, 200, 250, 300];
gaps = [25, 20, 15, 10, 5];

gaps[Math.round(effect("random")("Slider") * (gaps.length-1))];

Of course, you can modify the numbers in the lists to suit the aesthetics of your project, or extend or shorten the lists, but this will allow each layer to pull a separate dash/gap pair from your list of approved values.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

The “Continuously Rasterize” switch is overloaded. Although it often works as the “keep it sharp” button, this switch with the sun icon has two very different functions, depending on layer type.

For vector layers, this switch tells Ae, “Transform this layer first, then redraw the vector at its new size, position and rotation after the transformation.” This gives you sharp lines, no matter how big you scale your layer. It also changes the render order, rendering effects after transformations instead of before. Without Continuously Rasterize checked, the layer is drawn (“rasterized”) only once at its original 100% size, then effects are rendered, then that raster image is transformed.

For composition layers, the switch is actually called “Collapse Transformations.” This tells Ae, “Treat the layers inside this precomp as if they were a bunch of layers that were directly in the containing comp.” While this sometimes has the same effect as Continuous Rasterization (like when you have vector layers inside a precomp with no effects on the precomp layer), it works very differently.

Because Collapse Transformations essentially pulls the layers from the precomp into the main comp for rendering, it lets you do cool things like use blend modes, combine 3D spaces, and, like its name suggests, concatenate transformations. This means that the two separate transform operations (position, scale, rotation) from inside the comp and outside the comp are combined into a single operation. In other words, a 25% scale on a layer inside the precomp, and a 400% scale on the precomp layer inside the main comp will cancel each other out and equal 100% scale, instead of creating a blurry pixelated mess.

The downside is that effects applied to the precomp layer will no longer work quite the same. Remember, we’re now treating the contents of the precomp as if they were a set of individual layers inside the containing comp; we are no longer rendering the precomp in memory and treating it as a single image in the containing comp before applying effects. Ae will apply any effects on the precomp layer to each and every layer within the precomp after transformations have been collapsed, and it will apply them in their own native layer spaces. This can yield really different results than applying the same effects to the one composite of all those layers.

This is a confusing topic (and a confusing UX in Ae). If you have any questions, please ask away and I’ll do my best to clarify.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

I don’t think you have the complete specs.

I don’t have them either, but looking at this document (which may or may not be current), for reference:
https://clearcastoperations.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205504545-CopyCentral-Digital-File-Specification-Guide

… you are required to use one of three specific HD formats:

HD MPEG2
Container: MXF (OP1a)
Video: MPEG2 (IFrame only)
Video Profile: 422P@HL
Bitrate: CBR @ 100Mbps

Apple ProRes
Container: MOV (QuickTime)
Video: ProRes 422 HQ
Video Profile: High Quality

Avid DNxHD
Container: MXF (OP1a)
Video: DNxHD (VC-3)
Bitrate: 185 Mbps

All of these formats use 4:2:2 chroma subsampling internally; that’s not a thing you set anywhere in the Ae interface. You could deliver either MPEG2 or Avid DNxHD via Adobe Media Encoder on either Mac or PC. You can only deliver Apple ProRes on a Mac, and you can either use AME or render directly from Ae.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

Are you choosing “For selected comps” from the Collect Files dialog, like in this image?

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

Please describe how you are rendering, and maybe post some screenshots showing your UI, color settings, output settings, before and after images, etc.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

What video codec are you expected to use?

Ae will always tell you it’s rendering RGB, but the compressor itself will take that RGB input and handle the chroma subsampling. For example, all ProRes 422 files use 4:2:2 subsampling, as the name implies.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

I don’t have a 5K iMac to try this on, but may try setting Low Resolution mode on the Ae application file, or using a scaled resolution on your new iMac:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht202471

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

A screenshot of your UI would help, but this could be caused by a number of things.

1) Ae only supports stereo audio. If you’re using multichannel audio, you won’t hear anything after the second channel, if you hear anything at all. If you are using multichannel audio that you want to hear in Ae, you should export a stereo mixdown for reference, work in Ae, then finish in an app like Premiere which can handle multichannel audio.

2) Confirm that sound is enabled for the layer.

3) If your audio layer is nested in a precomp, confirm that you have not accidentally set the audio as a guide layer (which would cause it to play in the precomp, but not render or play in any containing comps).

4) Confirm that the volume for the layer has not been adjusted. (Select the layer with audio and press L to reveal Audio Levels in the timeline.)

5) Confirm that audio is enabled in the Preview panel.

6) In Preferences > Preview, there’s an option to mute audio when preview is not real-time. If this is enabled, you’ll only hear audio in Ae when preview is running at full speed.

7) Confirm that your audio hardware preferences are correct.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Walter Soyka]

[James Inniani] “I just migrated from a 21.5″ HD iMac to a 27″ Retina 5K, and now my AE compositions are previewing with incorrect magnification ratios + playback resolutions. I always work at 1080p, and I typically preview at 50% + half res, but this setting now gives me what appears to be 25% + quarter. In order to get my normal playback size, I have to bump up to 100% + full, but if I want to preview the actual full resolution, I have to go up to 200% + full. I’ve included some screenshots of what I’m talking about.”

Your new screen is very high resolution: 5120×2880. A 1920×1080 image takes up less than a quarter of that space. Here’s a quick picture:

Ae is telling you the truth when it says 100% — that’s an accurate, one-to-one, pixel-perfect display of your comp. Your other video app is scaling for convenience, blowing your video up to 200% and hoping you don’t notice the scaling artifacts.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]