[Walter Soyka]

Uncompressed video files are always very large; as the name implies, there is no compression whatsoever applied to the video stream.

You can’t make uncompressed video smaller, but you can choose a different format that allows compression and reduces file size. What is it exactly that you’re trying to do?

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Mark Michel] “By default, in the script I set x position to be 10. When the script UI is launched, x = 10 and 10 is editable. Let’s say the user now enters 250 instead of 10, so now it’s x = 250. Now the user clicks “GO”.”

It sounds like you need to read the value of the edittext box in the UI. You can either pass the UI panel/palette object or pass the value of the edittext box to your button’s onClick handler function, so it can set the property value accordingly.

What’s your UI code look like?

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 “correct” way is to build a piece of 3D geometry in an app like C4D, texture it with your content, and place it in the correct point in 3D space.

If you have Mettle FreeForm Ae, you could use that.

You could probably fake it easily enough in 2D with a distortion effect like Bezier Warp or Mesh Warp.

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

[Walter Soyka]

You can used the usedIn attribute of an AVItem object, which returns an array with every comp the item is used in (copied at the time of invocation and not automatically updated).

app.project.item(index).usedIn

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Shields] “I think I may have gotten it solved using MPEGstreamclip. It’s the only thing that will play it back though. I’m sending. We’ll see.”

I’m glad you got it sorted, and I’m sorry I didn’t think to suggest MPEG Streamclip to you.

[Craig Shields] ” It shouldn’t be this complicated. And why would systems need avi only in 2018?”

[Cassius Marques] “Asking the real questions, I see… haha. Not only they want a deprecated wrapper, but they want it uncompressed…. I honestly hope the client sells more with those 0.5% crispier pixels.”

It sounds like you’re doing some kind of stadium signage? This is a relatively small market with only a handful of solutions available, and the big one does prefer uncompressed AVI. In these cases, it’s not so much the client making absurd demands as the technicians requesting the native format for their playback system. It can definitely be a drag, but can still be a pretty technical field and I always recommend digging into delivery specs at the beginning of a job.

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Leke Mustapha] “almost as if complex animation on AE requires third party plugin”

I agree with the others that any beginner should learn the basics of Ae first, and I also think that an advanced Ae user can do a lot more with stock Ae effects than any beginner would expect. However, it’s also true that the third party ecosystem adds a ton of capability to Ae that you can’t practically replicate with stock features in a reasonable amount of time.

As an Ae-savvy creative director who hires Ae artists, I do expect a degree of proficiency from our freelancers in common plugins like Particular, Form, and Element 3D.

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Katalin kotcsei] “There are many things, techniques that I know and I m confident about…. Is there a certain way to classify or “measure” your knowledge in After Effects?”

After Effects is used by a number of different disciplines, so even advanced Ae users may not really be proficient in all the uses of the application.

Rather than focus on “knowledge in After Effects,” I’d suggest steering the conversation toward your skill set. If you’re familiar with Ae’s 3D space, camera and lighting, text layers and animators, shape layers and repeaters, and maybe a few plugins like Element 3D and Particular, I think those skills would be good to talk about in the broad terms of motion design.

Maybe draw a contrast with a different use case for After Effects. Perhaps as a motion designer, you’re less comfortable and experienced with traditional compositing tasks like keying, tracking, and painting.

Obviously, I don’t know you, and I’m only imaging your true skill set. I just think it’s important to recognize and discuss where the tool ends and the designer or artist begins.

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Frank Greber] “I thought about a comp with the character and ground inside. Then I would add a kind of Stroke effect onto this comp that draws the line around it. Sadly the stroke effect only works with masks?”

I think you’re on the right track.

Instead of the Stroke effect, though, use the Stroke layer style on your precomp, and set Layer Styles > Blending Options > Advanced Blending > Fill Opacity to 0%.

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

[Walter Soyka]

[michael morrow] “The Adobe page only references these cards in relation to the “ray-traced 3D renderer”…which I’m not sure if I’d be using at all?”

Don’t make purchasing decisions around the Ray-traced 3D renderer; it’s a dead end in Ae development. If you need 3D in Ae, you can use the newer CINEMA 4D renderer instead, which works on any CPU and is not accelerated by any specific GPU.

More RAM and a faster CPU should help noticeably, but please keep in mind that it’s pretty easy to create complex effects in Ae that are slow to render on any system. Here’s a reference for some things you can do to improve performance in Ae, which includes some workflow tips:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/improve-performance.html

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

[Walter Soyka]

You cannot apply effects to extruded text or shape layers, with either the CINEMA 4D or the Ray-Traced 3D renderers. This is because both 3D renderers are creating geometry which will react to lighting and materials, rather than pixels that will react to effects.

Which effects do you want to add to your objects? You might be better off using adjustment layers with track mattes.

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