[Walter Soyka]

After Effects is like that.

The Ae dev team has been gradually modernizing the architecture for the last few years, but there’s obviously significant room for improvement still.

How many instances of Ae are you running with BG Renderer Max?

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

[Walter Soyka]

Maybe do the trial to make sure this works as you expect, but one of the features is importing the file referenced in the spreadsheet:

From the features list:

If you have a non-text layer in your comp that begins with a >, it will be replaced by a file. CompsFromSpreadsheet will import a file based on the path in your spreadsheet, then that imported file will replace the layer. If you have the same file referenced more than once in your spreadsheet, CompsFromSpreadsheet will only import it once and use that item for every other time the file is referenced. Instead of putting the path in your spreadsheet, you can define a default import directory.

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 think that CompsFromSpreadsheet can help you with this:
https://aescripts.com/compsfromspreadsheet/

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

[Walter Soyka]

Here’s a project that demonstrates the scenario you describe:

[image]

14144_stringoflights.aep.zip
[project file]

In this setup, I’ve added three Effects Controls to each follower layer:
1) A Layer Control (renamed to “Beginning”), where I select the line’s beginning point
2) A second Layer Control (renamed to “End”), where I select the line’s ending point
3) A slider control (renamed to “Completion”), where I can animate along the line from the beginning to the end

Each follower layer also has this expression on its Position property. I’ve commented it here to explain what it’s doing. If you have questions, I’d be happy to try to answer them.
// get our effect controls into some variables we can easily use
var lA = effect("Beginning")("Layer");
var lB = effect("End")("Layer");
// make sure that the completion value scales from 0 to 1
var completion = linear(effect("Completion")("Slider"), 0, 100, 0, 1);

// get the positions of the Beginning and End points in world space
var pA = lA.toWorld(lA.anchorPoint);
var pB = lB.toWorld(lB.anchorPoint);

// start the beginning, then add a percentage of the vector from the beginning to the end
pA + (pB - pA) * completion;

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

[Walter Soyka]

Use master properties to control the time remapping of the plane tilt independently of the looping propeller:

[image]

14142_planemasterproperties.aep.zip
[project file]

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

[Walter Soyka]

Don’t use time-remapping. Use the new-ish Master Properties feature instead — then you can animate the propeller continuously and still adjust the tilt however you like.

This will help make it clearer:
https://www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/master-properties-after-effects/

And here are the official docs:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/master-properties.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]

This little snippet shows it in action:

function createNewComp(newCompName) {
var newCompItemObject = app.project.items.addComp(newCompName, 1920, 1080, 1, 10, 30);
return newCompItemObject;
};

function addSolidToComp(compObject) {
var newSolidLayer = compObject.layers.addSolid([0,0,0], "New Solid", compObject.width, compObject.height, compObject.pixelAspect, compObject.duration);
}

var newComp = createNewComp("Test Comp 1");
addSolidToComp(newComp);

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

[Walter Soyka]

It’s dreadful for video review, but I love Dropbox for keeping our studio in sync. We’ve got clients on all the major file share/cloud sync tools, and I’ve found Dropbox to be hands-down the most flexible for us.

Three reasons:

• Block-level sync (not file level!) means just the changed parts of files get transferred over the network.
• Selective sharing works per device, so I can sync different folders to my different computers, so I can keep lots of things in sync on my workstation, and just exactly what I need on my laptop.
• LAN sync keeps multiple local machines synced without the cloud roundtrip.

But in keeping with the theme of this forum, horses for courses. We use frame.io for video review, Google Slides with animated GIFs for motion system review, and Digital Pigeon for accelerated file transfers.

Looking forward to trying the new Transfer feature!

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

[Walter Soyka]

Technically, this behavior where layer styles break 3D intersections (and shadow-casting!) is not a bug, it’s by design.

Layer styles may look like effects, but they work like blend modes. Effects are rendered on the layer, then the layer is composited into the scene, but layer styles are different. They are blended directly with the layers below, almost as if they were a layer themselves. This allows you to do cool things like use different blend modes on the styles than you use on the main layer, but it also makes 3D intersections and shadow-casting meaningless.

This documentation applies to CS4, too:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/3d-layers.html#3d_layer_interactions_render_order_and_collapsed_transformations

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Luiz Cruz] “they have to stay on separate layers because of the animation, or at least in the same shape layer but in different groups.”

You should be able to add a Merge Paths in the shape layer, then a Stroke.

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