[Walter Soyka]

Any chance you’ve accidentally set the viewer to Red channel only? Click the RGB color widget at the bottom of the viewer controls (in between Snapshots and Resolution) and select “Full,” or press Alt+Shift+1 (on Windows, Opt+Shift+1 on Macs) to toggle Red Colorize view.

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 a script, not an expression. Save it as a .jsx file, then run it through the File > Scripts menu.

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 zoom level is dependent on the size of the comp. Larger comps cannot be zoomed as much as smaller ones.

There’s probably a maximum size for the CompSize * Zoom; it seems to be 32,000 pixels in any one dimension. (In other words, you can do a comp 7999 pixels wide at 400%, but not a comp 8000 pixels wide).

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 expression will return the position, in 2D comp space, of the top-right corner of the referenced shape layer:

l = thisComp.layer("My Awesome Shape Layer");
l.toComp([l.sourceRectAtTime(time).left + l.sourceRectAtTime(time).width, l.sourceRectAtTime(time).top]);

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

[Walter Soyka]

If it looks different in your viewer at full res than it does in your output, can you post your render queue settings?

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 do you see if you set the viewer to Full resolution?

What effects are you applying to the JPEGs?

What are the dimensions of the JPEGs?

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 might try placing your effects on adjustment layers so you can easily manage their timing.

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/creating-layers.html#adjustment_layers

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

[Walter Soyka]

Thanks, but I was hoping to see some of your Ae UI — the timeline, the layers, etc.

Is it possible that your view in Ae is not set to “Active camera?” This could cause a difference between what you see in the viewer panel and what you see in renders.

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 hard to prescribe a solution without being able to see anything about your project to diagnose the problem.

Is there anything you can share so that we can see what you are seeing?

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

[Walter Soyka]

Can you share some screenshots of your UI? Something that shows us what you see in Ae, versus what you see in the rendered movie?

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