[Walter Soyka]

That will resize the layers to maximum width, not re-position them within the new width of the comp.

The problem that John is having is that when you change the comp size through the comp settings window, the default behavior puts the anchor of that resize in the center of the comp. When you change the size of a comp via scripting, it works as if you set the resize anchor to the upper left corner.

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 should do the same thing that “Scale Composition.jsx” does — use a null to manipulate the entire scene:

1) Create a new 3D null.
2) Step through all layers in the comp, and make all unparented layers a child of the null. (Pick up bonus points if you fix a bug in Scale Composition by correctly handling locked layers!)
3) Resize the comp as you have above.
4) Move the null half the difference in width to the right.
5) Delete the 3D null.

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 kind of footage are you using in your project?

Yes, resetting preferences is a good trouble-shooting step for strange Ae behavior. Close Ae, then re-launch it and hold Ctrl+Alt+Shift while Ae is starting.

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Eojin Kim] “As I now see that 5GB of RAM usage isn’t unusual for AE, I will try all of your methods to see which one brings down the RAM level to a reasonable degree.”

You will not reduce RAM usage by any of these methods; you will increase the length of the preview within the same amount of RAM.

To limit how much RAM Ae uses, go to Edit > Preferences > Memory… and set the “RAM reserved for other applications” higher.

However, I do not think we should assume that low RAM is the cause of your crashes. Can you describe what happens when Ae crashes? Are you usually doing the same kind of thing when Ae crashes? Do you get any error messages? Have you tried resetting your preferences at all?

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 sounds like you might be applying your effects to an adjustment layer(s) above the logo and the video?

If that’s the case, you can precompose [link] everything but your video (select all layers EXCEPT your video layer and press Cmd+Shift+C) and it should look as you expect.

Otherwise, if you share a screenshot, we might be able to help better.

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 don’t need to write your own event handler; ScriptUI provides one for you.

Try this sample:

var win = new Window ("dialog", "Keypress");
win.add ("button", undefined, "Cancel");
win.addEventListener ("keydown", function (k) { myKeyDownEventHandler(k)} );

function myKeyDownEventHandler(key) {
writeLn("You pressed " + key.keyName);
win.close();
}

win.show();


When the script is invoked, it attaches an event handler to the window. When a key is pressed, it calls the “myKeyDownEventHandler” function. This is what you’d need to customize to run your macros; for now, this shows the key you pressed in the Info panel. After detecting a keypress, it automatically closes the window.

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 slider should be added to the layer you wish to control. Once you’ve done that, you can select it in the Effects Control Panel and hit Enter to rename it “Progress”.

The expression should be added to the position property that has the motion path on it. With the layer selected, press P to reveal the Position property, then Alt+click its stopwatch and paste the expression.

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 are correct that Ae indicates frames cached in RAM with a green line and frames cached in disk with a blue line.

There are a number of features in the Preview panel that control how preview playback works. Perhaps you have “Cache Before Playback” enabled, which tells Ae to render the range defined in the preview panel into its RAM cache before playback, subject to availability of free RAM.

Cache Before Playback is valuable for keeping playback real-time, but of course it can be limiting if you don’t have enough RAM to store your entire rendered comp in memory at the same time.

There are a couple of things beyond “get more RAM” that you can do to preview longer ranges, but they are all compromises in one way or another:

1) Disable “cache before playback” (may result in slower-than-realtime playback)
2) Set either your viewer or the Preview resolution lower (lower-res, softer/blockier image during preview)
2) Set “Skip” to value higher than 0 to skip frames during preview (jittery movement during preview)

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

[Walter Soyka]

1) Ae generally manages its own memory pretty responsibly. Are you sure you’re having a crash due to lack of memory? I wasn’t able to find a previous post where you’ve mentioned the application crashing. I do see that you’re not able to preview beyond a few seconds, so I’ll comment over in your other thread. Can you please confirm which behavior it is you’re seeing?

2) Your memory usage sounds perfectly plausible. Ae stores frames internally in memory as uncompressed images at the size of the comp and the bit depth of the project — and that adds up fast! A single 1920×1080 frame at 8bpc requires about 4 MB of RAM; a 3840×2160 frame at 8bpc requires about 16 MB. At 30fps, 10 seconds of 8bpc, 3840×2160 video is 4,826 MB. And that’s just for the composited image; that doesn’t count any individual layer caches.

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

[Walter Soyka]

Hi Dave,

The whole expression is there — it’s just one line — but because of the way CreativeCOW handles formatting for code, it scrolls horizontally. You should be able to select the whole thing, either by triple-clicking it or by drag-selecting from left to right.

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