[Walter Soyka]

I just tried Wiggling Rotation on the latest release, and it seems to work fine. You do need much larger magnitude values than you might expect. I suggest using the Graph view to see what exactly it’s doing.

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Johan Bakke] “Is there any way I can select all photos and make them sync to the keyframes or do I have to do this manually?”

Put all your photos in a precomp (let’s call it PHOTOS), set the duration of each photo to be one single frame, then use the Sequence Layers Keyframe Assistant [link] to put them all back-to-back with no overlap.

In your main comp, select your PHOTOS precomp layer and enable Time Remapping. (Either go to the Layer menu, select Time, then select Time Remapping, or press the shortcut key Ctrl+Alt+T on Windows, Cmd+Opt+T on macOS).

Alt+click the animation stopwatch for the Time Remap property and paste this expression:
// use the pickwhip to select the layer and property which holds the keyframes we should use to advance the comp
keyframeSource = thisComp.layer("Keyframe layer").effect("Slider Control")("Slider");

// find the index of the closest keyframe to the current time
keyframeIndex = keyframeSource.nearestKey(time).index;

// if the closest keyframe hasn't happened yet (in other words, we're closer to the next keyframe than the last one),
// go back one. We'll hold on the previous keyframe until the next one actually happens
if (keyframeSource.nearestKey(time).time > time){
keyframeIndex--;
}

// if we haven't hit the first keyframe yet, reset our index to the first keyframe's index
if (keyframeIndex < 1) {
keyframeIndex = 1;
};

// decrement and return the keyframe index. Keyframes are indexed from 1, but frames are indexed from 0
--keyframeIndex;

// time remapping expects time in seconds, but we've been counting frames. let's convert and return!
framesToTime(keyframeIndex);


You will need to modify one line: the one that starts with keyframeSource =

Delete the rest of that line, then use the pickwhip to select the property in your timeline that contains the keyframes. Don’t forget to add a semicolon at the end of the line.

The precomp will advance one frame for every keyframe in your linked property.

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

[Walter Soyka]

So you’re rendering to QuickTime, with Animation as your codec? I don’t think that the native Windows media player has an Animation codec decoder. Unless you install a viewer that can read these files (VLC is a good one), the media may appear black.

Installing Adobe Media Encoder does not make H.264 available in the After Effects render queue. You must either render to an intermediate file from Ae and then compress that file to H.264 in AME, or your must add your Ae comp to AME (either via drag and drop, or via the Queue in AME button in Ae’s render queue). Then, you can choose H.264 as a format and get MP4 files as your output.

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Pierre Valliere] “So if all my production is DNxHR MXF OP1a (UHD 23.98), what r my option (better) for transparency? There is no DNxHR MXF preset that do transparency? Animation from After effect to Premiere, better option is to do png sequence then? Dynamic link?”

I can’t find a way to get DNxHR MXF to carry alpha, either.

Why not use MXF-wrapped DNxHR for your camera originals and MOV-wrapped DNxHR (or CineForm) for any animation or effects shots?

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 really think that a QuickTime wrapper is the way to go. MXF isn’t an option, and AVI is somewhat poorly supported (not really cross-platform, and no direct support for an AVI mezzanine codec in Creative Cloud).

Adobe has written direct, native, cross-platform support for a handful of QuickTime codecs, including CineForm and DNxHR. As a Creative Cloud user, you can use these formats without installing any third-party software — which means you don’t even have to install Apple QuickTime!

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 errors does it throw specifically?

Have you tried rebooting the computer?

If you can hold Shift while opening a project, Ae will close any open comps during load so they don’t try to render right away — that can be very helpful for getting past issues like this.

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 can snap text layers to guides on the current release of Ae.

Have you tried maybe resetting your preferences? Hold Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS) while starting After Effects.

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

[Walter Soyka]

Sure, that’s possible. You can use the depth map as a track matte [link] on your adjustment layer.

Alternately, you could use a Compound Blur effect with the depth map and an Add or Screen blend mode.

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

[Walter Soyka]

There are a couple third-party script options that might be helpful:

https://aescripts.com/true-comp-duplicator/

https://www.vdodna.com/blog/true-layer-duplicator-script-for-after-effects/

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

[Walter Soyka]

Excellent! It’s literally impossible to deliver this work without speaking to the source. I’m glad to hear that everything worked out well.

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