[Will Cavanagh]

There is a way to export geometry of the scene in C4D to be read by an AE plug. This way, you can import the C4D scene info and have, for example, a null tracked to the laptop screen in 3d space with a matching camera. This eliminates the need for tracking and will allow for a much cleaner composite.

Combine this with an export of just the screen object used as a trackmatte, and you have a much better way of compositing this shot.

Good Luck!
–Will

[Will Cavanagh]

I started writing this a long time ago and never submitted it… for what it’s worth, here it is.

Hmmm? The Linear switch DID do the job for my richochet effect and the footage split also worked for the motion blur problem but I still cant get the ball to gradually get smaller even with the 3d mode selected.

I also couldn’t get the ball to the back wall while the 3D tool was selected because it was making the ball to small to fast if that makes sense, so I tried messing with the scale level again with 3D selected but again it made the ball too small again.

I’m not sure I’m understanding this correctly…

do you have a ball layer — a picture of a ball, and a wall layer – a solid positioned in 3d space back from the ball?

If so, you can just keyframe the Z coordinate of the ball layer back in space until it is equal to the Z position coordinate of the wall layer. If you already have position keyframes on the ball, you can adjust those keyframes, or you could parent the layer to a 3d null and adjust the position of that null (or use expressions to separate the Z coordinate of the ball into a separate control.)

If it moves to fast when you use the 3d widget, hold down control and try again, or use the value slider of the property (for scale, select the layer and tap “s” on the keyboard to bring this up.)

I’ll bet there’s an easy way to simply tell the program to start at 100% and gradually go to 20% by the time you reach the next keyframe at the back wall.

This is the idea of keyframing — telling the program to scale values from a start value to an end value. Any property that can be keyframed in AE can be adjusted over time using this method, and that means almost any setting or property can be adjusted with keyframes. I recommend you read or watch tutorials on working with keyframes in AE if you don’t understand how to do this.

I also couldn’t find the Disable mask option.
This is a switch below the video playback in the Composition window. It looks like a dotted line polygon. I’m still not in front of my AE system, so I can’t get you a screenshot or tell you if it’s somewhere in the menus… Maybe someone else can help you out there. You can also hit Apple+Shift+H, but this won’t get you any closer to hiding wireframes.

If you’re new to AE, check out the Tutorials on this site, and pay a visit to VideoCopilot.net — Andrew Kramer has great tutorials — start at the beginning and work your way up!

–Will

[Will Cavanagh]

Double check that the frame your last TR keyframe is on is in fact the last frame of the comp. Usually, when you make a new comp, the last frame that TR automatically sets to is an empty frame. To fix this, drop down the TR property of the layer (in this case it would be a comp), go to the last keyframe, hit page up, add a keyframe, select the last keyframe and delete it. It sounds to me like this could resolve your problem.

[Will Cavanagh]

This sounds like an interpolation issue. Basically, AE is trying to smooth out the spatial motion of the camera, and the position is sort of “rubber-banding.” Try right-clicking on the keyframe in the middle, opening the keyframe interpolation window, and setting spatial interpolation to linear. This will mean the if your keyframes are not lined up on X/Y, the camera will appear to “slide” rather than “arc” into place. If this is a problem for you, there are other ways to get around this, but for now, this is the easiest method. If you do need to animate in other directions, try breaking out X Y and Z into different properties (Andrew Kramer has a tutorial on this I believe.)

I recommend reading up on keyframe interpolation in AE if you’re interested in better understanding your problem. This is a good resource, it says CS3, but the concepts are for the most part the same in later and earlier versions.

[Will Cavanagh]

I’ve run into something somewhat similar with QT before… Sometimes it seems that QT doesn’t get PAR correct, and will display non-square PAR video in square pixels.

In QT Pro, hit Appl+J, and select “Video Track”. Make sure the dimensions are correct and that preserve PAR is checked. This has usually made QT play things correctly for us, but I don’t have any idea why.

Good Luck, hopefully someone will have a better answer.

–Will

[Will Cavanagh]

Problems:
1. How do I make the ball get progressivly smaller as it heads for the back wall (12ft away)? I tried setting the scale smaller with the back wall keyframe but that made the ball smaller in the foreground as well.

You could try using 3d space for this. Set the 3d Switch for your ball layer on, and use the Position Z property to animate it forward and back. Using scale could also create an illusion of distance, but if you want to add more complicated animation later, it could be good to use AE’s 3d space for this.

2. I only need the motion blur at the time the ball begins to rocket off, not while it’s sitting there still for 3 seconds.

Unfortunately, you can only specify motion blur for the entire sequence on and off, and this is not keyframeable. If you are running into render time issues on more complex projects, you can break the layer (Cntrl+alt+D) and turn the motion blur switch off on the first half.

You could also accomplish this using scripts – email me if you want to know more about this.

3. I want the richocet bounces to be straight lines but AE seems to want to curve them at each angle, I tried hitting the shift button to keep straight lines but that just worked sraight up or down.

this is a question of spatial interpolation. try right-clicking on the keyframes you want to be angular, choosing “keyframe interpolation” and setting spatial interpolation to linear.

4. Is there any way to make adjustments to an object (Especially small objects) without those pesky wireframes covering your image? I cant see what my image is doing when the adjustment frame covers them.

I believe there is a way to do this, but I’m not in front of an AE system at the moment — try looking below the video (near the Disable Mask Overlay switch.)

Sorry if I appear to be a moron, just had this for a day and a half.
We’re all noobs at one time!

–Will

[Will Cavanagh]

You can use motion tracking to stabilize motion, assuming there are distinctive shapes that are in the frame and unobscured. (See here.)
The problem with this is that you will need to have more resolution in the source footage than you will need for the end product. This technique will also be ineffective if the camera’s location moves at all. This means that jitter in where the camera is aimed can be removed as long as the camera is held in the same place. Deliberate camera moves will also be removed by this technique (as long as the track points are in frame) so it can take a lot of tweaking to make it work correctly. Obviously, your best option is to do it right in production so you don’t have to fix it in post! 😉