Hi
I have been going through the lessons in CIAB, everything was fine until I got to Lesson 6 'Animating Layers' specifically in the 'Animating shadows' section. The details given by the book are a bit confusing...the animation seems completely wrong according to the steps that are indicated in the exercise. Is it possible that there's an error in the information, has anybody else had this problem?
I'm the only promo guy at my station that's still on CC 2017 -- everyone else is on CC 2019. The reason: our IT lady has not yet told me that the Home Office has approved CC 2018. So why are the other folks on the other versions? You got me by the short hairs! I care not one whit.
Frankly, I'm glad -- I do a lot of Avid work and the common currency in media files on my mainly-Avid machine is Quicktime. CC 2018 & later screwed up the codecs.
On your machines, I'd make damn sure to purge memory & caches regularly & frequently. And tell that one CC 2019 guy to quit being so stinkin' fancy and backsave his projects so saner members of the department can use them on their more reliable versions.
Hey, the other folks in my department backsave for me!
OK, I want to start with 3D animations. Many times I am using Adobe Dimmension to create product scenes. Sometimes I need to create also short promo video. So I need to import OBJ files made in Dimension, and animate it in After Effect (just simple rotating, light effects etc.). Do I have to buy extra plugin for AE to do it like "Elemend 3D"?
I agree with lucas. Although your composition settings are also pretty unusual. I suggest you avoid trying to apply custom settings & stick with the presets. If you need something that is not covered by one of the presets that would be a good time to come here and ask how to set that up
Moving back to CC 2018 does work.
And as an aside Dave, I find 2018 pretty reliable now for AE. Premiere is full of bugs after CC 2017 though.
I have this book, what is the problem? Can you share more details? And some screenshots.
Adobe help, has many learning stuff. Adobe After Effects Learn & Support
I suggest you to download the pdf manual https://helpx.adobe.com/content/dam/help/en/pdf/after_effects_reference.pdf
There is MANY ways to create masks, is not so simple like a "tool that make masks". A good thing, is that Adobe use the same icons in all apps, so by the time you will familiarize with most basic tools and proccess.
I'm not sure that Dimension can export obj files but let say that you have obj file from some other place. To use it in AE you can use one of several 3rd party plugins as mentioned by you Element 3D (or Plexus, Particular, Stardust that aso have obj import ability - but not exactly for full 3d modeling). Or you can use built in Cinema 4D lite and Cineware plugin (also built) that is installed with your AE.
Here some learning materials for that: See what’s possible with Cinema 4D Lite |
Im sorry it took so long to respond. I finally had a chance to try this, but I get the error
"Unable to execute script at line 8. undefined is not an object"
Line 8 is:
if (thislayer.selected) selectedLayers.push(i);
I have the comp selected. I have nothing but the shape layers im wanting to pre-compose in the comp, and I have them all highlighted/selected before running the script.
Since it's a script and not an expression, I don't think I have to define an index number/range, so im at a bit of a loss on whats goin' on here.
Try to purge your memory and disk cash before start the render. go to Edit/Purge/All Memory and disk cache
Maybe I was a bit wordy in my post but my point is that there should be an easy to find list somewhere with all the symbols listed alphabetically or maybe grouped into related symbols. The tutorials are easy to locate, so is the users guide, as well as thorough explanations of masking and the various ways to accomplish it.
A full, concise legend of symbols? Not so much.
Sorry, missed a line when I pasted:
var moveAllAttributes = true;
var laycol = app.project.activeItem.layers;
// first cache the array of layer selections, starting at the bottom
var selectedLayers = new Array();
for (var i=laycol.length; i>0; i--) {
var thislayer = laycol[i];
if (thislayer.selected) selectedLayers.push(i);
}
// now precompose them individually
for (var s=0; s<selectedLayers.length; s++) {
var thislayer = laycol[selectedLayers[s]];
var precomp_name = thislayer.name;
laycol.precompose([selectedLayers[s]],precomp_name,moveAllAttributes);
}
Personally I find most of them to be pretty self explanatory.
Also their location is contextual to the type of action.
So actions related to layers are along the top of the layer panel
Actions associated with overall composition settings are along the bottom of the comp panel.
Project actions the project panel & tools along the top (The tools are really self explanatory ones)
I also know for a fact it would take longer to refer to a "legend" than it would to hover over two or three icons.
Also in hovering over a couple of "wrong" icons you "accidentally" get to learn what those icons are .
So you're not really wasting your time....you're learning. Just another way to look at things.
Ya know, 100 ways NOT to make a light bulb type of thing.
However if you feel a legend would be a better way to go you submit a feature request here
Feature Request/Bug Report Form
Yet another way to look at things is to create a legend yourself...maybe using Photoshop or illustrator.
Make it pretty. Have a few laminated and sell them on Amazon for $5 a pop.
By the time you're done you'll know what every icons means and have a handy dandy reference and maybe you'll earn a few monies here and there.
I should also mention there are already number of very slick "quick reference" sheets available on Amazon that people have made. I own two of them.
Maybe you can find what you're looking for there for 4 or 5 $
So, I'll share what I did.
On Windows, the path to the temporary folder (where the file to render will end up) might contain unicode characters, as mentioned above. I decided to go ahead with DOS "8.3 aliases." The catch is that these only work for files/folders that already exist; since I'm referring to a file that I'm about to render, the file doesn't exist yet. But the directory does. So I convert the directory with the win32 PathGetShortName API. On Mac, the temp directory is not a problem.
For the filename itself, I just create a new filename substituting unicode characters (i.e. !isascii( )) with their integer representation, so "helloç" becomes "hello231".
Concatenate the two above, and you have a fully ascii, cross-platform solution to the problem.
Only caveat is that some systems disable 8.3 aliases, so in this case the Windows solution won't work in every case.
Hope this helps someone...
Thanks Roland
I have a layer and I applied high computational effect on that layer . like "Camera lens blur".
The preview is slow and let's say it takes 2 min to Ram Preview 10 sec
I then added another footage (mp4) on top . It plays in realtime since the mp4 footage doesnt have any effects and is completely 100% opacity.
Then I added Selective color effect to the mp4 layer. Now the RAM Preview takes 2 min to render WHY ???
If I turn off the layer below with camera lens blur, it's superfast to ram preview .
Is it supposed to preview only the layer above and ignore the layer below since it's opacity is at 100% ???
If I apply Hue/Sat instead of selective color, it's again fast.
IS THIS A BUG ?? in 2018 and 2019 ?? Im getting same issue.
PLEASE FIX if this is a bug .
THANXXXXXX
Hello, Have the same problem. (RubberHose 2.10) Did you have any luck to solve this?
nugasm38692845 wrote
Is it supposed to preview only the layer above and ignore the layer below since it's opacity is at 100% ???
No. Doesn't sound like a bug. 2 minutes for 10 seconds does not sound all that unreasonable. The camera lens blur is, as you said, a high computational effect. And it does not matter if you have a fully opaque layer above it..AE will continue to process any layer and any effect as long as that layer is present in the timeline whether or not there's another layer over it. This is why it's good practice to trim the in and out points of layers when they aren't being seen.
And BTW. This is not the place to request a bug fix. You do that here: Feature Request/Bug Report Form
Thank you for the suggestion, but didn't work :/
The TextEdit pop-up that comes with it is the exact same as the one from before... what should I do now?
Can you post a pic of you're render setting in After Effects.
