Adobe After Effects Help Thread

[kazehonki]

Hey! i have a question @_@' it could be a silly one, but a question is a question \o/~

well, im using " after effects " and shinjipierre's script, but i cant find the " space control " thing in which people are discussing so much about on the topic... so, would u guys mind telling me where i can find it?

i appreciate any kind of help =D~

[ze Moose]

The space control is not available in the older versions of shinji's script. I think v0.73 is the latest. After you've loaded the .ass/.ssa, the space control should be the last layer in the timeline, below the text layers.

[Cyclops]

hi, I'm new here, and I've a question for you, I'm creating text effects with AE (not only the karaoke) for an anime movie (1h 30m) and when I finish, I have no idea of how encode them. In the beggining I think I would have to cut the raw in pieces and then, combine the whole video with effects with virtual dub, but now I think this is crazy, I don't even know if that's possible. Later I think that encoding the whole raw with all the effects with after effects would be easier but I change my mind when I imagined that I would be days enconding with AE and the video will be over than 30 gb...

So... I need your help, I'm sure that there is another way to do it, but I don't know it, I have read over here something like encode it as "overlay" or something like that...

Thanks in advance, I'm really lost in the process right now...

[Skyward]

The overlay method described in various parts of this thread demonstrates how the encoder will overlay the AFX on top of the regular video using AviSynth. This way it's easy for the AFX magician to make the effects and send them to the encoder without actually modifying the video. From an encoding standpoint, it's pretty simple to add the effects on the video, and doesn't require the encoder to make a bunch of separate physical videos before adding em back together.

[Cyclops]

I've been making tests with the overlay and now I have several videos of RGBA effects, but now I need a script for making the effects appear and dissappear at the frame I want. For example, I used this script for an overlay:

DirectShowSource("D:\MU\movie.mp4")
sign01 = avisource("C:\maskstart.avi")
overlay(sign01, mask=sign01.showalpha())
Textsub("C:\Users\Cyclops\Desktop\subs.ass")

This code make the RGBA video appear from frame 0 to its end, but how can I control the start and the end frames?
thanks

[Sylf]

Use trim.

To make things easier, people build a function in a separate file which they can just import. See this post for an example.

[Cyclops]

following that post I finally completed the avs using overlay, but now i have another problem... at the end of the video, the subs gets delayed about 2 seconds, as if it lost one frame for every overlay I used, is it normal? do you know why is this happening and how can I fix it?

PD: sorry for making so many questions

[ze Moose]

Different frame rates on your overlay render and the original video perhaps?

[martino]

Originally Posted by ze Moose

Different frame rates on your overlay render and the original video perhaps?

IIRC overlay doesn't care about the framerate, it just grabs a frame and overlays it, then goes for the next one and so on...

Please post your avs script, might be of some help when troubleshooting your problem.

[Cyclops]

it's like this one:

DirectShowSource("D:\MU\movie.mp4")
sign01 = avisource("C:\mask01.avi")
sign02 = avisource("C:\mask02.avi")
trim(0,500)+trim(501,1000).overlay(sign01, mask=sign01.showalpha())+trim(1001,1500)+trim(1501,2000).overlay(sign02, mask=sign02.showalpha())+trim(2001,0)
Textsub("C:\Users\Cyclops\Desktop\subs.ass")

this frames aren't real, because the avs is really long, at least 26~30 overlays, but is the same script

[martino]

Well, DSS doesn't have frame accurate seeking, but that wouldn't cause a 2 second difference (usually it's up to 2 frames, or from what I've noticed). Try setting the fps argument in DSS, that might do some magix. Your best option is to either use something that supports frame accurate seeking (ffmpegsource or DSS2) or convert to lossless. The other thing is that you might have messed up your trims somewhere. And with so many overlays I wouldn't be surprised. Try the function posted in the AviSynth Help thread. It should make it less painful...

[Cyclops]

After hours of wasted time changing fps, converting to avi and other things I decided to see the movie for seeing when it start delaying the subs, and i noticed that in 2 scenes, it made something strange with the sound, so I rechecked the frames in the overlays and i found out that there were two mistaken frames so... it's done, thanks for your help ^^

[Vicfred]

any idea why im still gettin the real annoyin spaces with v7.3?

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1644/annoyinghj0.png

[dj_tjerk]

There's this null layer at the bottom, which has a slider effect.. try sliding that to a negative value and see what happens..

[Himeko Himura]

Question~ ^__^;

I need help on how to do the nice little sparklies that fall from words. Granted, I am still a newbie when it comes to AFX, but I know how to do effects on the words, but making things fall from them has me stumped.

Here's a video on what I'm talking about, since I really don't know how to explain it. The effect that I need help on is after the first line of karaoke (starts at 00:17 on)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3SvYqSobD0

Also, how do they do the moving pictures in the background of the karaoke in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcg-rci8l8E

sorry for all the questions *sweatdropsweatdrop*

[[darkfire]]

Originally Posted by Himeko Himura

Question~ ^__^;

I need help on how to do the nice little sparklies that fall from words. Granted, I am still a newbie when it comes to AFX, but I know how to do effects on the words, but making things fall from them has me stumped.

Here's a video on what I'm talking about, since I really don't know how to explain it. The effect that I need help on is after the first line of karaoke (starts at 00:17 on)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3SvYqSobD0

Also, how do they do the moving pictures in the background of the karaoke in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcg-rci8l8E

sorry for all the questions *sweatdropsweatdrop*

Even though you can do this in AFX. I don't belive it is...
Kingofbeer made it so, judging by that alone I think its in ASS

[Himeko Himura]

Really? I thought it would some sort of plugin that I haven't mastered yet *sweatdropsweatdrop*

so even the picture thing can be done in ASS?

[dj_tjerk]

Actually ... jfs has done quite well programming all things like guessing/calculating the position of the syllables, so it might be easier to do so in .ass. Of course it's possible in after effects too, but I think it's easier for a starter to use .ass, as there are a lot of example scripts. If you persist in using after effects however, take a look at Trapcode Particular.

[offtopic edit]
How did you calculate those positions anyway jfs? text box size/amount of characters? Small letters like 'i' give problems then don't they?

[ze Moose]

Actually I'd have a question about that. How do I link a generator effect, like Trapcode Particular to the sung syllables while using shinji's .ass import script?

Normally I duplicate the text layer and add 0% opacity to the keyframe style so that only the sung syllable is visible for that layer. Now I would add the effect to that layer and it works like it should since it's only visible when the syllable is sung. But with Particular for example is doesn't work like this since it seems to be ignoring the keyframe styles and the effect is just slammed to the center of the composition.

[dj_tjerk]

Hmm.. iirc I already posted something about that, exploding syllables into particles.. but here's one line that looks like shinji's Solty Rei OP, not made with shinji's script, but may just work with it.

If it doesn't work.. say so and i'll try figuring out how to make it work with shinji's script.. btw.. take a look at the expression for particles/sec.

Note: this is just for one line.. if you want to do multiple lines you can change the expression so that you still only need one solid with particular and one emitter; example of it is my blue dragon ED for oedipus (one ep release ftw), project file here

Expression particles/sec for one line

Spoiler:

if (thisComp.layer(thisLayer.index - 1).text.animator("Keyframe style 1").selector("Karaoke selector").end.valueAtTime(time + thisComp.frameDuration) != thisComp.layer(thisLayer.index - 1).text.animator("Keyframe style 1").selector("Karaoke selector").end) {  
      part = 200000;
    }
else { 
    part = 0;
}
part

Expression for 5 lines

Spoiler:

part = 0;
for ($i = 1; $i <=4; $i++) {
   if (thisComp.layer(thisLayer.index - $i).text.animator("Keyframe style 1").selector("Karaoke selector").end.valueAtTime(time + thisComp.frameDuration) != thisComp.layer(thisLayer.index - $i).text.animator("Keyframe style 1").selector("Karaoke selector").end) {  
      part = 200000;
   }
}
part