Adobe After Effects Help Thread

[Sylf]

It's not your sign that moving horizontally. The panning image is not horizontally stable. It's hard to see, but it's not 100% clean vertical scroll. Perhaps you'll have a better result using motion tracking rather than doing a linear move.

[raziel666]

Sylf, thanks for the answer. Really I can't tell that it's not a 100% vertical scroll, but I'll take your word for that. I will try to user motion tracking - though I have never used it before, but is there any good guide you recommend (since I found dozens with a simple searc)? Thanks in advance.

[dj_tjerk]

guide? just use F1.. and for funzies.. duplicate your video, set blending mode to difference (if you don't see it .. press 'switches/modes' button at bottom or add a column), freezeframe (right mouse click -> time -> freezeframe) it on the first frame of your 'motion', animate the position, set a keyframe for position at the end of your motion too.. and see what's with the frames inbetween.. or do make it a bit easier.. here's the aep with what i described above (I only got CS3.. so i hope you do too somewhere).

When i'm lazy I use motion tracking.. otherwise i do it frame by frame with that difference layer.. and make it the parent of whatever sign should move.. problem is that motion tracking is rarely accurate/stable, and doing it frame by frame just costs a lot of time..

[raziel666]

Indeed, motion tracking worked miracles in this case! Just a question though: is there a way to apply motion tracking to an object that moves in the z-axis as well?

[dj_tjerk]

You'd have to track size? That acts odd in some cases.. this afternoon i tried it.. it uses two tracking points, but after a while it just.. ignores any change and stays on the same position. Maybe i used a wrong searching algorithm (use help), don't remember. In the end I did it by hand.

Anyway.. for size.. enable the checkbox in the tracker control panel, and it will add two tracking points instead of one.

[martino]

I've been wondering whether there is a way of extracting position values from objects in the timeline into ASS/SSA or just some easily readable format that can be used for further manipulation.

Example of what I mean would be like using motion tracking to generate positions for non-linear motion, and then export them for use in ASS/SSA (yes, would be line-by-line). Why do this? Well, what if we wanted to softsub signs...

Thanks

[dj_tjerk]

write a script (jsx) that does it for you.. fairly easy.. problem is.. i don't know what it should look like in .ass.. if you could give an example of that then i might know what to do :P

EDIT:
though.. i wonder anchor point's gonna act up.. and alignment.. ah well :P

[Akatsuker]

Hey, i've got a newbie question for you, guys. Appreciate your help, sorry for bad english.

Is there any way to making a preset animation, only one, and so apply that one to all the timed
Syllable on a imported karaoke? I'm just starting on AFX, and I can't see, for now, a way to do what I said. Should I have to keep doin' this, the same, all the time?

Cumps.

Benjamin

[martino]

Originally Posted by dj_tjerk

write a script (jsx) that does it for you.. fairly easy.. problem is.. i don't know what it should look like in .ass.. if you could give an example of that then i might know what to do :P

EDIT:
though.. i wonder anchor point's gonna act up.. and alignment.. ah well :P

Screw alignment and anchor points! :P (for basic use anyway ^^)

What it should look like like in .ASS? What exactly do you mean? Let's just say that it would ignore the starting position, but start from frame 0 and work its way frame through frame, so that'd be something like

Dialogue: 0,0:00:00.00,0:00:00.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,{\pos(50,0)}Something
Dialogue: 0,0:00:00.04,0:00:00.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,{\pos(60,0)}Something
etc

Where the position values would be extracted from the object in the timeline...

Ergh... I suppose this isn't really helpful.

[dj_tjerk]

It's not impossible.. but basically you're just exporting a sign out of AE then.

• alignment has to be the same (asked for or whatever), which means left in AE = 1 in ass, (centre = 2, right = 3)?
• other paragraph stuff (can't access those with scripting/expressions in AE) have to be set to 0 pixels
• text should be known, or type it <framecount> times in aegisub/notepad
• offset time should be known (not that big a problem.. you can always shift lines in aegisub)
• many other unforeseen problems/prerequisites(?)

guess i should give it a shot >_>

EDIT:
Heh.. doesnt really look good at normal res.. not even on higher resolutions.. i might've screwed up somewhere (though somehow, i think it's not supposed to work .. ever.. but please prove me wrong), anyway.. here's the link to the script >_>

[mad_cracker]

Originally Posted by shinjipierre

Well, jfs is right and false at the same time...

The fact is.. we can recreate the 3d of a 2d image... It's often used in movies and such, it's called camera mapping.

Well, and the thing you're trying to do is a stereoscopic rendering.

It may be possible to create depending on the video and the time you wish to spend... because you would have to 3d track the whole video with programs such a boujou, pftrack, matchmover... and use a stereoscopic renderer in a 3d application like 3dsmax or maya...

But well, this is an animesuki post, I don't think this is the answer you wanted ^^.

That seems pretty hard
Maybe I should give up the idea. Thanks for the info.
And btw I love your work. I'm training everyday to be an artist like you. Keep being my idol with that talent of yours

[JediNight]

I'm just getting back into the swing of things after being away from fansubbing for awhile. Is there any consolidated thread about karaoke animation scripts for AfterFX anywhere online thats still active? Or just the couple questions in this thread?

I was currently playing around with the script from Paul Tuersley available here:
http://www.aenhancers.com/viewtopic....sd=a&start=120

But I hear you say shinjipierre has also created one. Anyone know how they compare?

Also, at least related to Paul's script -- is there any way to have a lead-in animation before the karaoke line starts? That script only seems to support displaying the entire line at once, but I know I've seen karaoke in various subs that has like a cascading animation into place before the line is begun to be sung.

[shinjipierre]

Well, for the lead-in, you'll probably have to do by yourself....

In these scripts we're automating everything we "really" need... the karaoke keys.

If you want a lead-in or out for a sentence... Just add an expression on the sentence or just usual keyframes if you don't really know how to use expressions.

Paul has done 2 scripts, by the way, maybe the "second" one has lead-in and out properties, it's supposed to be fully automated. you'll have to check by yourself.

[JediNight]

Yeah I learn best from testing stuff myself, so I don't really have a good grasp on expressions yet and how they work. Do you have any examples online I might look at?

[dj_tjerk]

Best to give an indication of what leadin animation you're looking for.. basically expressions are just simple javascript, all you need to learn is what properties/attributes an object has (property is what it's called in javascript, because of layers having properties in after effects, they're called attributes).

A good scripting reference is the scripting guide

Sometimes writing an expression takes more time than doing it by hand (say opacity.. ), so think about that before you decide to either write/do it by hand.

Lynda.com's tutorials have a chapter on expressions.. and googling for "After Effects Expressions" gives you many results..

A little example of an expressions you apply to the end selector of an animator for say.. opacity (set opacity to 0%, and in advanced, set it to "based on lines")

duration_fadein = thisComp.layer("I love this tense [master]").effect("leadin")("Slider")
duration_fadeout = thisComp.layer("I love this tense [master]").effect("leadout")("Slider")

if ( time <= thisLayer.inPoint + duration_fadein ) { 
   opac = 100 - ( (time - thisLayer.inPoint) / duration_fadein) * 100;
}
else if (time >= thisLayer.outPoint - duration_fadeout ) {
   opac = 100 - ((thisLayer.outPoint - time) / duration_fadeout) * 100;
}
else {
   opac = 0;
}
opac

Here's a picture of how i applied it..

For funzies i referenced the length of fadein/fadeout to a layer with also this animator.. so i only need to change the values in that layer, to change the values in all layers

[raziel666]

Does anyone who has used AFX CS3 recommend it over version 7.0? Is there any significant difference he/she has discovered? Thanks a lot.

[ReAn]

Originally Posted by raziel666

Does anyone who has used AFX CS3 recommend it over version 7.0? Is there any significant difference he/she has discovered? Thanks a lot.

On the technical side, I personally dont notice anything. (Dosent mean that there isn't any, im sure someone technical could fill you in with the intricate details of all the high end math / codec info etc, but im not that person). CS3 dosent really bring in anything amazingly new, you still have to use most of the same tricks to get your source loaded, etc...

On the utility side, it looks a little different, probably is a bit more efficient at some algos.

The real beauty behind CS3 is that if you buy the master suite, all apps are linked, so you can open a new photoshop layer in a project and WHAZAM, you're editing it with photoshop, or in premiere you can add an AFX clip, which saves you a hell of a lot of time, but of course this is only if you buy the MASTER SUITE, which is $1000's of dollars and comes with every imaginable adobe product ever.

Edit: Oh yea, slightly larger overhead for a flashier UI, and all that intermediate crap used to link the applications (even installed if you dont have MS).

[Yuudai-kun]

There are some new tools in CS3, the shape layers and per-text-3D might be useful for fansubbers, other tools probably won't. (Though i really like playing with the Brainstorm tool )
Also CS3 finally includes the layer styles of Photoshop!

Here's an overview of most of the new features explained with video: (you have to sign up but can use a fake email )

http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=411

Note that with the new Extrude Shape Effect, you can also make real vectorbased 3DText within AE without using a 3rd party plugin.

All in all some cool features, but i can't tell you if it's worth paying so much money for it.

[Paul Tuersley]

Just to let you all know, I've posted an update to my SSA Animator script:
http://www.aenhancers.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=380



I've also finally got around to writing a user guide for it!

Paul

[[darkfire]]

That different way of doing karaoke. Still on syllable instead of move on syllable. Glad to see its being worked on. Is there any CS3 features with it.