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Filed under: Motion Graphics •Year End Lists •

What AE’s Still Missing…

Animated Mask Points

Problem: Wouldn’t it be great to be able to animate every mask point individually? In addition to precise control over paths for effects, it would particularly be handy in conjunction with the motion tracker for animated rotoscoping…

Solution: Believe or not, not one but several people have already cracked this problem over on AEnhancers.com: There’s the classic Rototracker Palette, the brand-new Tracker2Mask, and the comprehensive TrackerViz. These are all scripts which may be easily added to After Effects. (If you have After Effects CS4, check to see if the script has been tested in CS4, and make sure you close any script user interface panel before quitting After Effects - otherwise, you will probably crash.)

In addition to applying track points to mask vertices, TrackerViz can average tracks together, correct drifting tracks, and use averaged tracks to calculate rotation and scale.

Returning to our theme of cheats: It’s not the same as keyframing each vertex, but remember you can use the Distort > Reshape effect to morph from one mask shape to another. Add correspondence points and align them with mask vertices to force them to align as the mask morphs.

Repeat & Replicate

Problem: Sure, After Effects CS3 got Shape Layers with a Repeater shape effect, and CS4 added a Wiggle Transform shape effect which makes it possible to randomize individual repetitions (we’re going to create a tutorial on that soon), but what if we want to replicate something other than a shape?

Solution: There are a few ways to go here: Expressions, Effects, and Other Applications.

On the Expression front, we wrote a column about how to use expressions to create simple snakes and swarms. On the plug-in front, there is the little-known Trapcode Echospace (fun, but occasionally hard to control), and the brand-new CFX Path Tools which includes Rakka: an effect which replicates animated layers with controls for random scale, offset and rotation, transfer modes, scale-in/out, fade-in/out, and the such per copy.

(By the way, while mentioning CFX Path Tools we should also mention Rakka’s partner Wiggle Stroke which finally takes a step toward giving us back the animated paint strokes we loved in Vector Paint and dearly wish Adobe would add to their own Paint engine.)

But if you really want to get into replicated madness, you might be better off looking outside After Effects. Two of our favorites include Motion’s Replicator (previewed here), and the insane MoGraph module for Cinema 4D. One of our New Year’s resolutions is to spend time mastering MoGraph in 2009.

Two examples of complex scenes which MoGraph makes much easier to create.

Of course we could go on and on, and everyone will have their own list of favorite missing features. But we hope that the above list not only spurs Adobe into action, but in the meantime also gives you some workarounds and ideas on how to achieve similar results.

By the way, you’d be surprised how many features you may have been wishing for that After Effects already has! We’re going to try to post a set of After Effects Tips on a more or less monthly basis over on our CMG Keyframes channel (Trish posted two installments last year, and just posted a third), plus we’re finishing up a free chapter on all of the relevant new features and changes between After Effects CS4 and CS4 - register here to be alerted when it’s available.

And remember: If you want to increase the chance your favorite feature will actually appear in After Effects some day, you have to let Adobe know. Click here for their official feature request and bug report form; click here to go to a forum thread which they also troll for features.

Good luck, and we look forward to hearing your own requests (and current workarounds)!

The content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for other sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed.

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Great overview. Looks like you guys are focused on improving 3D!

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/31  at  12:01 AM

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I guess, having dabbled in 3D almost as long as we’ve been using AE, that the 3D mindset is part of our brains (smile). Plus, AE is still easier to use than most 3D programs - so it would be nice if it could incorporate more of those motion graphics functions. I don’t expect to be able to do Star Wars or Jurassic Park in AE, but I would like to do an extruded logo reflecting the objects around it as it flies through a volumetric beam of light…

Posted by Chris Meyer  on  12/31  at  10:21 AM

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Great article, Chris! There’s definitely a few links in there to things I need to check out. And thanks for so prominently mentioning TrackerViz!

I wanted to mention something regarding curves in AE. The guys over at Frishluft have had a beta for a while now of a new curves interface.
http://www.frischluft.com/beta/

Here’s another shot of the interface.
http://www.simplycg.net/download/file.php?id=1044

It really makes using curves tons more fun! They haven’t updated this beta page for, hmmm, maybe a couple years now, but since it’s still up, so I assume they wouldn’t mind it being brought to people’s attention.

Posted by Sean Kennedy  on  12/31  at  01:14 PM

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Thanks, Sean, for the link to the Frischluft curves beta. I liked it when it was first released, but kept waiting for them to finish it (there’s a lot of dicey UI things they’re doing!). I hope they do someday.

But as Merzigue points out: Hey, Adobe - steal from yourselves! Why don’t we have PS’s UI for curves?!? (As well as for Layer Styles…)

happy new year -
Chris

Posted by Chris Meyer  on  01/01  at  02:57 PM

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Just a question - is there anyone out there doing actual compositing on AE, or is it all MoGraph stuff?

I find whenever I think to myself, “Oh, I’ll just comp this in AE, since I’m in it already,” I end up doing it Shake anyway after I waste time beating my head against AE’s baffling UI.

Posted by Charles Angus  on  01/02  at  06:20 AM

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Oh, yes - lots and lots and lots of compositing. There is a ton of visual effects for film done in After Effects (see Mark Christiansen’s books for examples). It always surprises me to hear users (or even corporate bosses) say they don’t think AE is being used for “high end” work when it has been for many, many year, and continues to be.

And trust me - many After Effects users find Shake’s UI to be just as baffling as Shake users find AE’s UI to be (smile).

take care -
Chris

Posted by Chris Meyer  on  01/02  at  10:18 AM

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Actually, Frischluft updated their beta of their curves plug-in and released it as Fresh Curves:

http://frischluft.com/curves/index.php

Posted by Chris Meyer  on  01/06  at  06:40 PM

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Very nice article about AE. AE is the best graphic software. Keep up the good work Chris..

Posted by graphicsguy  on  02/11  at  12:10 AM

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