CopyMask2Layer: a new AE script

CopyMask2Layer is a new After Effects script at AE Scripts:

When you copy a mask from one layer to another it often changes its position. With CopyMask2Layer you can copy masks while keeping them perfectly in place - even if the layers are moving and if the mask path is keyframed.

The demo video will immediately answer the questions you have in mind!

AE Preset: Back N Forth + animation aids

Back N Forth is a free sine wave generator preset for the position, scale, and rotation in every axis of your objects inside of After Effects:

What this means is that with this preset, you can automatically make your layers move from side to side (or up and down) in a motion that is always equidistant from the center on both ends! This is different from using something like “Wiggle” in that wiggle is more or less random motion, whereas sin waves are constant and fluid.

Author Neal Barenblat has another preset as well, Flicker On.

Back N Forth joins other recent expression-based presets as animation aids, like Gravity preset from Jesse Toula and Better Bouncing by Ian Haigh. See foundation basics and much more from JJ Gifford (plus harmonic motion) and Dan Ebberts.

Not disimilar is Ease and Wizz, a script to generate alternative keyframe interpolations for After Effects (especially to the sine-like Easy Ease). Looking at pictures by Chris Meyer is the fastest way to see what behaviors you get with this script. Author Ian Haigh has a nice demo on AE Scripts; here's a preview:

Continuing with tangents off sine animation are some tutorials for creating animation of sines:

• Creating sine animation with the Wave Warp effect by Aharon Rabinowitz
• Generate a Dynamic Morphing Background Design with Sinedots by Stefan Surmabojov at AEtuts+ (below). Sinedots is available free for CS5 and earlier from Philipp Spöth (deja vu).

Update: animationPATTERNS, by Markus Bergelt, is "a keyframe-based easing assistance, that allows you to edit and create new easing types. It comes with a dockable palette, a set of default interpolation methods like bounce, rubber, pendulum... and is very easy to use! !animationPATTERNS does not work with properties that already use expressions. They'll get replaced by clicking apply pattern."

Sinedots II: free filter upgraded for CS5

Last October Philipp Spöth, aka Frischluft (maker of Lenscare and FreshCurves), released a free CS5 version of Sinedots II.

The filter is more popular in the Photoshop world, but it should appeal at least to those who miss AeFlame, the open source plug-in stuck in 32-bitland. There is a nice (if long) AE tutorial video available: Generate a Dynamic Morphing Background Design with Sinedots by Stefan Surmabojov at AEtuts+.

After Effects A-Z: Brush Strokes

Motionworks' tour of built-in AE filters continues with the Brush Strokes effect with John Dickinson:

"After Effects’ Brush Strokes effect could easily be written off as a cheesy oil painting-style effect, but under the hood it has loads more potential."

The filter is much the same in Premiere Pro.

ETLAT: Edit this, look at that

Chris and Trish Meyer posted another part in their series CMG Hidden Gems: Chapter 18 – Nesting. The focus here is on how to efficiently navigate and edit a chain of nested comps, and looking under the hood a bit to help you trouble­shoot. Especially interesting is coverage of ETLAT or “Edit This, Look at That,” which is the result of locking a Panel then viewing or working in another Composition. ETLAT lets you preview changes downstream while working in a nested comp, and beyond. AE Help explains:

"If a Composition viewer is locked, the Timeline panel for another composition is active, and the Composition viewer for the active composition is not shown, then most commands that affect views and previews operate on the composition for which the viewer is shown. For example, pressing the spacebar can start a standard preview for the composition visible in a locked Composition viewer rather than the composition associated with the active Timeline panel."

CMG presented additional use cases for ETLAT. CS5 added several more several more features so that now "ETLAT behavior works for keyboard shortcuts for zooming, fitting, previewing, taking and viewing snapshots, showing channels, showing and hiding grids and guides, and showing the current frame on a video preview device."

One shortcut that may be handy is Shift+Esc to toggle between two compositions. There's more in AE Help and in Creating Motion Graphics.

Update: Chris Meyer covered CS 5.5 updates to ETLAT in video, as did Todd Kopriva, and later shared another example from After Effects Apprentice:

After Effects Apprentice 15: Final Project | by Chris Meyer and Trish Meyer

View this entire After Effects Apprentice 15: Final Project course and more in the lynda.com Online Training Library®.

After Effects Easter eggs

People are sometimes surprised discovering Easter Eggs in After Effects -- apparent oddities in the interface. Some of these have been around for a very long time... 

This posted was updated on PVC, as Easter eggs in After Effects: a new hunt A plabt egg.

Zombies: fair & balanced?

In case mind control programming doesn't keep the zombie population from spazzing out, and concern is mounting (see Study: Climate zombies threaten “collapse of society”), Congress has put in place a (classified) bill that defends against flesh-eating (classified):




That's Old Age thinking according to Steven C. Schlozman, MD, who says that Zombie Autopsies should be the next step in understanding why such a large part of the population...


The Zombie Autopsies with Steven Schlozman, MD from GCP authors on Vimeo.

Note to self: If Zombies are Red, Vampires are Blue (earlier in Film Threat), what about the Vampire Economy or The Frankenstein Economy: Monster metaphor of the moment?