Odd Timeline Stuff

[momoffduty]

Title Font Changed: From an original project >Save As and reworked the project no problem. Later, from the first Save As project >Save As again to rework the project. In the last project copy, the Title at the beginning had the correct font and a few frames later turned into the default font.

Create Slideshow: Imported a folder of about 400 TIFs from a morphing program and created a slideshow no problem. Imported a 2nd folder of morphing TIFs and created slideshow. The 2nd time the slideshow had flashes of white in 3 places. Went back to the morphing program and double checked and okay. In PE3 ran the CTI slowly over the slideshow and no flashes, just in play mode. By chance decided to create slideshow again with the 2nd folder and this time it worked.

Hidden Keyframe: Video clip with crop effect applied. Beginning of clip crop set at 0% and a sec later set at 50%. Had to trim the beginning of clip a hair. Now the first frame of the video is slightly cropped and the properties panel reads 2% with no keyframe showing. Just added a keyframe with 0%. Could have unrolled clip and deleted keyframe and reset. Realize that when splitting a clip that the beginning is still there along with the keyframes and the new beginning is at whatever number point that was generated. Thought I would post this to save someone else the frustration.

Any ideas on the first 2?

[Wheat King]

Nothing new to add unfortunately, but I've ran into the hidden keyframe issue. I'm was curious how premiere Pro or after effects handles this situation. I always throught it weird that you could put a key frame "outside" of the clip. I wonder if this could be the source of some encoding errors?

[Bob]

I always throught it weird that you could put a key frame "outside" of the clip.

Actually, that's quite useful. Say you are making a keyframed sequence that will be used as a continuous loop. If you try to match the beginning of the keyframed sequence by making the last frame have the same value as the first frame, the loop won't be smooth. To have a seamless match, you want the final keyframe to have an interpolated value which is one increment away from the frame one value. The way you do that is to place the final keyframe one frame past the end. That way the final frame will have the proper interpolated value so the loop will be seamlessly completed when you reach frame one and you won't have a glitch across the repeat.

[Chuck Engels]

Those are interesting little problems Cheryl, but I don't think they are normal and I doubt they would happen often.
Problems with titles don't surprise me much anymore, especially with version 4.

Importing lots of images at the same time can have some issues, I think it was probably just a simple computer glitch.

If you set a keyframe for Opacity at frame 1 and set the opacity to 0, then set another keyframe at frame 30 and set opacity to 100, the opacity will increase by about 3% every frame.
If you cut the first 10 frames out the opacity on your first frame will now be about 30%, not zero anymore. If you stretch the end of the clip out you will reveal the keyframe that you set on frame 1. Best thing to do is remove all keyframes if you are going to still be cutting up the clip, but you can add a new keyframe at the new frame 1 and go from there too.
I am pretty sure this is the way that the program is suppose to work.

[Wheat King]

I always throught it weird that you could put a key frame "outside" of the clip.

Actually, that's quite useful. Say you are making a keyframed sequence that will be used as a continuous loop. If you try to match the beginning of the keyframed sequence by making the last frame have the same value as the first frame, the loop won't be smooth. To have a seamless match, you want the final keyframe to have an interpolated value which is one increment away from the frame one value. The way you do that is to place the final keyframe one frame past the end. That way the final frame will have the proper interpolated value so the loop will be seamlessly completed when you reach frame one and you won't have a glitch across the repeat.

Yes True, I guess my point is there should be some way of easily seeing the "hidden" keyframe. maybe there is? Would be a great tip if someone knows.

[momoffduty]

The first 2 items were things that may happen only on occasion. Glad I created a slideshow a 2nd time and it worked. The next step would have been to ungroup the clips and check each one which would have taken a long time.

Figured out the hidden keyframe thing a few months ago. Before that I would just delete the clip or pic and start over. But it is useful to know if you have many effects and keyframes applied to one clip...too much time to start over.

Loop question: There have been times that I needed a clip to be longer and time stretch was not an option. The alternative is to copy paste the clip and reverse. Now the last frame of clip one is the same as the first frame of clip 2. Sometimes it is noticeable there is a duplicate. What is the easiest way to trim the duplicate frame? It always seems to create a 'jump'.

[momoffduty]

Yes True, I guess my point is there should be some way of easily seeing the "hidden" keyframe. maybe there is? Would be a great tip if someone knows.

The only way to tell is to have the CTI at the beginning of a clip and look in the properties panel at the numbers. Would be nice to have some type of keyframe marker to designate a hidden keyframe.

[Chuck Engels]

Bob's method is one of the primary ways of creating looping backgrounds in After Effects, add the last keyframe one frame beyond the actual length of the clip, it works very well

[momoffduty]

Bob's method is one of the primary ways of creating looping backgrounds in After Effects, add the last keyframe one frame beyond the actual length of the clip, it works very well

I get the idea, but which keyframe?

[Chuck Engels]

I get the idea, but which keyframe?

Now you lost me

[momoffduty]

If you copy & paste a clip and then the copy clip reverse. So 2 clips now, one forward and other reversed. What do you keyframe to change the the interpolated value?

[RJ Johnston]

If you clear the "Pin to Clip" option, you'll be able to scroll out-of-sight keyframe markers into view.

Right click on the left side of the properties panel -- not in the keyframe section -- and the menu with the "Pin to Clip" option will pop up. Or click on the More button of the properties panel if you are showing docking headers.

[momoffduty]

Thanks RJ for the pin to clip tip. That will come in handy. Now just have to remember that you keyframed a clip before splitting. Guess the best thing to do is look at the numbers in the properties panel.

Bob, think what you are saying is to keep something moving from clip to clip have the numbers moving and not have identical settings at the end & beginning of the clip. Example is that I keyframed a sequence tennis pics slowly rotating in. One pic started out small in a rotation and the other pic picked up the movement to stop at full screen. So it was keyframed as if one pic had movement and the 2nd pic was swapped with the first and continued on the movement path. Think I am making sense

Still not sure how to smoothly copy/paste reverse clip.

[Bob]

Cheryl, what are you wanting to do with the normal/reversed clip sequence? Are you just wanting to lengthen the sequence, or are you wanting to create a seamless loop? If you are only wanting to lengthen the sequence, you are correct that you will have identical frames back to back in the middle where the clip and the reversal meet and will need to delete one of the duplicate frames. If you want a seamless loop, you also have the same problem at the ends. The first frame of the normal clip will be the same as the last frame of the "reversed clip" so you will need to delete a frame there also.

There are lots of ways to do this. I don't know that any one is particularly easier than another, it comes down to personal preference I think. The way I would prefer to do it would be to do the dirty work in the media bin (it's easier for me to remember what I did later that way). Duplicate the clip and rename the duplicate in the bin to indicate that it's the reversal. Then, open the clip in the clip preview window and set the in and out points to exclude the first and last frames. Set the clip to reverse. Now place the two clips on the timeline in order and you will have a sequence that can seamlessly loop if repeated.

With the normal/reversed sandwich technique, you aren't animating anything so there are no keyframes. However, if you were to keyframe something, then you would need to keep in mind how to set the keyframes to start and end the loop seamlessly.

[Wheat King]

Thanks RJ and Bob!