The Gift: Marcus

great idea, marcus! in fact, you have me rethinking my entry! great work!

as far as some of your problems in the video...

the mask looks like it's moving inbetween keyframes, whiole the video doesn't change frames. if you're not seeing it while you're scrubbing in AE, it may have something to do with the interlacing, which can be tricky. just be sure you're not adding any extra interlacing in when you render. or, if you go frame by frame in AE, and you see it, it means you'll have to adjust your mask on every single frame.

as for motion blur, you have 2 options (well, 2 easy ones. there's many more if you want to get really complex). you could right click on the mask in the comp window and turn on motion blur in the pop up menu that appears. this will try to calculate the motion blur based on the movement of the mask throughout the scene. sometimes looks good, most times doesn't. another thing you can do is to animate the mask feathering and the mask expansion. when it's moving fast, turn the feathering up. this may introduce dark or light edges in the blurry area, so you may have to animate the expansion inwards. but all mask attributes are keyable, so it just takes some time to go around to different frames and set it where it needs to be.

as for your shadow on the box lid, you could paint it out frame by frame using the Paint effect, which will take a little bit of learning if you've never used it before. but its really easy, and you only have to do a few frames, so this is probably the best solution. once you understand the little palette that pops up, you'll realize it's just like painting in photoshop. just be sure to set the stroke duration to single frame rather than entire length of the comp.

hope that helps! great idea, and great work so far! you've taught me an important lesson - play to your strengths!

hmm... i think animating a character is in the rules for this one, isn't it. hmmm... maybe that's whats gonna jump out of yours!

>great idea, marcus! in fact, you have me rethinking my entry! great work!
Thanks hype... trying to do this and learn AE at the same time have me banging my head on the desk, but it's good fun.

>the mask looks like it's moving inbetween keyframes, whiole the video
>doesn't change frames.
I actually did keyframe every frame when the box is moving. I'll see if I can post up a screenshot to show you what I'm talking about.

>hope that helps! great idea, and great work so far! you've taught me an
>important lesson - play to your strengths!
hahaha.... Compositing isn't one of my strengths though! But it will be one day

>hmm... i think animating a character is in the rules for this one, isn't it.
>hmmm... maybe that's whats gonna jump out of yours!
yep.... you've got me all figured out.

Thanks for your help!
~Mechis