Welcome

Thank you so much for purchasing the Mosaic Photo Reveal After Effects template. This isn’t just any slideshow – it’s a versatile template that will enable you to showcase all sorts of journeys – be it for your business, someone special in your life or to capture a memorable event. With the latest version you can now set up your video for rendering within a matter of minutes thanks to a script which we’ve included with your purchase.

This template has been a top seller on Videohive since 2014, and has a 5 star rating. If you have not already seen Mosaic Photo Reveal, visit it at Envato’s Videohive for more detail.

Over the years, purchasers have shared their final output with me and it’s been awesome to see the variety of ways in which it has been used – marriage proposals, wedding anniversaries, memorials, birthdays, introducing pets, babies, holidays, company showcases, product launches, conference promotions and even on TV with the Super Bowl and The Voice.

Installation

Download

 

If for any reason your download didn’t complete or you just need to re-download the files, you will find it under your
Envato Profile→Downloads→Main File

Installing the script

 

  1. Copy “mosaic photo reveal.jsx” from the downloaded template folder
  2. Paste it into
    WINDOWS → Program Files/After Effects <version>/Support Files/Scripts/
    MAC → Applications/After Effects <version>/Scripts/
  3. Open Adobe After Effects and tick “Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network” in
    Edit→Preferences→General→Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network (CC 2019 & Earlier)
  1. CC 2020 have updated the location to allow scripts
    Edit→Preferences→Scripting & Expressions→Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network

Activating the script

 

To activate the script:
File → Script → mosaic photo reveal.jsx

Enter your Purchase Code which you can find by clicking “Open Videohive “Downloads” page” on the script.
Locate Mosaic Photo Reveal in your downloads account & Copy the purchase code in either the PDF or TEXT file “License certificate & purchase code (text)”
Right click the field in the script & paste (if copy & paste doesn’t work)
Make sure you are connected to the internet.
Check for blank spaces when copying and pasting the code
Once validated, please open the mosaic photo reveal.aep in After Effects that comes in the project folder, before running the script.

Purchase code not working

 

The main reason why your purchase code is not validating is because you have a Firewall/Antivirus on your home computer or work network. Please turn off the firewall before entering your code. If there is I.T. support at your work office, please consult them to make an exception to turn off the firewall.

Activating the script – How to Video

 

The Project

Opening the project

 

You have completed the initial setup and you’re now ready to start creating your video by adding in your photos.

  1. Open “mosaic photo reveal.aep” file in After Effects first before running the script.
  2. If you are greeted with this notification, just click ok.
    This just means the project was created in a previous version of After Effects.

The Script

This script will make your life a lot easier. Rather than manually importing each photo one at a time, this process is now automated so you can get that video done and rendered in no time.

The script – How to Video

 

Previews

This allows you to view all your photos in one place to easily see how your images are positioned. Here you can swap out photos, scale and reposition to your liking.

Changing Photos – How to Video

 

Scale & Positioning – How to video

 

Checkbox Effects

CHECK BOX EFFECTS → Add various looks to your video
PHOTO NUMBERS → Display numbers on each image to help with previewing & associating images in the timeline.
LIGHTS → Remove light source/shadows to speed up rendering times.

 

Audio

Adding your own music track into the timeline is easy.

Titles

Needing to add a title at the start of your video? Here’s how.

Background image

You can change out the background image in which all the photos fall onto. Here is how you can add your own background image.

Rendering

Here are some render settings I recommend.
H264 .mov → Generic setting for online outputs. Good for all users. (No need to convert again using Adobe Media Encoder) – This setting is removed in After Effects 2018 update.
Prores 422 HQ → Recommended for MAC users to get the best quality video. (I personally use this setting – then convert to other formats using Adobe Media Encoder, See Converting Files for more details)
QT Animation → Recommended for PC users to get the best quality video. (Convert file to other formats using Adobe Media Encoder.
DNxHR/DNxHD → Another recommended codec for PC users to get the best quality video. (Convert file to other formats using Adobe Media Encoder, See Converting Files for more details) Codec can be found here. http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/download/Avid-QuickTime-Codecs-LE

The new After Effects 2018 update has removed .H264 codec from their system. I recommend using the other codecs listed above for rendering and then by dragging that file into Adobe Media Encoder to convert to .H264. It is unfortunately another step to do.
If you still prefer rendering directly to H264, I’d suggest downloading Adobe After Effects 2017.

Tips for rendering

 

Here are some things that may help speed up render times.

I recommend doing this before you hit render:
+Edit > Purge > Purge All memory
+After effects Preferences > Media & Disk Cache > Enable Disk Cache and choose a folder on a disk that has alot of free space
+After effects Preferences > Media & Disk Cache > Empty Disk Cache / Clean Database & Cache
+After effects Preferences > Memory & multiprocessing (Optional) You can try turning on ‘Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously’. If your computer has multiple cores, this could work well.
+Restart After effects
+Close other applications you might have open.
+Open After Effects Project
+Render

In other cases, render times depend on your computer and video format setting.

Converting Files

If you have rendered a ProRes 422 HQ or DNxHR/DNxHD file and are needing to convert to a format for online (Youtube, Vimeo), here is how to do so in Adobe Media Encoder.

Full Walk Through

Here is a full run through on what I would do from start to finish

Manual Process

If you desire to go through the previous manual process of adding your own individual photos, here is the old Version 2 tutorial.

FAQ

The Script doesn’t work when I click on select folder and choose my pictures.

Please make sure that you have opened the mosaic photo reveal.aep template file in the Project folder first in After Effects before running the script

The Project is not working, corrupt, has errors such as separate xyz error, the project is in Black and White, the effects are not working:

The main reason for this is that your after effects language is not set to English. You have to change your
After Effects language to English first and then reopen it. Here are some details on changing the language
MAC http://youtu.be/osshLLrXEq4 PC http://youtu.be/p1 v6hwYvhLU. You can also try and place an empty
“ae_force_english.txt” file into your “My Documents” folder.

Rendering is taking a very long time:

Render time varies depending on what computer specs you have. More RAM and processing power will definitely shorten the rendering time. It will therefore range for people. Some computers take 1 hour, and for others it could be over night. There are also other factors such as your render settings, which may be set to the highest
uncompressed file by default, which will increase your render time. (Please have a look at the ‘Render settings’ tutorial video that will guide you to setting your final render). Please also have a read of the ‘Tips for rendering’ that may help speed up your render.
Also it could be the file size of your photos – if you’re using very high resolution photo files, it will take some time to process through all 100 high res photos.
In the latest release of this project, you will have an option to turn off the lights through the checkbox control. This removes the light (shadow casting) that create the shadows, which would otherwise increase rendering time. If you are not in a hurry, then don’t turn off the lights so you can have shadows under each photo.

Why can’t I import some photos into After Effects?:

The file format of the photo is the problem. It might be because it is a CMYK file format or unrecognised format. Convert the photo again in either a photo editing program such as photoshop or another file converter program. In most cases, it is a matter of converting it to RGB format.

What is a good size dimension for photos to import into the project?:

1920×1080 is a good default size, which is what it is set up for. Anything larger than that is fine, but bear in mind the file size. You can still have photos that are in smaller dimensions – you will lose a bit of quality but still achieves the same effect.
What file size should my photos be?
The ideal file size is around 1MB to 2MB each. Anything higher will increase the rendering time. It has to process through 100 photos in motion. But in saying that, if you’re not in any hurry, any file size is fine.

My purchase code is not working?:

  • The main cause for this is to do with having a firewall or Anti Virus system running on your computer. Please turn this off before entering your Purchase Code again. In an office situation, please consult this with your I.T. support.
  • Check for blank spaces when copying and pasting the code.
  • Have an internet connection.
  • Make sure to allow After Effects to write files and access network in the preferences.

The script doesn’t import all the photos:

Please double check that you don’t have any CMYK file formats. In other cases, it might be because a file might be corrupt.