After Effects 3D Camera Tracker Analysis Solve Failed - Fix

Maybe you've encountered the dreaded Analysis Solve Failed in After Effects using the 3D Camera Tracker tool?

More than likely it's because you have two shots, or even a single rogue frame in your footage.

Solution: check your footage for a blank frame or a frame from another shot. Trim it, and try again.

How to copy a Mask Path into a Shape Path in After Effects

I always forget this...

Select the Layer containing the Mask
Hit "M" on the keyboard to reveal the Mask, or expand Mask > Mask
Click on the Mask Path with the Hourglass next to it and Copy
Select or create the Shape Layer
Select the Pen Tool and draw any kind of shape, this will create a new Shape/Path within the Shape layer
Expand Content > Shape > Path1 > Path to reveal the Path with the Hourglass next to it.
Paste the Mask Path into this newly created Path. Voilà!

The trick is to Copy / Paste the actual keyframes from the Mask Path to the Shape Path. The Path is actually buried one step below what you expect. You have to see the Hourglass to copy the keyframes, else you only copy the Mask from Layer 1 to a new Mask on Layer 2. 

Do We Need A Dedicated SSD Device For NLEs Caches? YES! Definitely For Large Projects (Features.)

Are we at a point where we now need a dedicated -fast- device exclusively reserved for Caching?  Will that decrease response time and thus will make our apps more responsive?

-- Bruce Johnson from Provideocoalition says YES! In the case of PCs and Adobe Premiere.

-- Definitely a boost for FCPX as well

-- How about Resolve?

The location of Cache can be set in FCPX in the Library Properties/Storage Location/Modify Settings:

in Premiere under Project Settings:

 AND under Preferences/Media (Previews):

in After Effects under Preferences/Media and Disk Caches:

in Avid MC under Settings/Media Cache:

in Resolve under Project Settings/General Options:

Now, you will notice that these Apps cache different things... Also Caches can grow really big in the case of AE, quickly eating hundred of GB out of your disk.

Adobe explicitly explains in AE that it is best to use a SSD separate from your footage:

So, for the sake of experiment, I will be adding a SSD to my main Mac soon, and I will set the Caches to this dedicated SSD, see if I get improved performances on these apps.

Let me know what kind of results you get with your own experimentation!

Does someone know if Apple Motion has the equivalent of After Effects "Guide Layer"?

A convenient way to build your graphics or animation is to bring a temp background layer in your timeline. Of course you don't want to render the background with the graphics, After Effects has a very convenient "stamping": right-click on your layer, select Guide Layer = the layer won't be rendered in the output.
I can't find something similar in Apple Motion and I spend my time turning the layer on and off. If someone has a solution, please let me know!