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AE Lens Flare Jerky When Animated
I’m having a strange problem. I’m animating the position of AE’s stock lens flare and the resulting movement is jerky for some reason. Almost like the flare will “jump” every couple of frames rather than animate smoothly. Is this normal?
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6 Replies
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Thanks, Dave. I am certain that the file was playing at proper framerate, because the other elements in it were animating smoothly. The jerkiness is most visible when the flare’s centerpoint is animated very slowly. To see a stripped-down test, watch this. You can see the flare elements on the right side of the screen illustrating the issue: https://driftminer.com/tests/flare-test-01-h.mov
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hello
im having the same problem. looks like the flares jumping from pixel to pixel. like there is no sub pixel rendering on them. the rest is always ok and smooth (different footage..)
does somebody have “the” solution…? -
My ultimate solution was to use a third-party lens flare kit. I’m an experienced AE user, and nothing I tried seemed to change the bundled lens flare’s shortcomings in this area. I’m using CS3, so I hope that Adobe corrected this problem for CS4 and future releases.
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I had this same issue, and I just discovered a really easy fix!
Mark is right that the issue is subpixel rendering. The AE lens flare doesn’t use it. None of the issues Dave mentioned are relevant in this case, but I do appreciate his taking the time to try to help.
THE FIX: Make AE subpixel render it.
Go to the solid settings and resize the solid. I multiplied it by x3–not perfect, but much improved.
Then, fit the solid to the comp size (reducing its size by the same factor). Voila, a smooth, subpixel-rendered lens flare.
This works even when you use a 3D Null to drive the flare center point (which is what I’m usually doing). The only caveat is you have to multiply your toComp expression by the same size factor to produce the right result. For example (on the Flare Center property): thisComp.layer(“Sun”).toComp([0,0,0])*3
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I should probably clarify what I meant by “resize the solid”… I meant you need to increase the resolution of the solid’s dimensions.
So what you’re doing in essence is making a high-definition solid on which the lens flare is acting, and then scaling it back down to fit the comp.
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I should also add that this issue remains the same in CS4 and CS5.
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