Creative Communities of the World Forums

The peer to peer support community for media production professionals.

Activity Forums Adobe After Effects Pixelated text on zoom in

  • Pixelated text on zoom in

    Posted by Marc Piano on May 16, 2010 at 8:09 am

    Hi all,

    First post – this is a great site with some extremely useful resources. Thanks all!

    I’m working on a project where I have to animate an organisational structure chart. I’ve created it in AE – should I have created a layered PSD instead?

    I need to zoom out from the overall chart into each box, in which the text ‘bullet train’s in. Camera holds for a few seconds then moves to the next box and so on, then flies back out to the main chart.

    Comp size is D1/DV Pal Widescreen – 720×576.

    Whenever I zoom in to a box and the text animates, it is extremely pixelated. Is there a way around this so that the text isn’t too pixelated when I zoom in, but isn’t so small when I zoom out to the overall chart that none of the box headings are readable?

    Many thanks in advance!

    Marc

    Marc Piano replied 16 years, 4 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Joseph W. bourke

    May 16, 2010 at 3:35 pm

    Hi Marc –

    Here’s my take on it – you need to create the text in Photoshop at the resolution which will make your text look its’ best when you zoom in on it. So your Photoshop file should be at the very least twice the size of your comp, and probably more.

    For my money, a better way to go would be to create your org chart in Illustrator, so that when you import it, you will have the option to turn on the “Constant Rasterization” switch that’s in each layer of your comp. With that turned on, you can zoom in to any magnification and your text will look great.

    Joe Bourke
    Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
    B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
    bs-exhibits.com

  • Todd Kopriva

    May 16, 2010 at 4:38 pm

    As Joe says, the way to prevent pixelation when you zoom in is to use vector graphics. You can use continuous rasterization for vector graphics from SWF, PDF, EPS, and Illustrator files.

    Or you can just create the text and other vector graphics in After Effects. Text layers are always continuously rasterized. Same with shape layers.

    ———————————————————————————————————
    Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
    putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
    ———————————————————————————————————
    If a page of After Effects Help answers your question, please consider rating it. If you have a tip, technique, or link to share—or if there is something that you’d like to see added or improved—please leave a comment.

  • Marc Piano

    May 16, 2010 at 8:48 pm

    Thanks Joseph and Todd, for your quick and helpful replies! I’ll recreate the chart in Illustrator. The learning process taught me a lot about camera and 3D today, so it wasn’t a write-off by any means!

We use anonymous cookies to give you the best experience we can.
Our Privacy policy | GDPR Policy