-
transparent background for newbie
Hello,
I’m new to the forum and after effects. I simply want to have my background transparent so when I give an animation to someone else he can bring it in his software and it will be over his background and just my animated elements show not the background. Not sure how this is accomplished and under a time crunch so thought I’d ask the gurus here. Sorry if this is repetitive, didn’t see it in the sticky FAQ.Blind Lemon
-
6 Replies
-
create your animation as needed.
when you output your animation be sure to use a format that suports alpha channels such as AVI, or Quicktime.
select “composition” from the upper row of menues ( File. edit. composition) and then “Make movie”
(in this case I’m going with quicktime)
click on “Ooutput Module” (usually on loseless by default) and select format: Quicktime Movie.
then goto the format options button then select Animation. click okay
in the same window that has the “format options” look on he right side and select under channels RGB+Alpha
(this alpha channel gives you the transparency that you are looking for…. select audio options if you need them.. then render…and with long animations remember the file sizes can get HUGE!!!!
this is by no means the difinative options for rending out … but this should work with a really quick deadline that you mentiond.
Moogurus.. feel free to show a better way.. 🙂
-
Note that even though you may see a coloured background in the AE comp window, it is transparent. Click the little checkerboard button in the comp window to make sure.
-
This video tutorial should help you understand the deal with alpha channels, and the difference between the 2 kinds of alpha renders in after effects:
—————————————-
Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com -
Wow, great stuff for me to investigate. I sure appreciate the help, I’ll give them a try and let you know if it works. I know it should. Looks like I need to do a couple more things when i output because I did bring a quicktime movie of my animation over a larger background and did see the “big rectangular background” from after effects even though the background is supposed to be there just for compositing.
Thanks again
Blind Lemon -
gday
it could be something to do with the codec ur using. not all of them do transparencies aye.
mov’s outputted with the indeo video codec (i use v4.5) can handle 1-bit alphas. 1-bit means that the alpha can only be two colours (black or white) so u can only have transparent or not transparent. umm so u dont want any gradients in the alpha.
ive heard theres other codecs out there that can do 8-bit alphas, but i havnt tried these myself..
you’ll find the option to turn the transparency on at:
File/Export/Quicktime Movie
then in the menu that comes up, click the Settings button for Video. Choose Intel Indeo Video. Click the Options button, and in the Transparency pulldown menu, choose Alpha Channel.
hope thats some help. -
Yep, the background is transparent. I had to find that switch that toggles solid to checkerboard..thanks for that. I’m beginning a few test with the info I got here. Just a quick history, I just took each layer from photoshop (with a transparent background) and imported them into after effects. I figured doing that from a .psd was good enough ie: each element doesn’t have alpha channel.
Blind Lemon
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up