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Activity Forums Adobe After Effects After Effects Layer Styles Flickering

  • After Effects Layer Styles Flickering

    Posted by Matrub Jones on December 2, 2008 at 6:29 pm

    Wondering if anyone else is having this issue. Or if there is a download out there to fix it.

    I have a layer style from Photoshop (Pattern Overlay) on a comp and when the final render/export plays I’m getting a weird flicker. Looks to be that the overlay is there…then it isn’t…then it’s there…then it isn’t.

    I’ve tried flattening these layers in Photoshop so there is no layer style but then when reloaded in After Effects, the layers are much smaller in scale then they previously were when they were vector shapes.

    Anyone having this issue? Know how to rectify?

    Thanks…

    John Morena
    HTX Animation

    Jake Guttormsson replied 16 years, 10 months ago 4 Members · 6 Replies
  • 6 Replies
  • Jason Milligan

    December 2, 2008 at 7:24 pm

    Without seeing the footage I can only guess, but my assumption is you are seeing a moire pattern.

    If your pattern is very finely detailed, it may not be avoidable.
    Things you can try are enlarging the pattern, refining it so its elements are less fine, adding slight blurs, making sure nothing is smaller than two pixels.

    What resolution are you working and are you working interlaced?

  • Matrub Jones

    December 2, 2008 at 7:32 pm

    The original PSD files are all 960 in height…varying in width. Basically I’m using twice the size of 720×480 (1440×960). If I have a scene I want to pan across it’s alot wider than 1440. Original resolution is 150dpi.

    Could be the pattern itself but I’m using different patterns for different textures and it’s happening across the board. Things like stroke and drop shadow remain in tact so I’m sure it’s not a sizing issue or else it would be happening on anything with a layer style. No?

  • Jason Milligan

    December 2, 2008 at 7:47 pm

    Moire patterns are an optical illusion caused by crisscrossing shapes. If what you are seeing is a moire pattern (remember, I am only assuming b/c I haven’t seen the footage), then it would only appear in your patterns, not strokes or drop shadows. I included a link to moire on Wikipedia in my prior post. Did you look at it? It may help you understand the problem if it is indeed moire.

    Are you able to post any screen grabs?

  • Matrub Jones

    December 2, 2008 at 8:23 pm

    Yeah I’m familiar with Moire. It’s not that. It’s not that kind of flickering. I mean the layer style appears…then disappears..then reappears…then disappears. Almost as if After Effects is exporting it on some frames…but not on others.

    And it’s random…intermitent. Like I’ll remder a piece of video to watch…it will have no flickers. Then later on I’ll watch some new animation on the same scene and it will flicker like crazy. Doesn’t matter if it’s Quarter, Third, Half, or Full res RAM previews.

    For the most part I’ve just taken the layer styles off…but certain things I’d like them to stay on. I’m down to the last item that I don’t want to have to design as a flattened image (without a layer style). So i’m trying to find a solution now.

  • Timothy Kilburn

    December 3, 2008 at 12:41 am

    if its just a still or stills you want to use , while in PS just save as a jpeg, tiff, or png then you would keep layer styles look.
    but if you are trying to animate the layer styles i’ve no clue

  • Jake Guttormsson

    July 6, 2009 at 5:54 pm

    Sorry, I know this is an ancient post and you’ve probably already come up with a work around.

    I’ve had the same problem. Are you using 3d Layers? the Layer styles don’t like it, and will click on and off if the 3d layers aren’t arranged just right, or if you have a 2d layer in between.

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