After Effects pixelated font (very weird)

[Joey Foreman]

Oh,and change the compressor to ProRes 422.

[David Lawrence]

hmm i looked in the compressor settings of my fcp 5 and there is no pro res option =(

[David Lawrence]

no pro res options as you can see in the picture

[David Lawrence]

so question how do i find out what the sequence settings are in after effects? i see different ones like project settings composition settings etc.

[David Lawrence]

i went into adobe after effects and found the composition settings and have attached a picture. not sure if this is what you were talking about?

[Joey Foreman]

I keep forgetting you’re on 5. Change the Sequence Compressor to Apple Intermediate Codec. And do set the Field Dominance to None.

You’ll need to render your sequence afterwards.

Those After Effects settings are for the Composition dimensions and frame rate, but they don’t have anything to do with which codec you choose to render to.

[David Lawrence]

okay its loading so thank you by the way. also was curious on how to solve the text problem when i import a .psd from photoshop cs4 (its my logo) because the font has the same exact problem it becomes pixelated

lastly the same problem within final cut pro if i add text that text also becomes pixelated. Will these new sequence settings you gave me solve all of that or is it a problem completely seperated from this one.

[Joey Foreman]

Hopefully will solve all of it. I know I’ve got my fingers crossed:)

[David Lawrence]

not to make things more complicated and this question is in reference to the AE transfer to FCP 5 and making sure the sequence settings are the same. I have additional footage and this AE project is intended to be at the beginning of this as an intro (introducing the company name) now the rest of the footage has different settings I’m assuming is there going to be a conflict there too?

wow the complications:

settings from AE to FCP
then settings for importing a photoshop .psd
settings for the video footage that is attached for that

finallly the settings for the quicktime conversion on top of all that!

wow

[Joey Foreman]

I think you’re overcomplicating this. In FCP your Sequence settings should match your final delivery settings. It’s ok to render the AE file with less compression, i.e. Animation Codec. In FCP it will render down to your Sequence Settings’s compressor. What this is should have been specified by your client.
If your AE render is non-interlaced which it is by default, then it will look jaggy in FCP if your Sequence Field Dominance is set to Upper or Lower.
And as far as settings themselves, there are only a hand few:

Resolution
Pixel Aspect Ratio
Frame Rate
Interlaced or Non.
Compression Codec

The reason I suggested changing your Sequence compressor to Intermediate Codec is that it has some of the advantages of the new ProRes codecs, and is good for maintaining quality of items rendered with higher quality codecs like Animation.
But that’s immaterial if your client needs output back to tape or something. Otherwise Apple Intermediate should serve you well for a final Export from FCP, whether you’re going to web or DVD.
But then you’ll then to make another, differently compressed version for those, and that will need to be done in an application other than AE or FCP.