After Effects, Trapcode, Blackmagic and Avid

Adobe After Effects

After Effects, Trapcode, Blackmagic and Avid

Posted by Nimrod Erez on July 11, 2011 at 11:29 pm

Hi there,

The issue I’m having and needing help with is, as you can guess from the subject line, touches on a few components in the post production pipeline we’re establishing here to create some graphics for a documentary feature.

We want to create quicktime animations in After Effects using Trapcode Lux and Particular in 1080p23.98 and import them into our Avid Symphony Nitris at either DNxHD 175 or 175X. The issue I’m having is that with Trapcode Lux I get horrible color banding both on my computer monitor, my video display (which is fed the After Effects signal through a Blackmagic DeckLink HD card) and ultimately on my Avid.

Whether I set the AE project to 8bpc, 16bpc or 32bpc has very little effect on what’s visible on the video monitor via blackmagic and what ends up in the Avid. I tried every conceivable combination of color profile, bpc and video out over blackmagic and nothing seems to help.

I currently am testing in AE with 32bpc and set my project to HDTV (Rec. 709) Working Space. I am turning on Linearize Working Space. The DeckLink is set to output at 1080p23.98 RGB.

Whether the DeckLink is set to 8bit, 10bit or RGB makes no difference on my video monitor. Video monitor is HD-SDI (JVC V24G1Z).

Any help will be greatly appreciated, please let me know if you need more info on my system to help resolve this issue.

Cheers,

NE

Walter Soyka replied 15 years ago 2 Members · 5 Replies
5 Replies

Walter Soyka
July 12, 2011 at 1:18 am

[Nimrod Erez] “We want to create quicktime animations in After Effects using Trapcode Lux and Particular in 1080p23.98 and import them into our Avid Symphony Nitris at either DNxHD 175 or 175X. The issue I’m having is that with Trapcode Lux I get horrible color banding both on my computer monitor, my video display (which is fed the After Effects signal through a Blackmagic DeckLink HD card) and ultimately on my Avid.”

There’s a lot of confusion over 10-bit input to Avid. See this thread at avid.com:
https://community.avid.com/forums/t/96816.aspx?PageIndex=1

When rendering to 175X, are you working in at least 16 bpc in AE and setting the output module’s video output depth to Trillions of Colors? Be careful, because it defaults to millions.

Have you tried a TIFF sequence?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
Nimrod Erez
July 12, 2011 at 6:34 pm

Hi Walter and thanks for your reply.

The issue I’m having occurs way before I even get to render anything for the Avid. The banding occurs at the AE level and when I’m previewing the AE composite on my video monitor.

I might need to try my luck with this query at the Trapcode forum, unless you have any idea why this is occurring.

Thanks again
Walter Soyka
July 12, 2011 at 6:46 pm

Lux is 16-bit, so it should produce clean gradients, unless the gradient is extremely slow. Do you have any 8-bit effects applied in your comp?

Can you post a screenshot showing the banding problem as well as your UI?

Failing anything else, you can introduce a little noise over the gradient to dither it, or use a nice de-banding effect — I’ve had good luck with PHYX Cleaner and S_Deband.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
Nimrod Erez
July 12, 2011 at 7:40 pm

Gradient isn’t too slow I think. No 8 bit effects in the comp.
Walter Soyka
July 13, 2011 at 2:22 pm

Is that a render, or a screen grab?

From Color depth and high dynamic range color [link] in the docs:

Note: Merely increasing the color depth within a project won’t eliminate gradients if the output format has a low bit depth. To mitigate banding, After Effects introduces dithering of colors when the colors are converted to 8-bpc colors, including when rendering and exporting to an 8-bpc format. This dithering is not introduced for previews. To force dithering for previews, apply an 8-bpc effect that does nothing—such as the Arithmetic effect with the default values—to an adjustment layer.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

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