Aliasing when using animation codec from AE to FCP ProRes sequence

[Matt Lyon]

Render again in ProRes and try clicking the “enable legacy gamma support” in the AE render options (I can’t remember the exact text).

This has worked for me in the past, although there was a VERY slight mismatch still. You could also try changing the “gamma correction” setting in the codec options to “none,” instead of “automatic” (I haven’t tested this).

If you can’t render to ProRes, I’d use “uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2” instead of Animation. Animation is 8 bit and RGB color space, and isn’t supported in FCP for realtime playback.

hth,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[J.d. Vaillancourt]

Hmmm, I just went through this same problem and field order was the issue for me. Just make sure in your render settings in AE the field order is set to none, that your FCP sequence settings are set to NONE and in the browser the field dominance is set to NONE for each clip. Just ran a test myself and it work great, even tried it with some Alpha clips (straight) and they were nice and smooth.

I know you said in your message you had all the field orders set to none, but double check all 3 avenues, then start a fresh project, make sure all the field orders are set properly and then drag your footage in. FCP has a tendency to remember the settings when a clip was dragged in to a sequence and it does not recognize in that sequence if you’ve changed the field order. I tried this test by changing the field dominance in the browser while the clip was already in a sequence and I still got the jaggies.

I just went through this exact pain and had to re-edit an entire project!! All the stuff imported from AE had a dominance set to upper, I edited the whole project, noticed the aliasing in the transitions of the final edit… ran some tests, discovered it was field order, tried to change dominance, still got jaggies, tried to start a fresh sequence while pasting the old edit in, still got jaggies… it was until I took those exact clips from the browser into a fresh sequence that the jaggies went away. So if you’ve already done your edit with the field order set improperly in the browser, you’re pretty much euchred and have to recut the edit in a fresh sequence. Hope this helps, I’ve definitely learned my lesson!!

Cheers
JD

[Matt Lyon]

Justin, I’ve seen this problem you describe happen a lot. Basically, FCP can occasionally think that clips SHOULD have field dominance, even when they don’t.

Changing the property of a clip in the browser after the fact won’t fix anything in a timeline. What you need to do is select the clip in your timeline, go into the item properties and change the field dominance to NONE. Then you have to cycle the visibility of the clip, to force FCP to refresh its mind. Now your clip should display properly with no jaggies. Obviously, you’ll lose any renders.

hth,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[J.d. Vaillancourt]

OMG! Thanks Matt! Wish I knew that yesterday before I re-timed my entire edit! I forgot you could edit clip formatting in sequence… still took a while, but MUCH less time than redoing the edit. Live and learn I guess haha

Cheers

[Sean Vicary]

Thanks guys, you got it spot on.

Although the whole workflow is progressive (the sequence settings and all clips in the browser are set to field dominance ‘None’ & AE field render is off) I went through the whole timeline checking the item properties of each clips individually and found the culprits, FCP had interpreted the clips with animation codec as upper field first.

So change that, force a refresh and all the edges are pristine.

Thanks again, as very tired and no time for whole re edit before deadline!

Sean

Sean Vicary
http://www.seanvicary.com