Alpha Channel in .MOV AE/Pr?

[Steve Roberts]

You need to render to a codec that includes alpha channels, such as the Quicktime Animation codec. You also need to render to “Millions+” colors, “RGB+alpha”. Choose straight alpha.

I think this is in the manual …

[Jbruso]

Thanks Steve,

Sorry for the basic question… I’m new to the applications. I’ve looked in the help sections but they weren’t very helpful to me 🙂

In AE, I did file/export/QuickTime Movie … but then, in the settings for the compression, I didn’t see anything that let me choose straight alpha. I chose cinepak for the compression, millions of colors. Am I just doing this all wrong?

[Jbruso]

ahhh.. the animation compression… i c it now… points for being completely dense 🙂 Thank you Steve

[Darby Edelen]

[jbruso] “In AE, I did file/export/QuickTime Movie … but then, in the settings for the compression, I didn’t see anything that let me choose straight alpha. I chose cinepak for the compression, millions of colors. Am I just doing this all wrong?”

Short answer: yes. You need to add your item to the render queue (cmd-shift-/ on a Mac or ctrl-shift-/ on a PC) and change your output module there (you can click on the text that says ‘Lossless’ to do this).

You should definitely read the help file on the render queue (search for ‘render queue’).

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Jbruso]

Thanks Dave,

That’s helpful! I’ve been reading and going through Lynda.com tutorials… but still, things come up and I don’t even know how to ask the question 🙂

🙂 John

[Steve Roberts]

Indeed.

For the uninitiated, one chooses to render by making the desired comp window active, then choosing either “composition>make movie”, or “composition>add to render queue”.