Alpha Doesn’t Render…

[Ian Smith]

I’m not sure of all your project details (how things are set up on the timeline etc.) but, if this is applicable to what you’re doing…
Move timeline off of Video layer 1, to Video layer 2 and above. (Example: If you have 3 layers of video, move video layer 1 up to 2, 2 up to 3, and 3 up to 4 – leaving Video layer 1 completely empty.
THEN – Leave entire project UNRENERED on the timeline. Seems strange, because you have to render it to see if it looks right for yourself… but if you export it with the timeline rendered it doesn’t maintain the alpha channel.
Lastly, export as an Animation with Millions of Colors +
That should do the trick.

I do plenty of green screen video work, so I have run into alpha issues myself. Hope this helps!

Ian

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Dan Nethery] “I can put a file in with alpha channel and see the video under the clip or still.”

Where is this clip being supplied from and are you sure you have the alpha type selected properly in FCP? AE defaults to premultiplied with black, FCP defaults to straight.

Jeremy

[Dan Nethery]

Thanks for the input, but I moved the two layers up a video track off of track one and it didn’t work. The overlays work fine on our other machines. They are all the same exact setup. I’m working in 1080. My the video that we use is ether ProRess 422(HQ) or XDCAM HD. The graphics are all “Apple Animation, 1920 x 1080 (1888 x 1062), Millions+” We pay a company big money to make these. I have tried using the ProRess as my sequence setting and Uncompressed 8bit and 10bit. Like I said it’s great on everyone else’s machine…. Just seems almost like a hit or miss on my machine. I have even trashed my preferences.. If all else fails we just render my stuff off on another machine in the office. And the clips are set to Black for the alpha. I can see though the alpha before I render.

thanks again for everyones help.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Dan Nethery] “They are all the same exact setup.”

Any difference in plugins or plugin versions?