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Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy Alpha renders look jagged

  • Alpha renders look jagged

    Posted by Victor Kohler on September 9, 2008 at 7:11 pm

    Hi,

    I’ve got some graphics made in AE rendered to Quicktime with the animation codec. The graphics have an alpha channel that needs to be preserved for compositing with live footage in FCP. The problem is that my renders look great when viewed in QT but in FCP they look bad. The edges get jagged the entire graphic looks unsharp. I’ve tried renders with other codecs like PNG and uncompressed with the same issues. Im editing in a ProRes HQ sequence in FCP. Im not shure if this is an FCP or AE issue, thats why im doubble-posting.

    Any ideas?

    Im using:

    Adobe After Effects CS3
    Final Cut Pro 6.0.4
    Quicktime 7.5.0

    /Victor Köhler

    Victor Kohler replied 17 years, 8 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Jeremy Garchow

    September 9, 2008 at 7:56 pm

    Did you render out premultiplied or straight alpha and do those settings reflect what FCP is showing for alpha type?

    Jeremy

  • Chris Poisson

    September 9, 2008 at 8:06 pm

    I’d bet the farm your alpha is premultiplied. When you have a straight alpha usually they look terrible in QT and great in FC.

    Have a wonderful day.

  • Jeremy Garchow

    September 9, 2008 at 8:13 pm

    [Chris Poisson] “I’d bet the farm your alpha is premultiplied. When you have a straight alpha usually they look terrible in QT and great in FC.”

    Yes, AE does default to render a premultiplied alpha. If this is the case, you Victor, need to change the alpha status to ‘black’ in FCP from the browser. If the clip is in the timeline already then you can right click on the clip and choose item properties > format, then change the alpha type to black from straight.

    Jeremy

  • Victor Kohler

    September 10, 2008 at 7:58 am

    Now it works! My animation codec still looks bad but when i rendered it as a PNG sequence with pre-multiplied alpha and set the alpha interpretation in FCP to black it turned out very nice! Thanks for the help guys!

    /victor Köhler

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