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Animation codec in FCP – problems
Im trying to resolve a recurring problem Im seeing in my students work.
They generally make movies in after effects and edit in FCP.They generally export from the default AE lossless settings and match FCP sequences. But, we are seeing a lot of problems with glitches in the footage when on the timeline, even if rendered. And there is often a sluggish frame lag/drop (even if exported to file…?!)
Have tried variants of auto keyframes and say keyframe every 25frames etc…The glitches look like sections of the previous frame(s) repeated, especially around areas of movement.
I know an obvious answer is to say dont use Animation (they will anyway), and dont this/that (they will anyway – if there is a pre-set use it mentality, despite instruction).
Im hopefully just going to try and resolve whats going on in some of these projects, their major presentation to the public is in two weeks time, apart from all else, I just want them to represent themselves well.
Any previous experience / navigation around this would be well worth hearing.
Cheers
Henry
PS Ill try to post a screenshot if I see one on screen
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13 Replies
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What FCP version are you using?
What is FCP on (Laptop Desktop)
How are you bringing in your animations into FCP.
Are your images jumping every second or so?Victor
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Do you see these glitches when playing an After Effects render in the quicktime player?
What are your sequence settings in FCP? Uncompressed? SD/HD? What kind of media drives do you have?
Please don’t be using Animation codec as your sequence compressor. Animation codec is useless as an editorial codec.
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I render out of AE using Animation all the time. (For the Alpha channel)
I’ve not had any issues. It sounds like there might be some other settings out-of-whack. Is the frame rate correct?Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
good point Ernie makes: I know AE is very picky about frame rates. If you are working in 23.976 and you tell it to render 23.98 it actually tries to render 23.98 and you’ll get little hiccups.
but sounds like your problems are more obvious.
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[henry cow] “They generally export from the default AE lossless settings and match FCP sequences. But, we are seeing a lot of problems with glitches in the footage when on the timeline, even if rendered. And there is often a sluggish frame lag/drop (even if exported to file…?!)
Have tried variants of auto keyframes and say keyframe every 25frames etc…
The glitches look like sections of the previous frame(s) repeated, especially around areas of movement. “There are no “default” Animation settings. You must tweka them to match precisely the target sequence’s frame rate, field order, and, unless they know what they’re doing with FCP’s terrible scale algorithm, the frame size.
Sections of the previous frame around movement is always a field order/frame rate mismatch.
bogiesan
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[david bogie] “Have tried variants of auto keyframes and say keyframe every 25frames etc..”
Set Keyframes: ALL.
Quality: BEST.
Otherwise you won’t get a lossless Animation, but compressed.
If you want Alpha: Millions+.
Rafael -
[henry cow] “I know an obvious answer is to say dont use Animation (they will anyway), and dont this/that (they will anyway – if there is a pre-set use it mentality, despite instruction).”
Then fail them. Seriously. If they can’t deliver to spec, They haven’t completed the assignment. And if they can’t learn to work with fundamental format standards, then they don’t deserve a passing grade for video or film making.
It’s like spelling and punctuation. If they submitted a term paper that was brilliant but unreadable due to spelling and punctuation errors they would fail. That was how it worked at the college I went to.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/ -
I see no point in teaching students with the attitude that they will just use defaults. If they are not going to learn the importance of providing the correct file formats for a post production workflow that is correct and glitch free, then stop taking their money and send them home.
Otherwise, when they graduate, these students will continue to make basic errors and us professionals on the receiving end of ill trained, lazy operators will curse the attitude that there are some things you just can’t teach.
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Not to be a smart-ass, but did the students get any formal training in AE? What the render settings and output module settings do? So, are they not following instructions or are they just experimenting on their own? AE is not really a ‘beginner’ program, it’s fairly complicated, especially with all different codecs, SD, HD and 24/30/60fps footage interpretation etc.
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
If they made the seq match the animation codec properties they rendered in, good luck making anything work. Rendered or not. This is not an acceptable, or functional workflow.
Have them work in a seq designed for their output. Dv, dvcprohd, etc.
Then they can render to that spec in ae, or waste their time with the animation codec and render twice.
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