-
Bad alpha channel from AE to Avid
Hi there,
I have been searching for a solution but so far nothing seems to be working.
I am rendering out some motion graphics (text and such) out of After Effects. I am then sending them to a client who is editing with Avid. The alpha channels are coming out too thin and crappy looking apparently.
I first tried exporting a quicktime (millions colors +) with the Avid Meridien Uncompressed.
premultiplied alpha on black. ( I usually like how premultiply deals with blurs and glows. I rendered out a straight alpha one to test and it has all this white noise crud around it.)Then I tried just a PNG sequence. Still did not improve.
The client is telling me that the edges around the words looks choppy and some of the text is too small.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
-
7 Replies
-
Ok I want to add that I have tried straight matte alphas a couple of times. Most of the time I get this weird dusty crud around my text in weird areas. But all in all it comes into Avid better. If only I could get rid of the dusty stuff. I think it may render differently every time. What’s going on?
-
Ok.. ‘cough’ it seems that the Avid Meridien Uncompressed that I am using is making the extra random white crud appear. Anyone heard of this?
-
Well for starters, do you have the latest codecs installed on both machines?
I’ve seen issues between systems with different versions of the avid codec.
And of course, are you building at D1 sized (486 high)? Use to be one couldn’t make a movie out of AE using avid codec if the frame size was not 720×486 but nowadays it will do it. -
FWIW, I have railed in this forum about the Meridien codec’s crappy alpha channels. Schmutz around the alpha channel like you’ve described sounds like what I’ve witnessed. Consequently I started using the Animation codec for my alpha’d graphics… straight alpha, no chaser, er.. premult.
That said, preliminary tests with the latest codecs (at least 2.80 installed) seem to have fixed the issue. If not, definitely try the Animation codec.
-
Thanks guys. Yeah, animation codec is what I use for just about everything. It is so great. I ended up just going to that. I wasn’t sure if the Avid codec would be better or not for the editor. Anyway.. thanks. I will have to see which versioin I have.
-
Pardon my interruption. I’m an AE person, not an avid person. If I use the most recent Meridien codecs, does the avid I’m going to also need to have the most recent? How could I make sure they do?
Andrea Stewart
Producer/Editor/Director – Owner
Germane Creative LLC -
I’m not sure about Codec version compatibility, but the easiest way to ensure would be to download the latest from Avid and install on the editing system if you can. BTW, regarding my prior post about new codec fixing alpha channel problems. It doesn’t and I’m back to exporting alpha graphics as animation.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up