Burning fuse question…

[Mark]

Check the alpha channel inside AE to make sure that you are generating an alpha that matches your scene. Make sure that there are no other layers (solids) that in the comp that would affect the alpha.

Render out using millions of colors+ to make sure that your alpha is generated.

HTH
Mark

[Mike Smith]

Might be better to do it all in AE. If you use PPro and output, you’ll need to find a codec to render to that has alpha channel info – i.e. not DV. You’ll orobably want to output to a 32-bit targa, tiff or psd image sequence.

But AE would give you better control of animation of the fuse, access to Particular for the spark, and let you preview how it all looks composited before you render … and AE will keep your field handling all nice and consistent …

[Erik Pontius]

Apparently a popular request. I built a burning fuse for a MI themed event as well. Built mine completely in AE.
Particuliar should create a good alpha channel. There should be a toggle on the comp window to toggle the visability of the alpha channel, and you can check your alpha (black areas are transparent, white are opaque, grey is semi-transparent)
If you render out to a format that supports an alpha channel (i.e. quicktime animation or AVI uncompressed) and still end up without transparency, you might need to use an “unmultiply black” effect on the layer to remove the black. Some effects like lens flare, will not output a usable alpha without it.

Erik

[Lex Park]

How did you make the fuse in AE? A new Layer and the brush tool?(again, AE newbie here)
I did the sparks in AE and Particular, rendered out to uncompressed avi @ millions of colors+, and the alpha came out perfect.
I put that with a very simple line I did using a title in Premiere. With a little motion tracking, I was able to have the fuse “burn away” from left to right, as the sparks moved along.

One bit of trouble I’m having now is getting the darn thing rendered out without losing the pristine quality of the spark that the orignal alpha source avi (from AE) has. I just used a little test vid clip to go in the background, so that I could see the burning fuse over top, but no matter what/how I render it, the quality of the spark detail suffers when compared to the original.

Any suggestions?

– The Foonshoe

[Lex Park]

BTW… this will displayed via computer/projector onto a 12’x12′ screen, not DVD.

– The Foonshoe

[Joshua Mason]

This seems like and aweful lot of trouble just for a burning fuse. You should try to do everything in AE. You don’t have to use the stroke effect. If it’s just a simple project you can use a solid layer for the fuse. If your comp size is 720 x 480, I would suggest a solid layer of 600 x 10, or something like that. You can even throw a rope texture on it if you want.

Then just animate your mask shape to make it disapear as it burns.

Then you just import your footage and place it underneath your animation, and that way you can adjust the duration of your fuse to match your video.

I hope this helps. Sorry if I may have left out a few important details. This is my first post.

-Josh

[Lex Park]

Thanks for the insight… gosh, there is a world of stuff I have no idea about with this program. I do know it’s a wonderful tool and look forward to learning all I can about it!

I may try that approach, as it does make more sense. I do have a deadline for this that is approaching fast though…

Thanks again!

– The Foonshoe

[Erik Pontius]

It’s been a little while since I did it. I found a high resolution photograph of a coil of rope (actually a weathered rope wrapped around a boat dock pylon). I found one of the rope pieces that was clean and generally straight. I used photoshop to cut out the piece I needed, then saved as a PSD. Imported this into AE, created a comp, created a mask that was the size of the rope piece with a bit of feather and animated it to move from right to left. I modified the “weld” Particuliar preset to get the effect, color and particle bounce (or lack there of) I wanted. I created another comp with just the rope, nested this comp in the first and added shine and modified and animated it to create a glowing “cherry” on the end of the fuse.
Ended up with this:
https://www.burningfromice.com/video/misc/fuse.htm

Erik