Can’t get a smooth credit roll

[Chris Wright]

59.94 px/sec. not 59.97 px/sec.

other fixes, bigger, bolder fonts and multiples of frame rate reduce flicker.

[David Eells]

So for the benefit of future searchers, the key is never evaluate picture quality by playing a quicktime movie on your computer monitor. That’s why we professionals always have video cards playing out to line monitors. I used to know that.

Once I did that, it was remarkable how much better my credit roll looked. Although I will say that I discovered that the Boris text generator in Final Cut makes a nicer-looking credit roll than After Effects. Yes, it’s a little softer, but overall a more pleasing look, IMHO.

[David Eells]

Dave

Thanks for the response. 59.97px/sec was as close to 60 pix/sec (2 pix/frame) as I could easily get.

The issue, as I found and mentioned above, was monitoring. But beyond that, I found I preferred Boris in FCP to After Effects for making credit rolls.

[Kevin Camp]

i think what chris and dave are saying is that 59.97 is just a bit off… if you are working in either 29.97fps or 59.94fps your movement should be 59.94 pixels per second. dave’s suggestion to work in 60 fps, then convert to 59.94 makes the math a bit easier.

if you are having problems getting 59.94 pixels per second here are 2 easy expressions — no keyframes needed, just position the list where you want the it to start and it will march up the screen forever.

for a 59.94fps comp:
value – [timeToFrames(time),0]

for a 29.97fps comp:
value – [2*timeToFrames(time),0]

note, that if you were rendering 29.97 progressive you could lose the 2x and use the same expression as the 59.94. the 2x is just to keep the movement field friendly…

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Christina Crawley]

FYI:

I have a 1920×1080 29.97 fps project, created a text box, applied the expression:

for a 29.97fps comp:
value – [2*timeToFrames(time),0]

and my text was moving horizontally.

I swapped the values to:
value – [0,2*timeToFrames(time)]

now the text is moving vertically

[David Eells]

I hadn’t considered an expression. That’s a good solution. Thanks.

[Kevin Berve]

Hey Kevin,
I am having the same issue with a credit roll on my project.

I’m very much a self taught newbie in AE and I am confused how
to change the px/sec rate?

I know it’s an old thread, but if you can point me in the right direction,
I’d appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,
Kevin

[Kevin Camp]

this should make it easier to change the rate:

rate = 2; //value in px/sec.
value – [rate*timeToFrames(time),0]

just change the rate value to change the speed of the roll. to keep the movement field friendly (if rendering to fields) use even numbered values.

if your value gets too high the credit roll will get increasingly hard to read or look strobe-like or jittery if rendering progressive, increasing font size may help some, but keeping the rate low will produce the smoothest scrolls.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Berve]

Thanks Kevin for answering so quickly.
I tried the expression but I’m still getting a “shudder” approx. every 5 seconds
Any way to smooth that out?

I tried adding a motion blur but that only increased my rendering time by
9 hours.

This is the first time doing credits and I really didn’t expect it to have so much difficulty.
Silly me, I guess.

[Kevin Camp]

[Kevin Berve] “increased my rendering time by 9 hours.”

9 HOURS… that seems very high. how long is your roll and do you have a lot of effects in this?

if you roll is pretty straight forward (credits scrolling up the screen and a few images or some footage thrown in for interest and not longer than a few minutes) this should render much faster…

is your credit text created in ae (use the text tool, then copy/pasted — heaven forbid typed — into the text block)? i have noticed that ae has a tough time with very text heavy text layers… smaller text layers aren’t much of a problem, but a long credit roll would be.

if this is the case, you might want to put your text in a photoshop file and bring that in (as footage, not comp). or, if your text layer is in a separate, very tall comp (or, it would be easy to move it to a pre-comp that is tall enough to encompass the list) then you could save a frame of it (composition>save frame>file) and import it into ae and use that for your roll rather than the text layer.

anyway, back to the stutter problem…

where are you seeing the stutter? is it in the ae preview, or is it in the final render, in quicktime or an nle, perhaps?

in ae, i have noticed that ram previews don’t necessarily playback flawlessly, so that may be the case here. i would continue with the final and test that.

if the problem is with the final render, then we need to discuss frame rates, and make sure that the frame rate setup in ae matches that for the frame rate of the destination. for example, a render set up in ae as 23.98 fps (which is a commonly named frame rate for 24p, which is actually 23.976 fps) would create a stutter about every 10 seconds if place in a true 24p (23.976 fps) timeline.

or if the render is a high data rate file (very large file, like lossless/uncompressed codecs create), it may be that the stutter is due to the file slightly exceeding the data rate of your hard drive.

basically the math is correct… every frame the position changes by a set amount. if that amount doesn’t change, the rate doesn’t change, so there is a problem some where else.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW