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Dynamic Link to AE and timewarp has funky results
I’m doing some editing work in Premiere Pro CS5 that has some footage that needs to be in slow-motion. So, since After Effects seems to be the best around at slow-motion, and the two link together nice and easily, I figured I would do it from there.
So, I split my clip at the section that needs slow motion in Premiere Pro, and open up the piece of the clip with a dynamic link in after effects. Everything is imported to After Effects fine.
However, once I apply the timewarp effect in after effects, it seems to apply that effect to the ENTIRE clip in from Premiere Pro, not just the split section that I imported to after effects. So, now in After Effects I’m actually seeing a section of video that I didn’t even import, rather than the split clip that I did import.
If I reset the timewarp to 100, I get my proper video to display again.
Is there a way to distinguish that I only want my After Effects changes to apply to the split part of the clip, and not the entire clip that was originally brought into the PP project?
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20 Replies
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Timewarp effect looks at the source frame and speed separately.
Your clip will be in a comp. Put the current time indicator (CTI) at the very head of the comp you are using as your clip (press Home key to jump to start of comp). Now double click the nested comp (clip) and you will go into the composition and see the original clip from start to end. The CTI position in here is critical you don’t move it. Go over to the left of the comp timeline and hold the Ctrl (PC) or Cmd Mac) key. Then left mouse click over the time value. It will change each time you click to show timecode and frame and feet inches in 16mm and 35mm and loop again as you continue to click over it with the key held down. You want to know the keyframe of this CTI position. It will look like a single set of numbers and be the 1st click after you see the timecode display. Remember this number…
Go back to the 1st composition that is linked to PPro. Select the comp (clip) and in the effect controls panel where the timewarp effect is, select from the effect settings “adjust time by” and change the setting to Source Frame. Enter the frame number in this section where it is 0.00 by default. Then hit the stop watch to create a keyframe. To test the effectiveness of this, click the little FX box next to the name of the timewarp effect to switch on and off the effect. The image should stay on the same frame.
Make sure you have FX symbol back and the effect is switched on. Then change the “adjust time by” setting to “Speed”. Now the default is 50.00 and you can adjust the speed of the shot 50=half speed = 2x slow motion. The lower the number the slower the speed.
What needed to happen was to set the correct source frame so the effect is looking at what you want as frame start otherwise it will look at frame 1 (or 0.00) of the original clip not your cut.
Working with Time remapping is a bit easier to understand but requires a different approach, the effect you are after might be able to be achieved with timeremapping which will be less toying about. But that’s for another post with another set of instructions.
Hope this helped.
– Jon Barrie 🙂
Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net
http://www.suiteskills.com -
Even when you Dynamic Link to create a AE comp, the file still refrences the underlying video file.
What you could do after jumping into after effects from PPro….
Immediately select the clip on the Dynamic Link comp timeline in AE and PRECOMP it (CNTRL SHIFT C (PC) ) (COMMAND SHIFT C (MAC) ).
then time warp the now precomp element on that has replaced the clip on your AE timeline…
this procedure basically virtualizes the clip so as far as AE is concerned the only frames available are the frames it sees on that timeline and not the underlying media….and should protect you from seeing frames you don’t want to see when doing the motion control.
Does that make sense?
Alex
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FYI…
But depending on your version of PPro (CS3 and greater)… there are great slow mo tools in the effect panel with quality levels up to motion estimation….so you don’t necessarily have to go to AE to do this….
alex
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@Jon Barrie
Everything was going good with your method until I got to the step where I had to enter the source frame of the start of the clip I wanted. The source frame of the part I want to edit is 17824, however it looks like it won’t accept a value larger than 5000 for source frame. Anything I put in higher than that just defaults back to 5000. I even tried making the comp length 20,000 frames but it still won’t let me put anything higher than 5000 in there.
@Alex Udell
I tried precomping and it did not change the behavior at all. It still applied the effect to the entire clip, not just the part I had brought over from Premiere.
As far as Premiere’s slow-mo goes, I’m using CS5, so are you saying that its slow motion frame interpolation is as good as After Effect’s? That would be helpful, however I would still like to get this sorted out as I’m sure I will often have a need to apply effects to just a part of a clip without affecting the whole thing in PP.
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If you are using such a long source file, the stress on the system and the ability to use effects such as Timewarp would be improved if you export out the edit of the clip you know you want and use.
The use the exported clip as an FX source clip instead of the original. Use Quicktime export with Animation codec at 100% to work with a visually lossless clip in AE.
Cheers,
Jon Barrie 😉
Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net
http://www.suiteskills.com -
Yeah, that’s the workflow I’ve used with my old NLE and AE together. I’m on the PP CS5 trial right now and the whole reason I was considering the switch was due to the integration of PP and AE, being able to make changes in AE and have it instantly updated in PP without any rendering. If I’m still going to be rendering and copying back and forth then I can’t really justify the cost and time of switching to PP.
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when you pre-compose in AE as suggested above, make sure you Choose the option to “Move all attributes into the new composition”
See if this helps…..
When I tried it with time remapping in AE….I was able to use only the frames of the trimmed source…
where as if i didn’t check the option, I still was able to access all the underlying media….
see if this does the trick…
word of warning….I had a heck of a time moving HDV media from P Pro to AE through dynamic link…get the wrong frames entirely…but that doesn’t seem to be your issue…
Alex
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Hi Ryan,
The benefit of DL still outways the use of other NLEs with After Effects even if you are rendering out a small portion of a massive source file.
1. You can edit in PPro and replace with AE comp and it create the comp with the correct clip properties and edit points.
2. Edits, adjustments in AE do update in the PPro timeline.
This workflow can’t be done with any other NLE other than PPro.
3. It only appears that this effect (Timewarp) is the first time I’ve ever run into the need to do an export of the clip as the effect uses the source clip as part of the parameters.
In Your case the clip you are working with is too long for the apparent 5000 frame limit you’ve found on the start frame (+3 mins in from the source at 25fps).
So you can do a quick render out of the clip from in AE and just bring that into the Comp and switch off the layer of the clip sent from PPro. Adjustments and updates to PPro will still occur. Timewarp is a very intensive effect and so for using that one I would be inclined to export it and use the AE export in my PPro edit as the DL sent it there for me fast but the rendering required for that effect specifically is so much that I’d rather edit with the render instead of stressing the system to go via DL to show me.
A tip for those using DL, wait until you have a picture lock. Effects in PPro will give you a sense of timing at least. Slow motion using the Timeremapping will work fine as a proxy effect for AE for polish with Timewarp or it’s own timeremapping (which is very good).
Make a duplicate of the seq and name it _DL at the name end – so you can go back if you need for the original edit in the even you do need the original edit clips. Once they are sent to AE in the DL replace method getting the edit back to PPro is not fun. Do-able but not recommended. So think to use AE to polish, not for the testing/editing process.
Cheers,
Jon
Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net
http://www.suiteskills.com -
Aha, I’ve got it working now. It appears the problem before was that I was opening the new comp and editing that one, not just continuing to edit on the same one.
Thanks.
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Also @Jon, I think I understand what you were saying better now as well. If I’m reading it correctly you weren’t saying necessarily go back and forth with it, but rather just render it once and then DL that new render, which would make the changes still happen in realtime.
So now I’ve got two workable solutions. Thanks guys.
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