exporting a title from AE to FCP X : the colors of the blocks are washed out (alpha interpretation pb ?)

[Michael Szalapski]

If you’re relying on blending modes for the look it won’t work. Blending modes don’t come through in a rendered video.

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(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Karin Weduwer]

Thank you, Michael, i didn’t know that.
Unfortunately, that’s not it.
I just made a test, all blocks in “normal” mode and it’s the same problem.
The blocks that have transparency have “washed out” colors in FCPX…
I’ll upload a screen shot of each, one is the view when it’s in AE, the other when the title is imported in FCPX.

Thanks

[Michael Szalapski]

Are you rendering with straight alpha or premultiplied? Whichever you’re doing, try the other one.
Also, what sort of color management settings are you using?

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Karin Weduwer]

Both straight and multiply alpha give wrong results (straight is a little better though).
And sRGB all the way (from illustrator to AE).
Except, i couldn’t find the color profile in FCPX (hate this version / but don’t know it well).

[Darby Edelen]

You mention that you’re working in 32bpc. What are the floating point color values of your titles in AE? Are you also linearizing the working space?

Darby Edelen

[Karin Weduwer]

hello,

the settings I mentioned are the settings in AE.
(and I couldn’t find the settings in FCPX the way it used to be in FCP7 (i searched for it but i have no clue, and didn’t find on the web 🙁

What do you mean by “linearizing the working space” ?

[Darby Edelen]

There’s a checkbox under the area where you set the working color profile that allows you to linearize the profile.

What are the floating point color values of your titles, and why are they set to multiply in AE?

Darby Edelen

[Karin Weduwer]

OK, that’s it 🙂 this checkbox “linearize the profile” changes the aspect of the colors of the blocks in After Effect (so i’ll have to adapt my comp.) BUT when rendered rgb+alpha and imported in FCP, it is almost same colors then in AE. So problem solved i guess 🙂 Thanks !

ps. floating point is 32. And blending mode is set to “normal” now (since Michael told me FCP didn’t manage blending mode when rendered).

[Darby Edelen]

[karin weduwer] “ps. floating point is 32.”

Indeed, floating point is 32 bits per channel, but I’m curious what the actual floating point color values on the layers are. For example:

Red: 1.0
Green: 1.0
Blue: 1.0
Alpha: 1.0

That would be a pure white color with full opacity. If any of the RGB values are above 1.0 then those values will be truncated/clipped to 1.0 when you render to a non-floating point format. That can cause the colors to look different.

It sounds, though, like FCP X is set up to blend in a linearized working space so that seems to have addressed your issue.

Darby Edelen

[Karin Weduwer]

Hi, i don’t know if i understood correctly.

These are simple color blocks & text created in AE (so would it even possible to be above 1 ?)
Color (R/G& B) close to 0. Alpha 0,8.
So bluish black blocks with transparency 80 + white text on the block (1/1/1).

Good thing to know, that the working space has to be set to linear in AE at the start of the project if it has to be rendered for FCP X !

Thanks a lot !