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gradient problem…
I am new to video editing and effects, and I have a problem, when I render my video, there are pixelated areas, but in a gradient way, I don’t know the real term for this, so I can’t look for the specific name. Why is this happening, how can I avoid it, and how can I fix it on the footage I do have? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you for your time.
John
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6 Replies
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This could be one of a few different things. It could be a codec issue, how are you rendering?
It could also be a lack of code values for colors in a specific range, which would result in banding. What are your project settings? Are you using linear blending/a linearized profile? The quick fix for this problem is changing your project to 16bpc (which gives you many more levels of values to work with).
An alternative method to reduce banding is to add a small amount of noise to the footage to diffuse the edges of the bands.
Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA -
I’m rendering it out at 29.97 fps, Best as the colors opinion and export it as a AVI using Cinepak.
It doesn’t happen all the time, usually when it goes from dark to light or light to dark, the extremes of both. If the scene is lit as a regular scene would be it is fine. It is just every so often it just looks blocky.
As to your question about linear blending, I don’t know what that is.
How would you change to 16bpc? Or choose it in the first place?
Thank you for your help. -
[John Jackson] “export it as a AVI using Cinepak. “
Aha! I think I found the problem:
You’re using a codec that was developed over 15 years ago to play back off of 1x CD-ROM drives.
Try rendering to a more modern codec, you could even go lossless if you have the disk space and there should be no quality loss.
Also, you’re not using File > Export are you? You should be using Composition > Make Movie… or Composition > Add To Render Queue. AE’s Render Queue gives you a wealth of options that ‘Exporting’ doesn’t.
Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA -
[John Jackson] “How would you change to 16bpc? Or choose it in the first place? “
Sorry if this goes a little over your head, I’ll try to explain it as best I can.
16bpc is 16 bits per channel and describes the number of bits available to generate unique color values. More bits = more colors. (Details are at the bottom of this post, you can skip it if you’re not interested).
You can change the bits per channel (bpc) in File > Project Settings.
However, I must reiterate that the codec you are rendering to only supports 256 unique color values, and so it would be pointless to change to 16bpc. Also, 16bpc will increase your render times significantly.
Most computer generated graphics are 8bpc, or what people are more familiar with as 24-bit color (8 bits per channel x 3 channels = 24 bits). An 8bpc color depth has 24 total bits for color information and so gives you 2^24 or 16.7 million unique color values.
With a 16bpc color depth you have 48 total bits and 2^48 or 281.4 trillion unique color values.
Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA -
I understood everything you said, and thank you for your help. I was exporting it as you said NOT to, but that will change from this point on. Thank you again.
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[John Jackson] “I understood everything you said, and thank you for your help.”
Good to hear =)
Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA
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