I’m Baffled: Tracking/Render Problem

[Darby Edelen]

[Eric Goldstein] “I’m baffled: I’ve tracked an animated screen into a cell phone (shot in DVCPRO HD 1080 i60). The tracking and positioning looks good in RAM preview, but when its rendered, it’s out of position and jumps all over.”

I’m baffled as well… Your RAM preview should show you exactly what your composition (color profiles aside) will look like when rendered using the Lossless profile out of AE.

Are you rendering to something other than Lossless? Have you tried Edit > Purge > Purge All recently? Is your source DVCPRO HD footage deinterlaced?

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Anthony Dupsta]

Have you tried rendering an image sequence?
Also, the only other time I have seen this is with KeyLight. Are you using Keylight anywhere in the comp?

[Eric Goldstein]

I’ve tried rendering in Animation (lossless) and DVCPro HD 1080 60i. Same result. I’m not using Keylight in the comp. I’ll try .tga. I have purged all before rendering.

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

I tried .tga s. Same problem. The footage is deinterlaced.

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Howzabout Save Ram Preview. No interlacing, AFAICR, but that should sort things out for now. Apologies for stating the obvious but ar eyou certain that what you saw was the RAM Preview and not the Tracking/Layer Pane? Did you click on Apply to the correct layer? Did you ensure that there were no other keyframes on that layer?

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Eric Goldstein]

Hi,

I tried save RAM preview. The resulting file was perfect. So what’s this all mean?

[Yes, I am certain I was watching the RAM preview and not looking at the tracking pane. And I did apply the results to the correct layer. And there were no keyframes that shouldn’t be there. Obvious, but needed to be asked.]

Thanks for the help, but I’d really like to understand what’s going on with the normal render process.

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I can only tihnk of pixel aspect ratios (PAR) coming into play here. What are your source files’ screen size and PAE? Comp settings? And Render and Output settings?

It’ll be interesting to get to the bottom of this.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Eric Goldstein]

Hi Roland,

Footage was originated as DVCPro HD 1920X1080 60i.
When I import into AE, interpret footage comes up with:
nonsquare 1.50:1

But, at this pixel aspect ratio, the image proportions are squeezed horizontally. When I set the pixel aspect ratio to square, the image proportions are correct.

So, I have PAR set to square for footage. Image size is set at 1920X1080.
Comp is the same: square, 1920X1080.
Output is 1920X1080, I’ve tried both lossless (Animation codec) and DVCProHD 60i. I’ve tried with and without field render. I’ve tried all combinations of intepreting footage upper, lower and none and the same in output. I’m using Best and Full.

I’m still baffled, but the results are consistanly the same as described.

Thanks,

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Hi Eric

Thanks for coming back with the answers. I would try to render a short segment into an Image Sequence and see if the results are identical. My hunch is they will be as I have a strong feeling that it’s PAR related. Take a look at your Render and more so, your Output settings, including QT settings.

I suggest that you send a report to Adobe for them to have a look-see into this if things still don’t add up on your side.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Eric Goldstein]

Hi Roland,

I tried rendering to TGAs, but still had the same problem. I found something odd though, by setting most of the render settings to current, the file rendered properly. I’m trying to narrow down, which setting or settings are causing the problem. I’ll post, once I have it figured out.

Thanks,

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com