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Is it possible that After Effects doesn’t export tgas properly?
Hello all,
I have recently created a graphics package for broadcast purposes. It consists of a couple of game elements, such as a clock I designed in Maya which would be layed over the video footage.
For this purpose I was instructed to deliver animation sequences as tga files with alpha. This seems to have gone well with all the graphics except – strangely enough, for a couple of graphics which were shiny black. They indicated that these graphics were slightly transparent, which is strange, because they are solid object from maya which I exported from after effects.
As far as I can see there are two possibilities: either After effects is somehow not exporting properly, or the software used to superimpose the graphics can’t handle black. Any thoughts?
I have already had a look at my tga sequences in Photoshop, and I can’t detect any error in the alpha channel (all 100% white/ black)…
thanks in advance and regards,
Manimalle -
5 Replies
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After Effects does Targas quite nicely.
Did you render from AE with straight or premultiplied alpha?
If you import the TGAs back into AE, and view the alpha (the RGB/alpha switch at the bottom of the comp or footage window) do you see pure white (255 alpha, in other words)?
Can you try rendering alpha both ways, then seeing how your software imports the TGAs? -
[Steve Roberts] “do you see pure white”
In the case of alpha, I never trust my eyes! Pay close attention to the RGBA readings as you move your mouse around the image.
Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA -
Indeed. Good advice, Darby.
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I rendered it premultiplied, and checked the files again in Photoshop and After Effects, there’s no indication that After Effects has done anything strange with the files, and a mouse-over doesn’t indicate any wavering, it’s a solid value of 255.
The problem is- as usually is the case with such projects – I have to be 100% sure that the problem doesn’t lie with any error from my part, so that the debugging can start at the programming end of the project. From your reply I think I can conclude that whatever is making black areas semi transparent happens in the software, and isn’t in the original file…
I will also deliver some graphics rendered straight and see what happens. Also, I realized some of the black values were very black, and I thought maybe that was giving problems, so I rendered them out where the RGB doesn’t go below a value of 16 (good post on broadcast safe!) Could that be the problem?
thanks anyways for the tips, I’ll do some more testing here.
regards,
Manimalle -
If I recall, Avids can take 0 black if a switch is set for it when importing. But you’d have to ask an Avid editor to make sure.
I hope you find the solution — sorry I can’t help more.
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