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Is it possible to export a QuickTime Movie with an alpha channel?
I have a short sequence which ends with a logo. It’s the intro to a program. Week to week the intro stays the same, but the rest of the program changes. I’d like to export this sequence as a QuickTime Movie and keep the transparency of the final few seconds intact so I can give a copy f it to another editor who will overlay it on top of other clips. I can’t seem to find a setting to turn on or choose an alpha channel when exporting to QuickTime. All I’ve been getting is a solid black background behind the logo and no transparency. Is there a way to achieve this in FCP? If I have to, I’ll recreate the sequence in Boris Red, but it already exists on a timeline in FCP, so I’m trying there first.
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5 Replies
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Not from FCP. You can render with an Alpha Channel in After Effects or Motion.
What you can do is create a Matte of the logo. Simply apply the Brightness / Contrast filter to it. Now give it full brightness and enough contrast so you end up with a solid white logo. Export that and call it your Logo Matte.
Now when you want to use it again, place the Logo in V2 and the Logo Matte in V1 so they both start at the same time. Now apply a Travel Matte – Luma to V2. The logo will now key over the matte and then you can apply this over a background or video.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Couldn’t RandyP try pulling the matte out directly using Video Filters>Matte>Extract.
He will have to have two sequences to export, one the original logo and the other one the matte.
The other editor will use the Travel Matte Luma that you described.
HTH,
Bryce WhitesideDon’t worry Mr. B. I have a cunning plan…
PowerBook 1.67 Ghz ATI 9700 128 MB 2 GB
Mac OS X 10.4.5 QuickTime Pro 7.0.4
Final Cut Pro HD
DVD Studio Pro 3
Motion
After Effects 6.5 -
I have found that it IS possible to export a QT with an alpha channel from FCP. The way i did it was…
Change your sequence settings on the timeline to Compressor>Animation
Then go into the “Advanced” settings and turn on Millions of Colors+Now, export a QuickTime movie (not a QT conversion) and it will have an alpha channel.
I could not export using QT conversion using the above settings (and leave the sequence settings as they were). I had to actually change the sequence settings first…
Sterling
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I think you could also export an image sequence. .tga, .tif, .png, .pct can all carry alpha channels. Check with the other editor to see if any of those formats are good.
Arnie
https://www.arniepix.com -
Thank you all for your suggestions.
I tried globerider’s suggestion [globerider] “Change your sequence settings on the timeline to Compressor>Animation
Then go into the “Advanced” settings and turn on Millions of Colors+”, and it does work. The issue for me in using this method is in changing the sequence settings. Right now they are at “Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2,” and changing them to “Animation” and “Millions of Colors +” appears to result in some compression which lowers the quality so that some clips with a “push in” transition acquire a jerkyness to their motion.Arniepix suggestion to export to an image sequence may have similar quality issues in this case.
Walter’s suggestion to create a Matte/Travel Matte of the logo is what I’ll try if I need to continue working on this intro in FCP. In the end I may just recreate the whole thing in Motion or Boris Red, which would have the added bonus of eliminating the flicker problems I encountered when applying both a drop shadow and the Mask Feather filter to some clips (see my post thread from 3-3-2006).
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