Is it possible to make the composition background transparent

[John Dickinson]

Click on the little checkerbox button at the bottom of the comp to hide the background color.

JD

John Dickinson
Motionworks
http://www.motionworks.com.au

[Chris Gu]

While it hides the background color if I export the movie the background color still exists. You’re talking about the “Toggle Transparency” button right? That one doesn’t work.

[Andrew Kramer]

Viewing the tranparency and rendering transparency are 2 separate issues. To render with transfarency you need to use a codec thats supports alpha.

When rendering check to see if the channels are set to rgb plus alpha. Quicktime animation is a popular method. I tend to use PNG sequences for most things.

Good Luck

[John Dickinson]

You have to choose an output format that supports alpha channels, Quicktime Animation is one, Targa sequence is another

[Serge Hamad]

Chris,

When exporting your movie you have to choose a codec that supports an Alpha Channel. QT Animation set to Millions of collors plus does for instance.

Salut.
Serge

[Serge Hamad]

OK OK! I think Chris got it! 🙂

[Justin Productions]

Okay, if I understand well your question…

Adobe After Effects shows transparency as a black color. So when you import a file, wheter it’s a picture [(below the size of the main comp for example, so you see black (tranparency) around)] or a video footage that you keyed and you see some black under it, that’s the transparency. Just do Composition > Make Movie > Output Module > Quicktime (any format…etc.) and be sure to render with RGB + Alpha.

Black = Alpha in a certain way.

If I didn’t answered your question, just tell me (or us).

Hope that helped.

Justin Productions
Tangerin01@hotmail.com
Adobe After Effects 6.0 Professional

[Justin Productions]

*Rofl!*

Now, I just hope he got his answer!

Justin Productions
Tangerin01@hotmail.com
Adobe After Effects 6.0 Professional

[Chris Gu]

I don’t think what I asked made the most sense. Basically, I have a black background (for my composition) just like it would be set to for any new composition you make in AE. Then I just have a simple timer in white down at the bottom. All I want to do is have the timer in white and leave the background color black out of it (of course making it transparent)

So do I even need to bother toggling the transparency button?

Because everytime I go to render, and I’ve tried almost everyone’s method listed above – It looks transparent then shifts to black as it’s rendering (which means whatever settings I used didn’t work)

So am I missing something? I’m re reading your posts as we speak but I don’t know why this is so difficult for me lol.

[Chris Gu]

Oh and part of why I don’t want to use like png or targa is because it makes so many individual files… and I need to put my video in reverse. I need to put it into reverse because the freaking timer preset I used in AE I couldn’t set it to go in reverse. So I don’t want to have a bunch of images I’d need to manually move around.

I’m using 6.5 by the way…

I go to composition … make movie … (Look at the render queue) and scroll down to output module. Click output module and then go to Quick Time Movie

The only channel options I have are RGB or ALPHA not both together…

Any help?