Mercury Jones Flicker Free Credit Roll… or Graffiti?

[Kevin Camp]

if you maintain interlaced output (which is fine for broadcast, i’m not telling you to do otherwise) the smallest amount of movement per frame is 2 pixels (or scan lines) to maintain smooth edges.

if the ‘field friendly’ check box is check the expression should restrict the movement to multiples of 2 pixels per frame, but something may be going wrong…

so, if you look at the position values for your credits as you frame advance through the timeline, what does that increment seem to be?

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Bob Cole]

[Kevin Camp] “so, if you look at the position values for your credits as you frame advance through the timeline, what does that increment seem to be?”

Long (slow)comp: 2 pixel change vertically = jaggies on horizontal parts of the fonts
Short (quick) comp: 4 pixel change vertically = beautiful rounded font

Both the short and the long comps use a PSD file with rasterized text, scaled to 64%. The position info includes a fraction of a pixel, e.g.

360,1992.4
360, 1988.4
etc.

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[Bob Cole]

[Dave LaRonde] “You wouldn’t happen to be nesting the comp containing the vertical text roll into a comp of different dimensions, would you? If you are, that’s your problem.”

YES.

I imported text into Photoshop, rasterized the type layer, imported that PSD file into AE as a comp.

Then made only the rasterized text layer visible.

Then imported that comp (which is 1200-wide by 12600-high) into a NTSC-D1-sized comp.

When the vertical pixel move, from frame to frame, is 4, the text is great. When it is 2 or 6 or 8, it is jagged. Night and day difference.

After reading your post, I tried importing the text file as a file, not a comp, with only the rasterized text layer visible in Photoshop when it was saved. I put that file into the 720×486 comp, rescaled it 64%, applied Mercury Jones, and got the same jaggies.

What should I be doing? I’ll try resizing the text file in Photoshop next.

The funny thing is that the same file produces great results, as long as the pixel difference = 4.

Bob C

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[Bob Cole]

[Dave LaRonde] “what happens if you DON’T scale down the layer in AE? What happens if you just run the roll at various speeds as a test?”

Crazy!

When I don’t scale down the layer, it looks great even at 2 pixel speed. Of course the credits don’t fit.

When I went back to PS to scale down the file so I wouldn’t have to scale it down in AE, I got the jaggies again.

But I think you’re putting me on the right path….

thanks.

bob c

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[Kevin Camp]

i’m having trouble reproducing your problem.. i created a text layer in ps, the same size as yours, imported the file as footage, dropped it into a d1 comp, adjusted the comp length to around 2.5 minutes to get 2 pixel movement and it seems fine…

it doesn’t sound like you are doing this, but if you have the movement in a comp that is, say an hd preset, then drop that into a d1 comp and scale to fit, the movement won’t be flicker free, do to the scaling in the second comp. likewise, if you create you movement in, say an hd preset again, and try to view on an sd monitor it won’t look good either. but if you are creating the move in the sd comp and viewing it on an sd monitor, it should look good… and none of it should be affected by the scale of the layer as long as the scale is applied in that same comp…

so, i’m a bit stumped right now…

you could just bypass the preset expression and try this one since you already know the rate you want:

i = -2; // pixel movement per frame
y = i * time / thisComp.frameDuration;
value + [0,y]

just set the position of the credits where you want them to start, then the expression will advance the credit upwards 2 pixels per frame….

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Bob Cole]

First, thank you so much for taking the trouble to try to reproduce my issue. I’m not quite clear though: Did you make a too-big file, then resize the file itself (rather than a comp)? I’ve been rescaling the PSD layer to 64%, adding a drop shadow, applying Mercury Jones. With a 4 pixel frame-to-frame vertical change I get nice solid fonts. Other speeds, the fonts seem to have lots of horizontal lines through them.

The suggestion NOT to bring in a comp, and resize that, is valid: that was “jaggier” on the edges than the “corduroy” effect (lines in the middle) that I’m now getting.

I went back to PS, resized all the fonts in one file, then brought that file into AE so that I wouldn’t have to do any resizing. Same result: bad at 2 pixels movement, fine at 4. But I may be complaining about something that can’t be helped. The fast and good rolls have fonts which seem absolutely solid; the bad ones, running more slowly, have visible horizontal lines through them, as seen on my 19″ Sony studio monitor. Maybe that is just the way it is. I’ve even tried 1-pixel vertical blurring, but I still get a non-solid font.

Thanks for the suggestion about using expressions. I’ve never delved into that world but I may try. In the line
y = i * time / thisComp.frameDuration, do you mean to insert the total number of frames in the comp where you wrote “time”?

Thanks for all of your help. I really appreciate it.

Bob C

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[Bob Cole]

Tried the expression — it works. I still have a non-solid font, but I’m thinking that this is just NTSC, and that the quicker movement of the 4 pixel rate (as opposed to the 2 pixel rate) just disguises it.

Thank you very much for your insights. I learned not to nest comps for title scrolls, that is for sure.

Bob C

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Bob Cole]

[Dave LaRonde] “If you intend to keep making your text in Photoshop,”

Thanks Dave. I appreciate your help.

I like Photoshop for text, but what do you recommend?

Bob C

MacPro 2 x 3GHz dualcore; 10 GB 667MHz
Kona LHe
Sony HDV Z1
Sony HDV M25U
HD-Connect MI
Betacam UVW1800
DVCPro AJ-D650

[Kevin Camp]

one last thing… have you tried to take the 2px rate render into an nle and see how it plays out there. it sounds like it may look ok in the preview window, but on the broadcast monitor it’s looking bad. maybe there is an issue with ae’s video preview with you hardware. possibly playing it through an nle, which is more adept at handling interlaced video, it may not show the same issues.

and to answer your earlier question, i brought the large 1200×12600 single layer psd into ae as footage (vs comp) then scaled it to fit the width of an sd ntsc/d1 comp, then applied the preset to the psd layer.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Steve Macmillan]

How does one get the Mercury Jones AE preset? I found a link, but it was broken.

Thanks,
STeve