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multiple questions – transparency, shadows, and 16:9
Hi everyone.
I am trying to complete something for a project, and am running into several stumbling blocks:
1. I am trying to create a transparent .mov file which I want to layer over another video track. Currently, I am unable to see how I can do this, as the “set background color”, doesn’t have a transparent color (atleast, not one I could find).
2. I have a circular graphic which I am rotating in the same x & y position. I have applied a drop shadow with a large distance to it, and currently, as the graphic rotates, the shadow rotates with it– so the shadow actually moves around in a circle– How can I make it so that the shadow stays in one position, but the symbol rotates freely?
3. I am working with 16:9 DVCpro50 24p footage in final cut pro, and I have my AE settings for this transparent video file to NTSC DV widescreen 23.976, width 720, height 480, pixel aspect ration D1/DV NTSC Widescreen (1.2)… Yet when I add the rendered file into final cut pro, it is not 16:9, but rather square and does not fill the entire width of the screen.. What am I doing wrong here?
Thank you in advance.
-patrick -
6 Replies
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1. transparency… to create transparent areas you will need 2 things and alpha channel and a codec/file format that supports alpha channels. first, click the checkerboard icon at the bottom of the preview window to make sure you can see the transparency (you should see the checkerboard pattern in the transparent areas, like in photoshop). now, send your comp to the render queue via make movie or add to render queue and click the underlined term next to output module (usually says lossless). the lossless animation codec supports alpha and works well with fcp, so keep that, but set the channels to rgb+alpha and set the color to straight (unmatted). now, when you import it into fcp, just make sure that fcp reads the alpha channel correctly and you should have a nicely keyed graphic in fcp (dvcpro50 does not support alphas so it is not an option)
2. shadow behavior… the drop shadow effect is kind of a fake shadow, it won’t behave as a true shadow because you don’t have a true light source casting the shadow. you could set one up using ae’s 3d abilities, but i think it is easier to fake it with the drop shadow effect in this case. you need to set the direction property of the drop shadow to rotate opposite the direction of your circle… so if your circle rotates clockwise 720 degrees, your shadow direction should rotate -720 degrees over the same time. if you want to get into expressions, you can link the two properties, but setting keyframes with opposite values will work fine.
3. pixel aspect… by your description, i believe things are set corrctly in ae. if you import your movie back in to ae and it looks correct, then it must be a problem importing into fcp. i haven’t used fcp much, only to capture, so i can’t be much help there.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
[patrick99e99] “How can I make it so that the shadow stays in one position, but the symbol rotates freely?”
All of your questions have been answered well, but I thought I’d give you another option for the drop shadow:
1)Duplicate the layer, delete the drop shadow effect from the top layer and delete the rotation keyframes from the bottom layer.
2)Change the drop shadow on the bottom layer to “Shadow Only.”
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[Dave LaRonde] “The DV codec doesn’t support alpha channels”
While this is important for him to be aware of, he never actually said what codec he was using to render from AE with.
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Well… maaaayyybe =)
Those sound like composition settings settings to me, not render settings, because the resolution and pixel aspect ratio aren’t set in the render settings. I’m going to go ahead and chalk this one up to confusion from the vague wording though =)
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Thank you everyone.. All problems are solved.. (And yes, I was talking about composition settings for the pixel aspect ration). The FCP problem was indeed the fact that “anamorphic” wasn’t checked. Thank you again.
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i created a simple expression to have the drop shadow direction (from the standard drop shadow effect) remain constant when the layer it is applied to rotates. i saved it as a preset that can be downloaded here:
https://www.mercuryjones.com/aepresets.html
it is really easy to use… once applied, just set the shadow properties as needed, including the direction. now when you rotate the layer the expression will recalculate the direction of the drop shadow to make it relative to the comp, rather than the layer.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW
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