Need some explaining here

[Sander Van de kerkhof]

is your comp framerate 29.97 fps and did you interpet the footage the right way (setting the right field order and framerate)?

[Mill]

Hi

I’m not very familiar with the interpret clip thing.
I dragged the clip from the project window, onto the create new composition.
I thought that would make a comp with all the right settings.

my comp have the same framerate as the clip 29.97

What should i do with the fields?

THANKS!
Martin

[Steve Roberts]

Dragging onto the new comp button is generally a good idea if you want the footage to fill the comp. So far so good: the comp settings will match the footage settings in termas of frame size, frame rate, comp length and pixel aspect ratio.

However, doing that doesn’t do anything about field interpretation.

Read this: https://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/319908.html

Try re-interpreting the footage (file>interpret footage>main) and separating fields. Alt-double-click on the footage in the project window then press the pageUp and PageDn keys to step through the footage. If the footage jerks back and forth, you’ve used the wrong field order, and should re-interpret with the other field order.

If your footage is DV, the order is lower field first.
If it is not, it could be upper or lower first. Try the alt-double-click trick.
If it was shot progressive, separate fields should be “off”.

Anyway, try that, but also … tell us about your footage. What is the codec?

Steve

[Mill]

Hi Steve

The clip I’m working with is downloaded from
https://www.peerlessproductions.com/movies/smoke.mov

this is the result I get when importing it and viewing it in AE
smoke2.mov

This is a screen shot of the broken frame that appears once every 29 frames or so screen_cow.gif as you can se from the pic, the clip looks ok when viewed from a double click but not in the clip window. Am I making sense?

Everything else looks fine except that single frames every sec.
I tried your alt-double click trick in the project window but it look ok, no jerking.

Thanks a buch!
Martin

[Steve Roberts]

The clip you downloaded was compressed with the Sorenson codec. You can find this out by opening it in the Quicktime player (not AE), then hitting ctrl-J (cmd-J) and looking for video track>format.

Sorenson is meant to be a delivery codec, for final web delivery. It wasn’t designed for source files to be imported into AE, which is what you’re doing. AE doesn’t like Sorenson sources much.

(By the way, this clip is not NTSC, contrary to your original post. It is 320×240)

I recommend you try to export the clip (self-contained) to a Quicktime movie in the animation codec, using Quicktime. You might need Quicktime Pro. Once that is done, then you can import it into AE. The quality will not improve over the original, but at least you shouldn’t see the image breakup.

Hope that helps,
Steve

[Mill]

Hi Steve!

Thanks for all your help and for explaining what was happening.
I tried exporting to animation and it worked like a charm.

I know the clip isn’t of the best quality and will probably shoot my own smoke this week. I just wanted to try something. Oh you can have a look if you like: clip

Thanks again!
Martin

[Steve Roberts]

Neat effect!

Steve

[Bezoomy]

do you mind giving a quick run down on how you did this. its a cool effect.

bezoomy

[Mill]

Hi

I used a background plate behind the clip of the person so I can decrease the opacity on the person clip and still have the backgrund there. After that I used 4 instances of the smoke clip to get the smoke to go in all directions, and then just compositied the clip ontop of the person clip adjusting opacity, shape, and position.

do i make sense?
Martin

[Bezoomy]

that makes sense. Thanks for explaining.