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Problem Solved: Animation Codec Woes (Bakes fine, imports problems)
EDIT: moments after I posted this I tried one more test: changing my composition & render settings from 23.98fps to 24fps… That completely solved the problem… so keep that in mind….
Hey all,
I have a really confusing problem. Any footage that I export/bake out of AE using the animation codec and then re-import has half the frames missing in terms of how AE displays, playsback, and renders, even though all frames appear in quicktime. I’ve read a few threads here that seem to have related problems, but haven’t seen any good solutions.
Here are the technicals in my case:
2x 2.8ghz quad core Mac Pro w/8g ram, running OS 10.5.4
AE Project/comp/footage settings: 23.98fps, 1280×720, square pixels.
Example: I have a short composition, say exactly 1 second long. I bake it via the render cue using the animation codec, no audio, full 23.98 frame rate, etc. It renders ok.
I open it in quicktime: it looks great, all frames are present, movie properties shows the frame rate to be 23.98.
I import the baked clip to my AE project and put it into a composition with all the correct settings (23.98, 1280×720, etc). The baked clip’s duration (1 sec) is correct. BUT. If I scrub through the clip (or render it!) it does not show all 24 frames, it only shows 12, each one being held for 2 frames on the timeline. When I doubleclick on the clip/layer in the composition timeline to bring up the layer window the same problem is evident.
If I go to interpret footage everything looks normal: the click is being interpreted as 23.98 as it should be.
The problem persists in renders, so it doesn’t seem to be just a weird display issue. On longer clips the “plays every other frame but holds them for 2 frames” problem is not totally consistent, so every so often it won’t skip frames… this seems like a pulldown thing, but “remove pulldown” is off in the interpret footage…
This problem happens whether or not the baked/imported clip has an alpha channel, and regardless of its length.
I tried re-baking my animation renders in quicktime pro (again rendering using the animation codec) and that didn’t work either. 🙁
Is there any known solution to this problem without having to ditch my beloved animation codec?
[SEE EDIT ABOVE. FRAME RATE CHANGE!]
Thanks,
Julian
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4 Replies
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In my parlance bake = render, a term for if you have to render something out before your final render. I’m not really a professional so I don’t know if that’s proper usage but I’ve heard a lot of ppl saying it recently.
Thanks for your tip on framerate. Switching to 24 seemed to work too. There is audio however that I need to be sync’d to, I wonder if using 23.976 is important in that regard?
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even if you were 23.98 instead of 23.976 (the correct one) you shouldn’t be dropping 12 frames. The animation codec is a little buggy. If 24fps works and you want to keep using animation, then timeremap your audio. It should snap to the same end frame.
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Anyway, try 23.976, which is correct:
30fps X .8 = 24fps
29.97fps X .8 = 23.976By the way, “bake” is generally used by 3D folk when fixing a texture or other effect in the 3D app so it doesn’t have to be recalculated on every frame. AE’s equivalent might be “pre-render”.
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Yeah. I hate the animation codec, too. I’ve got a mov that plays every frame when played in QuickTime, but in FCP and AE it is missing frames. For me, even re-setting the frame rate to 23.976 does not fix the issue. This is a client provided file that I need to blend with another asset for a DVD menu. In other situations, when Animation Codec files have originated on a PC (I use a mac), I have had a strange temporal artifacting issue that looks like QuickTime is having problems translating I-frame info to the GOP. I’m not sure if Animation codec uses GOP, but that’s what the resulting issue is. For those, I have to simply use AE to re-export the file and all is well. So I’ve found Animation codec to be the buggiest codec still used. I wish there were more options for files with alpha channel.
Matt Browning
Ikonik Media, Inc.
Professional Blu-ray & DVD Authoring
http://www.ikonikmedia.com
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