Rotating Illustrator files in AE 7

[Mylenium]

Are you working in compositions with square pixels? Is your footage interpretation correct?

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Mack Williams]

No, I am working in DV at 0.9, and I have all the footage and comps interpreted at 0.9 including the Illustrator file in question. Now that you mention it, I guess this could be part of the reason. The Illustrator files are always in square pixels when I import them, but I change them to .9 under the “Interpret Footage” menu. Could this just be the way AE deals with Illustrator files that aren’t in Square pixels?

[Mylenium]

Oh no! That’s wrong. Illustrator works always with square pixels and you should leave the footage interpretation set to that! In addition to that, you should work in a square composition, which in your case would be 720×540. You can always conform it to DV by nesting it in a DV ratio composition in the final step.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Mack Williams]

Now I’ve got some new info… I just exported the layers to Photoshop and saved them as 0.9. Then, I imported them and replaced the Illustrator tires with the Photoshop tires. The Photoshop tires stretch too! What gives? Is this going to look right once it is being shown on a TV, but not on my computer monitor? I am extra confused now.

[Mack Williams]

Oh wow! That’s news to me! I will try that. A lot of the comps I use are mixed photoshop and illustrator files (AI characters on top of PS backgrounds). Should I make all my Photoshop files square pixels too? Then when I am done animating, just make a master comp that is 0.9 for my render? Thanks for your quick replies and help.

[Mylenium]

Like I said, use square pixels. If you convert them to anamorphic in Photoshop, you “freeze the squeeze” (wow, it rhymes!). You see, working with video ratios is an illusion more or less. Whenever you have a circular shape, you have effectively less pixels covering the same area along the X axis as you have in the Y axis. Only the playback/ display device will “unsqueeze” them, but based on the “baked” pixels (it won’t animate the tyre as you do in AE, it just happens that at different times the pixels are in such a position that when stretching them out they look round again). This is not entirely technically correct, but I think you get the point. In your case the problem is that due to the fewer pixels in the X axis AE will try to stretch your wheel and make it look round, but since it needs to “invent” pixels by scaling up, it’s always slightly off.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Mack Williams]

also, isn’t 720 x 540 PAL? I am in the US working in NTSC. I am working in 720 x 486. Is that correct? If am going to be working in square pixels now, should I work in 720 x 480?

[Steve Roberts]

You should read Rick Gerard’s article on square and non-square pixels.

[Mack Williams]

nm

[Steve Roberts]

720×540 is the size in which images should be created for NTSC in photoshop if you are working in square pixels in Photoshop. Recently the ability to work in non-square pixels has been added to photoshop, but you can still work in 720×540 squarepix there.

720×540 is 4:3, so it looks normal on a computer. It will look odd on a TV, so it needs to be dropped into a 720×486 non-square D1 (use the preset) comp.
Other people work in 648×486 (also 4:3) in PS, then drop that into a 720×486 comp. There are arguments for and against. Do a test if you’re anal. 🙂

Check the Gerard article in my other post.

Basically, unless you’re using non-square pixels in PS, you should work in PS (or AI) at 4:3 frame size at 648×486 or 720×540 for eventual NTSC D1 usage in AE.