Saving with alpha channel foCompositing with alpha channel: Sample files included, as well as video on youtube of what I’m doing.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

I have no problem rendering out alpha channels from your file. I can’t see what’s going wrong on your end.

Try this: In the picture viewer, click on the Layer tab in the right-hand panel. Then check the “Single-Pass” button. You should see a thumbnail with “Alpha” next to it. Click on the thumbnail and see if an alpha shows up in the navigator window. If it doesn’t I think there must be something wrong with your Cinema or codec installation.

Before you reinstall anything, try setting the file save path in the render settings instead of always doing a “save as” from the picture viewer.

Also try rendering to .png and targa.

If not of that works I would reinstall Cinema and/or call Maxon tech support.

[Brian Morse]

Hey Andrew,
So I took a look and didn’t have a problem. The quicktime file of the sphere moving that you rendered out did not have an alpha channel. Well it did but it was a solid color. What I noticed was when you go to the render settings in cinema 4d you need to set the save settings there. The line just above where you change the settings to animation and quicktime, the file line, there is a button that has “…” . Click that save your path with file name and then hit render. There are no more steps after that. I also noticed you were hitting the preview render and not render I don’t know if that was intended. But that will not give you the right result. Anyway i hope that helps if it’s still not working for you let me know.
Brian

[Andrew Ronholm]

So I checked the “single pass” option under layer tab like you said, and selected the information tab cause I didn’t know what you meant by selecting the thumbnail. I can’t select the little picture on the right so I can’t see what you meant. In the information tab it says the information below. I’m not sure but I think that RGB means there is no alpha channel.

Information
Depth: RGB (8bit)
Color Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1

This was with me choosing PNG, as the format. I imported this sequence into AE and it still had the black bg. It also did say millions of colours+ (premultiplied) Could this be because I have perian installed? Or maybe VLC? I’m pretty sure that app’s on a mac stay in there own little bubble, and don’t effect other programs, but I’m not sure about perian it’s a codec pack I got so I could play certain things that neither QT, or VLC would play. I will gladly remove it if it’s the issue.

Now I did a TARGA aswell and it says the same as above for the depth and color profile. I also imported it into AE, and they all say the same thing, Millions of Colours+ (premultiplied). Now if it’s working for you guys, then I’m doing it properly, but it must be the way my computer is showing the footage, so the problem could be below the software level, on a global level. Also I’ve reinstalled C4D R11.530, and I also have both r11.530, and R12.016 installed, and I’m getting the same thing from both when I import them into AE.

So I’m guessing that there isn’t much more that I can do to get this alpha channel other then what I’m doing. So does anybody have any suggestions on what I could do to fix this global interpretation of an alpha channel? Oh also I have Action Movie Essentials, which is a bunch of explosions, dust, smoke, etc. that are already made and ready for import with an alpha channel. When I import anything from this pack videos they have that transparent bg that I’m trying to get with C4D. So I’m totally confused here, and I really hope someone has an answer for this. Until I get it resolved I’ll just make a green/blue screen behind my 3d objects and key it out in AE. But it would be much easier if I didn’t have to do this.

Thanks for your time, and I really hope we can all figure this out together.

Andrew.

Andrew Ronholm: aka Extil3
Visual and Sound Effects Artist, 3D Animator, Graphics & Web Designer, Videographer, Photographer, Editor, Director, and Writer.

I know that sounds like a lot, but I really do all those things, and I do them for myself so it’s more of a full time hobby.

[Andrew Ronholm]

Ok so I did this, I opened render settings, chose quicktime format, animation for the compression method, and chose where I wanted to save the file. Now heres where I don’t know what you mean. I’ve always clicked on that middle button, [the one beside “render active view”] held down my mouse button and chose the bottom option. Yes this has always been intended. When I single click without holding that middle button the “render in picture viewer” button I get only a single image, it’s not a video. Although when I click on the layer tab, it does in fact show the alpha layer, and it DOES NOT have ablack background when I import that single picture into AE. So it did work. But I need to render a video, in fact I need to render quite a few of them. So how do I do this? Where is this render button that will render the whole sequence and still have that wonderful alpha channel?

BTW, this is the first time I’ve ever gotten an alpha channel working so THANK YOU Brian, seriously. If you can just tell me how to get a video rather then a single picture to render, then I think I’ll be good. Also I’m very happy to hear that it’s not the software and that it was me doing something wrong.

Thanks again, Andrew.

Andrew Ronholm: aka Extil3
Visual and Sound Effects Artist, 3D Animator, Graphics & Web Designer, Videographer, Photographer, Editor, Director, and Writer.

I know that sounds like a lot, but I really do all those things, and I do them for myself so it’s more of a full time hobby.

[Brian Morse]

Glad I could help. The only other thing I think you need to do is, in the render settings go to output and select all frames under frame range. Should be good to go. Let me know if that works.
Brian

[Andrew Ronholm]

I went on to YouTube and looked it up. So I chose PNG, and checked the alpha checkbox, I chose where to save it. I then went to the output tab, and chose all frames at the bottom, and also 720p for the resolution. Then and I think this is what I was doing wrong, I used SHIFT+R, and it started rendering the sequence. Now I opened one of the pictures in the preview app here on my mac, and low and behold, no background. So I guess all I had to do was choose “all frames”, pick a resolution. Then under save, choose the format, destination, check the alpha box, close render settings, and then use SHIFT+R.

I’m so happy Brian, I just did it with a PNG sequence, and it worked perfectly in AE, it also worked with me changing the format to quicktime instead of PNG. So all I was doing wrong was using the wrong rendering method, and not telling to render all the frames.

Honestly, I can’t believe it took me this long to find out that this was what I was doing wrong. I feel like such a newb, LOL. Anyhow THANK YOU SO MUCH Brian. If it wasn’t for you buddy, I’d still be making a green screen and keying. So thanks so much buddy, I love you for this.

Very much appreciation, Andrew.

Andrew Ronholm: aka Extil3
Visual and Sound Effects Artist, 3D Animator, Graphics & Web Designer, Videographer, Photographer, Editor, Director, and Writer.

I know that sounds like a lot, but I really do all those things, and I do them for myself so it’s more of a full time hobby.

[Brian Morse]

No problem. Glad it all worked out.
Brian