What Output mode for online editing?

[Jason Milligan]

Are you exporting the quicktime files directly from Flash?
There are third party software that give better results.

You can export directly as a swf, import the swf into AE, and render from there.
Be sure to enable “continuously rasterize” if you resize the swf at all.

[Mario Golfari]

Mr. La Ronde, I´m sorry if aI haven’t been clear enough- I still haven´t gotten to the FCP stage, merely just exported from AE and viewed the results of a Full Quicktime Animation render on a quicktime window from my descktop. I´m sure I”l have pelenty of questins about FTP once I start importing the material!

Thank you.

Mario

[Mario Golfari]

Mr. Milligan, I’ve exported from Flash a PNG sequence.
I just tried opening the AE project to give you the details and now AE won’t open anymore- says it bloqued! haha. Any idea on how to solve this problem without reinstalling?

Mario

[Mario Golfari]

First of all thank you so much for the help.

The project is an animated series intended for the web with the possibility of airing on TV (we`re producing the pilot).

The animation is done in Flash, exported as a PNG sequence and then composed in After Effects.

We´re from Argentina and the traget viewers are all Spanich speaking people- a good part of Latin American countries use NTSC, so keeping in mind it might also air on TV we decided to set the image to:

NTSC- 30fps.
720×480- 3:2, square pixels.

So now I´m undecided as to what export mode I should use for online editing- should I export a lossless quicktime or a sequence? (we’ve only started animating a few days ago, and yes I have to admit I am a bit unprepared- but that´s exacly what I want learn about and change.)

Regarding the Quicktime Animation render, I think i figured out what the pixelation problem is- a combination of colors that create this effect, because everything else seems fine (when I moved the hand away from the blue sky and into a white cloud the pixelatin disapeared.

I’ve attached a frame so you can see.

[Mario Golfari]

HD service just sarted this year, but very few people have it and our idea is to be showing the pilot by february- For the actual series, which we’ll probably start production by mid ’09 we will give it some thought- even for the web 16:9 portrays a better production image.

Flash does have frame rate, but no decimals, that’s why we work out of flash at 30fps, but I can render from AE at 29.97- then we can work the audio so that there is no sinc problems- all the takes are very short and there is little dialogue.

I’ll defenitely render without field dominance, flash is too hard as it is, anything to smooth it out helps.

Thanks.

[Mario Golfari]

[Dave LaRonde] If you do that, I think you should conform the footage to 29.97 in AE’s Interpret Footage Settings.

Ok, this sounds better.

[Dave LaRonde] If you want something with smooth motion like the motion of people on live TV, you might think about animating in Flash at 60 frames/sec, conforming the resulting file in AE to 59.94 frames/sec, and rendering an image sequence using a field order of Lower Field first.

This is interesting- I will give the 60 fps a try. Do you have any idea if this is what they used for Foster´s Home for Imaginary Friends?