Alexxx
Forum Replies Created
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Hi,
Redoing a production machine can be painful due to the endless customisation that you have most likely done over time to make it just like you want it. I tend to reformat about every 12 months, and when I do I purchase a new hard drive to become the new C: drive for my machine. I do this for two reasons:
a) hard drives only have a certain life span before they start packing it in. I don’t want to risk this with my main application drive, and considering the affordability of hard drives these days it’s best to change them over when the opprtunity arises.
b) When you reformat your machine, there’s no going back. If you forgot to back up some seetings or a plugin etc, you’re screwed. However, with your new hard drive you can install clean, and should you forget something, you can always plug the old hard drive back in again to get any configuration settings etc. you may have missed. And after 4 months or so with everything working, you can use the old hard drive as a swap drive or what not.
If of course you don’t feel comfortable switching out hardware, then you would want to make super-sure you have everything backed up to tape, DVD or CD depending on what you prefer. A standard format and reinstall can sometimes take a good part of the day. Especially with re-registration of software, installing plug-ins, downloading patches etc etc.
Unfortunately not a quick job.
Good luck.
Alex
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You could simply use AE’s built in Text tool, it looks like a “T”. Just click it in the composition window where you want the text to start and you should see a cursor. Now just type away.
After you finish you’ll have a text layer which you can apply effects to, change the font etc.
Individual characters can be animated using the Text Animation setting. Have a look under help for previews of the text animation presets to give you an idea of what is possible.
Alex
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Hi,
Not quite sure here but it looks like it’s a full frame of bad positioning data or something.
Do some troubleshooting. Step through the footage one frame at the time in AE and keep your eye on the POSITION and SCALE settings and see if they go beserk on the frame where the graphic jumps. It could be some weird keyframe interpolation issue. Are there any effects on this layer? Have you tried moving the footage right to left without the bounce first?
Could be a few things. I would see if you can stop at a problem frame and check all the settings of the layer to determine if it’s a logic error with the keyframes or some expression/effect, or whether there is some weird voodoo or planetary misalignment going on.
Alternatively, post the AE file and I’ll take a look.
Let us know.
Alex
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Hi,
Not quite sure here but it looks like it’s a full frame of bad positioning data or something.
Do some troubleshooting. Step through the footage one frame at the time in AE and keep your eye on the POSITION and SCALE settings and see if they go beserk on the frame where the graphic jumps. It could be some weird keyframe interpolation issue. Are there any effects on this layer? Have you tried moving the footage right to left without the bounce first?
Could be a few things. I would see if you can stop at a problem frame and check all the settings of the layer to determine if it’s a logic error with the keyframes or some expression/effect, or whether there is some weird voodoo or planetary misalignment going on.
Alternatively, post the AE file and I’ll take a look.
Let us know.
Alex
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Hey there,
If I understand what you’re trying to do, there’s a few different ways of doing this.
1) Simply composite flat text on a separate layer over the top of the footage. It will look like that’s what you’ve done. Not really IN the scene.
2) Give the text some depth to give the illusion it exists in the scene. I would use Zaxwerks Invigorator to create 3D text, but you can cheat a little and use the shatter effect. Simply don’t shatter the text and you will be able to give it depth and even some subtle lighting effects. The lighting on the text should match the lighting of the scene you are trying to compose it onto. Ie, direction of Sun etc. Of course, the angle/perspective should also match. You can adjust all of these, Invigorator will give you more control though. Fake some shadows by either duplicating the text, blur it, scale it to sort of match the scene, then choose an appropriate transfer mode (multiply etc).
3) Ditch AE and use a full 3D package to composite the text onto the scene creating proper flowing shadows over the scene etc etc. This can take ages to get right especially if the background scenery is moving….but when you get it, it looks top notch.
Another little trick is to use the camera shake (or fake some) and track the text onto the scene. By that I mean if you use the subtle shake of a camera as if it were handheld (or even paning etc) and the text moves together with the scene, it sells the whole illusion of the text being IN the scene even more so.
Give those a try and see if you get close.
Alex
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Yeah that’s not sounding promising at all. I don’t think they are outputting proper alphas or even have the function to do that. Because there is no transparency information (alpha), even bringing it into ae and outputting it with alpha won’t create that for you. You would need to “key” it out like you often see with green/blue screens. But as you said earlier, that is bloody difficult to do properly when there is a lot of gradients and soft colours and all you have as the key colour is black 🙁
Going back to the original problem, you may have to compromise and simulate a strobe. You could always use the ADJUST effects like levels, hue/sat colourizing and others in that category to simulate the screen flaring out to white whilst still retaining some foreground information. As a strobe it would be really fast anyway so most people wouldn’t see the detail of the strobe.
I would try playing with that and maybe even stick a GLOW effect onto it. Or if you’re really game re-create the footage from scratch in AE with REAL alpha 😉
Alex
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Hmmmm,
without seeing it I’m starting to think that the alpha channel on that is borked. Could be that the person exporting it stuffed up somewhere. I imported a QT just like yours, Millions+ as well as audio…same deal…as soon as I click on the transparency icon I get the squares where the alpha let’s transparency shine though but not on the actual GFX that are not supposed to be transparent.
Scratching my head thinking if there is possibly a setting somewhere that is preventing you from seeing the alpha correctly or whether the MOV is truly stuffed.
Have you tried importing a QTANIM MOV that you created with an alpha? Seeing if that’s ok?
Alex
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Ok Cris,
If that’s the case it should be quite simple. By strobe I’m guessing you mean a flash of white for 1 frame or similar?
If it truly has alpha, you should be able to check that by creating a new composition. Drag the QTMOV file into the comp. Now click the little checkerboard icon under your composition monitor. It’s just right of the 4 little colour channel buttons, the resolution selector etc.
Just like in Photoshop it turns on checkerboarding anywhere there is transparency (alpha). So you SHOULD see little checkers all over the footage IF there is correct alpha.
Assuming there is you can turn it off again.
Now a simple way of strobing only the background is by creating a new layer. Make it white. Now to make it pop on for only 1 frame at a time you can just a) either drag it so it’s only 1 frame in length and then position it, or b) keyframe the opacity from 0% to 100% and back to 0% again in the space of 3 frames which will make it flash on.
You repeat this for each strobe you want. That’s the simple way.
You could also create a layer and start playing with the STROBE LIGHT effect which can do the above with timing intervals and other little things.
And as I said, if alpha is actually present in the MOV, then the white strobe should just be BEHIND the stuff that is in the MOV assuming you put the strobe layer under the QT MOV layer.
Give that a go.
Alex
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Hi Scott,
Quick question, do your particles HAVE to be 3D? Would a 2D particle solution also work for you?
Alex