Arthur Vibert
Forum Replies Created
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I found it here: https://www.panopticum.com/ae/animatext2/demo.shtml
It says that after registration the demo becomes fully useable.
Good luck,
Arthur Vibert
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My experience was that there was no problem. What I would suggest is that you try a test – something simple to verify the sizes. Then if there’s an issue you can rejigger everything without having committed lots of time.
Arthur VIbert
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I was perplexed by this as well. However, I just set up my composition to a standard HD 1920×1080 aspect ratio and stretched the HDV to fit. It worked just fine. If I was compositing graphics over live action in Final Cut I worked to the 1920×1080 aspect ratio and it dropped in just fine.
A word of warning – HDV is an okay acquisition medium. Try and avoid rendering to it, especially if you are re-rendering a live action HDV clip. Everytime you do this you recompress and introduce additional compression artifacts. It won’t look good!
Arthur Vibert
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I had to do this recently. Here’s what I did –
You want the FCP10bit uncompressed codec, which comes with FCP. So you can take your entire FCP sequence and choose File->Export->QTConversion. Then choose FCP10bit for the codec, and 48khz 16bit audio. Your file sizes will be dramatically larger. My 58 miinute piece was about 350 gigabytes.
You may find that when it comes out the other end it’s 1440×1080, not 1920×1080. I resolved this by dropping it into After Effects, stretching it out to the proper aspect ratio and re-rendering. There’s probably a more elegant solution but deadlines lead to desperate solutions : )
We dumped it off to HDCam and it played back beautifully, projected in a theater for an audience of 600.
What I’ve since resolved to do with HDV (if I ever use it again) is import it uncompressed (using a Blackmagic card or something similar) and never get it near HDV again. I had nothing but misery working with HDV and I’m willing to pay the price in increased file sizes for the peace of mind.
Arthur Vibert
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I’m going to say Cinema 4D as well. It has an excellent toolset and will give excellent results even to relative beginners. Maya is great if you are going to be doing a lot of organic modelling, but that doesn’t sound like what you’re after.
Good luck – and have fun.
Arthur VIbert
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After Effects may be overkill. Can’t you do these things in Premiere? AE is certainly capable of it, but the things you are describing are pretty easy to do in Final Cut Pro, and I would imagine you could also do them in Premiere.
Arthur Vibert
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You could also create a mask in photoshop with the area you want to “shine” in white and the rest in black, and then import it into your composition and apply the shine filter to it. The shine effect will only appear where the mask is white and the mask will be otherwise invisible, revealing your map.
Arthur VIbert
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Here is the definitive article on rotoscoping:
https://www.fxguide.com/fxtips-243-print.html
Enjoy.
Arthur Vibert
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I can second the foam backed recco. It works great, and I’ve had no problem with the seam. Just position your subject far enough in front of the screen so the seam goes soft.
Arthur Vibert
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dvMAtte Pro is an excellent product, and works really well in FCP. It can be downloaded from dvgarage.com and you can try before you buy. In addition, you might also consider a technique that works really well in After Effects – I haven’t tried it in FCP but I imagine it would work equally well. What you do is isolate individual areas with an articulated garbage matte and put each one in it’s own layer – hair, arms in motion, etc., since these things do not always respond the same way to the keying app. That way you can get the absolute best key possible for each problem area and, when assembled, it will look much better than an overall “average” key that is nothing more than a compromise. Bear in mind, again, that I do this in After Effects, but it should work just as well in FCP.
Good Luck.
Arthur VIbert