Brendan Coots
Forum Replies Created
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3D Stroke was used here. You just have to adjust the step settings. You can also adjust things like Size Over Life to get the tapers.
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Vista is a total dog. Your best solution IS to move to XP.
Short of that, here’s a few things to try before giving up on Vista:
1. Rename your user preferences file located at C:\Users\
\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects\8.0. Upon restart, AE will create a new prefs file, which may help 2. Disable Aero. One of the hallmarks of Vista, this feature is a total resource hog and is known to cause a lot of issues.
3. Disable OpenGL. This sometimes cures random crashes, especially if your system doesn’t have a Quadro or other “qualified” OpenGL card.
4. Go to Edit>Preferences>Memory&Cache and reduce your memory allocation. Sometimes setting this too high can cause issues.
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I agree with Todd. And while it is NOT a replacement for E&O, you should at least have a clause in your production contract stating that the client agrees to binding arbitration should any dispute arise.
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All 32bit versions of Windows recognize a maximum of 4GB RAM. Only 3GB of that will be available to apps, And EVEN THEN, only if you enable the 3GB RAM switch in your boot.ini file. Without that, apps in 32-bit Windows only get 2GB to play with.
64-bit Windows supports up to 128GB RAM. Same rule applies, however, in that very few applications can even use more than a few GB RAM. AE only uses anything above a few gigs for rendering purposes, and only with multicore processing enabled.
I would go with a macbook pro and run Parallels as has been suggested. Better specs/quality for the price, and while you have a lot of existing PC software you could later dabble in the Mac side (Final Cut etc.) should you desire. It’s really two machines for the price of one.
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You can (and usually should) work with camera-native files to avoid quality loss, but the truth is MPEG-2 is so painfully slow, NOT because it is high quality but rather because of its processor-intensive format, you would be better off transcoding them to another format. This will help to avoid many other workflow problems as well, so speed is not the sole consideration here.
Most people consider MPEG-2/HDV to be an acquisition-only medium, and not a terribly great one either because it is the same datarate as mini-DV (3.1 megabytes per second, otherwise known as 25Mbps). The only way it is able to achieve HD frame sizes at a mini-DV datarate is by only using 2 actual frames for every 15 frames of video. The other 13 frames are just guessed by the codec and filled in with mush. It is all this “mush” that trips up your apps, since they don’t see actual frames.
The common workflow is to transcode the file to another type for post-production purposes. 8-bit uncompressed would probably result in no visible quality loss and would be relatively fast, but there aren’t a lot of good options available to you. You can’t really convert to another camera-native file type like DVCPRO HD without losing a lot of quality so it’s either uncompressed or accept some loss (perhaps with the motion_JPEG-A codec).Ultimately the biggest problem is shooting in MPEG-2 because it limits your post workflow so badly, so you may consider buying a camera that shoots in a more standard format such as the HVX200 and its DVCPRO HD files.
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An easier quick solution (though the other suggestions are a good long-term strategy for sure) is to just use the secret menu to have AE purge the cache every few frames when rendering, which will help dramatically with memory problems.
To access the secret menu hold ctrl, alt and Shift (at the same time) and, while holding those down, go to EDIT>PREFERENCES (After Effects>Preferences on Mac), and select GENERAL. From there a new window will open. Pull open the drop-down list of preferences and at the bottom “Secret” will now be available. Set it to purge every few frames.
This should help. As for the streaking weirdness, that doesn’t sound good. I doubt memory issues are at play here.
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In some cases rendering your file interlaced (i.e. with fields) will help cut down on the flickering.
What FPS is your comp? Lower frames-per-second will increase flickering.
Another option to try is turn on Motion Blur for the JPGs, and enable Motion Blur for the comp itself. This will eliminate some of the flicker at times when things move more quickly.
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What pixel dimension is your Photoshop file? Are you using more than one?
One option is to slice your Photoshop file up into several chunks, i.e. 4-8 separate files depending on the size. You can reassemble them into one comp in AE, and do your camera moves on the comp. After Effects is much better at processing several smaller files than one large one, because of the way the buffer works. I bet doing this alone will dramatically improve your performance.
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MPEG-2 support in After Effects is provided via the MainConcept encoder. Since Adobe licenses this technology on a per-copy basis, they do not include it with the trial version of the software. In fact, no licensed formats are available in the trial version including MP3. Most software vendors do this to cut down the cost of providing trial versions.
The simple truth is, even WITH the full release of AE you don’t want to be using MPEG-2 files. Performance in just about any app using MPEG-2 is absolutely horrible since they are long-GOP, interframe encoded files. You can do it, but don’t be surprised if performance is very poor.
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Here’s my advice/input for what it’s worth:
1. The first shot in your board with the woman’s shoe doesn’t seem to fit the sequence. The remaining shots all tie together, but the woman’s shoe doesn’t lead anywhere in the story. If you are going to stick with this story line, I would work the woman in later in the spot or replace the first shot with something more relevant.
2. It sounds as though you aren’t sure about morphing or greenscreen work. Dave’s advice is right on the money, and honestly I wouldn’t board out an idea that you aren’t sure if you can even execute, much less have any experience with. You are basically writing a check you might not be able to cash. Good greenscreen work isn’t a no-brainer, and BAD greenscreen work can ruin the entire project.
3. Dave’s advice of using cuts and color treatments to tell the story is wise indeed. The story will be just as effective in terms of making the point, but without so much potential for disaster.