Brendan Coots
Forum Replies Created
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Your problem is fairly common with any strong edges that are angled like that, especially on crisp imagery. The problem is that every other pixel of the edge is falling on the next horizontal pixel row down, and as the camera moves in the pixels are hopping down one line of resolution at a time.
The fact that the image is so sharp is making the problem worse, because the softer the pixels the more they tend to “float” between rows of resolution rather than popping like that.
I would precomp the animations and add 2px of Fast Blur to them (precomp because 2px blur on that large of an image wouldn’t have any effect), render out your animation and view it on a broadcast monitor via FCP. Adding a small amount of blur like this solves a lot of creep issues and usually isn’t even slightly noticeable once displayed on a set.
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Thanks for the nice comments, guys. It’s especially flattering coming from long-time Cow pros like the two of you.
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You can save a single frame by parking the playhead where you want it, then doing CTRL>ALT>S (Apple>Alt>S on Mac), or choosing Composition>Save As (I think this is where it is).
This adds it to the render queue as a single frame render. You can obviously point the rendered file to be on your desktop.
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Thanks for the clarification on those issues, especially regarding the Illustrator file problem.
I must admit, I love Nucleo Pro and I use it almost every day, so my comments were in no way meant to short-change an excellent product. My understanding of CS3’s multiprocessing is that they “borrowed” from Nucleo technology and integrated it directly into the product, but that doesn’t mean jack when you consider the great spec preview etc. found in Nucleo. I only suggested the poster hold off so that he can better understand what he WILL get with CS3 and then evaluate needs from there, especially if he’s concerned with conflicts between processor use, etc.
As for the other “gotchas” I should have said “the other gotcha” singular. 😉
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Generally the best way to do photo animations like this is to set up a 720×480 comp, import your pictures, add them to the stage and animate, then output to animation codec 100% quality. With or without fields is up to you, but I always do progressive/no fields.
If you are doing things this way, you should be golden. It sounds like you might be overthinking the settings and asking AE to do nonstandard things that will cause problems. There is no need to create comps with wacky sizes or worry about square vs. non-square. After Effects is smart enough to handle all the details for you if you just start with a 720×480 comp.
One word of advice. Unless you are zooming WAY in on your photos, I would not import 8MP images into After Effects. That will consume an unnecessary amount of RAM and resources, and will cause renders to crawl. For most general applications, images of about 2000×2000 are the largest I would recommend, depending on your specific zooming needs.
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You could import the new Photoshop file (separately from the original) and copy the added layers into the original Photoshop comp. If you drag them to the timeline instead of the stage, they should maintain their proper positions.
When you import a Photoshop file, AE creates a folder to hold all of the layers. You will probably want to move the added “layers” from this folder to the original Doc’s folder, then delete the folder from the revised PS import, just to keep things clean.
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If the person was shot greenscreen, it could be a simple matter of masking off their head and replacing it on a new layer.
If you’re talking live-action footage shot against a normal background, there are two options I can think of:
1. Place the 2D head over the actor’s head, maybe even using motion tracking to stick it in place. As long as the 2D head covers the actor’s head entirely, the effect will work ok
2. Remove the actors head using cloning tools so that clean background plate is left where the head used to be. Then use the above method to attach the 2D head to the body.
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Personally, I would hold off on Nucleo Pro until you test out the multiprocessing in CS3. To my knowledge, it does the exact same thing as Nucleo minus the cool spec preview features. As for the temporal effects issue – It is my understanding that ANY and all temporal effects will not work with Nucleo. There are other gotchas that are hard to swallow as well, such as comps with Illustrator files don’t render with the full benefits of Nucleo.
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Adobe WILL do license cross-grades from PC to Mac, you just have to call and request it with a rep. If they try to tell you it can’t be done, call them out and tell them you know people who have done it without problems.
They can and will do it, but I have heard stories of their reps trying to pretend it’s not possible.
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If the pictures you’re using fill the entire frame, then you need to start with images that are at least 720X480 native size (as in, not scaled up to meet this size requirement). If you are zooming in on them, they need to be even larger.
When you render out of After Effects, use the Animation codec as was mentioned, with quality set to 100%. Import them into FCP and proceed as normal. The only rub is that you might need to render out your FCP timeline every time you make changes since the image animations will be in Animation codec instead of your timeline’s codec (which is probably 8-bit NTSC or some such).