[Broken]

Hmmm….. I’m positive you weren’t aware of this this, so don’t take offense, okay?

You’re trying to have your cake and eat it too, in AE terms. You want the sharpness of Illustrator vector lines plus you want the ability to animate those lines. Sorry, but it ain’t gonna happen. So are you totally sunk? Nope!

If your Illustrator document exists as line art already, great. In AE, copy any Illustrator paths onto a solid that is the exact same size as its corresponding Illustrator layer. You can apply the Stroke effect to that new layer, and use the new layer as a track matte for your Illustrator line art. You’ll animate the stroke effect to reveal the line art beneath it. Cool, huh?

To pull it off in 3D, just make the stroke layer 0.5 pixel closer to the camera than the line art. If you’re moving that line art around, it would be a VERY good idea to parent a stroke layer to its corresponding line art layer.

Now, the stroke will still get aliased… but you’ll only see the aliasing at the spot where it reveals the line art. And you ought to be able to fix that with a little blurring on the stroke layer. And the Illustrator line art will remain sharp.

Make sense?

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV

[Broken]

NOTHING plays in realtime in AE. AE renders EVERYTHING, audio included.

No, wait, I take that back: if you happen to be running AE on a National Security Agency code-cracking supercomputer, you can probably play back stuff in real time.

But the fine folks at Adobe do cut you some slack concerning audio: there are several ways to play it.
1) RAM preview
2) Hit the period key on the numeric kaypad. AE plays audio for a duration determined in preferences.
3) Scrub the audio: hold down command key (ctl key win) and move the timeline cursor
4) Preview a few frames of audio (set in preferences) by holding down both command key (ctl key win) and timeline cursor.

You have to remember that AE is NOT an editing application. It’s a compositing application with certain audio capabilities; it assumes you’re going to modify the video, and possibly the audio too. So it renders everything. So keep your ingers off the space bar. It’s an exercise in futility.

To paraphrase Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz: “When you’re in AE, you’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV

[Broken]

You need to check out a couple of tutorials here on the COW, little Buckeroo!

Look for Aharon Rabinowitz’ AE Podcasts, specifically the ones called “AE Boomerang Effect”. They have exactly the information you want.

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV

[Broken]

If you look in AE Help, you will find a section called Keyboard Shortcuts. If you start learning them, you will save yourself a lot of time.

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV

[Broken]

[drar] “I Think I am missing a basic concept to how the 3d spce works in AE. “

Yup. But it’s easily remedied.

There is a BIG difference between the Custom Views and the Active Camera. The custom views let you get a look at your 3D comp from a different angle so you can place and move things in 3D space.

The active camera is the ONLY view that will be rendered out; whatever you see through the active camera is what you get. If it doesn’t look good through the active camera, it doesn’t look good.

The custom views can be changed using the Orbit Camera tool. The orbit camera tool also works on the active camera, but I don’t like using it for that purpose. You can use the comma and period keys to increase and reduce the size of the visible comp window, which can help you see wireframe outlines of objects that are outside the visible comp window.

On the topics of Custom Views and Active Camera, your AE Help is very… well, helpful.

And by the way: stop this practice of exporting RIGHT NOW and start rendering and using the Render Queue. The terms “export” and “render” are NOT the same in AE. Here are some AE words to live by: “If AE gives you a choice between rendering and exporting, it’s almost always better to render.”

So don’t export. Render. AE Help also has reams on the subjects of Render Queue, Render Settings, Output Module and Make Movie.

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV

[Broken]

Are you using keyframes to take your audio from 0 dB to -85 dB, or whatever AE calls “totally faded out”?

If you have no other choice than to use AE for audio work, then you have to use it. But even a video editing application is better suited to audio editing than AE.

And an audio editing application is the best choice of all. Heck, there are even some freebie audio editors out there. If you’re on a Mac, check out Audacity.

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV

[Broken]

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your software, but I’m still scratching my head why quicktime plays back video using elevated black levels, but other media players don’t.

I don’t get it. But I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong.

If you have editing software (Premier, FCP, Avid, etc.), what does the video look like in there?

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV

[Broken]

There’s a couple of things you could do:

Probably the easiest is to create a Photoshop document where the skyline is over a transparent background. Make sure you can see the checkerboard. AE will just read the checkerboard as an alpha channel, and you’re done.

Put your skyline picture and the mask are on two different Photoshop layers. Save the document. Import the document into AE as a composition. Put the two layers in the AE comp in which you’re working. Put the white mask layer above the skyline layer. In the skyline layer’s modes panel, set it to read the layer above it (the white mask layer) as an Alpha Matte.

If I had to choose which one of the two options above I’d want in my comp, I’d go with the first. It’s lots easier.

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV

[Broken]

[Mrs Pepperpot] “When I choose Quicktime as my format, and MPEG4 Video as my compression type at the best quality setting, the result has a very bleached out color… So far the best compression type seems to be Sorensen video 3. is that correct?”

We have insufficient information to give you a straight answer.

We need to know about your editing software, the screen resolution and codec of your captured video, plus the screen resolution of your completed AE work and the software you’re using to view the completed work.

And probably the most important thing: what is the ultimate use for your completed AE work, and what further steps will you take to get to that point?

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV

[Broken]

For now, you’re just running a test. We’re just trying to track down what’s going on in AE, not making a final product.

So turn Open GL off, which eliminates it as a factor in your render woes. Use the precedures described above. AND to it, make a SECOND duplicate of your original comp… but with NO EFFECTS WHATSOEVER applied. Now you’ll have a total of three comps.

And when you get rid of any of these effects, delete ’em right out of the layer. Don’t just turn ’em off, get rid of ’em. Why? AE defaults to rendering all effects, whether they’re turned on or not… which could leave you scratching your head, asking why all three clips look the same.

The comp containing no effects will render the fastest, followed by the comp with chroma key only, and then the comp with the chroma key and the unsharp mask. Remember, these comps only have to be 10 seconds long… five seconds if you’re impatient.

As these comps render out, you should keep your eye on the render queue. There’s a “details” twirly thing which you should open, and note the time it takes for a frame to render in each kind of comp.

Of course, by turning Open GL off, you may have solved your problems. But whatever happens in this test, do report back in!

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV