[Chris Brett]

Hi Erik –

– thanks for speedy reply — however dont think thats it — could be have missed something ………

…. anyway — rebuilt floor as separate layers and its fine ???

— need to study this a bit more – sometimes get little problems like this …

————— all the best —-chris —

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[Chris Brett]

Hi Josh

—————- this has happened to me also — the black is no problem the comp is still there —- just clear all the cache areas and reboot the machine — should load normally and off you go…

— seems to me that memory areas are not automatically cleared and fill up causing problems …..

……

I clear as below – its probably a bit ‘belt-and-braces’ but seems to work for me……

edit / purge / / all memory plus image cache memory

also

edit / preferences / media and disk cach / empty disk cache plus clean database and cache

Then exit AE and reboot the machine.

Editing in sections has worked for me when I’ve had real problems in the past — just render as sequential files till it crashes / delete last rendered frame in case corrupt / then re-render from that frame number straight into same folder till it crashes again or finishes etc — its a pain but no real problem …

————————————- chris —

[Chris Brett]

Hi Walter

— many thanks for your technical input — excellent as always and much appreciated.

All the best

———————- chris brett —

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[Chris Brett]

— cheers Dave –

— not so sure I understand all the details yet though — looks to me as if some of the options are not pixel perfect to the original on the desktop …..

…. anyway …

…………. better get going — this will do for now ….

——————————-chris —

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[Chris Brett]

Hi Walter –

– many thanks for feedback on this —- just doing tests ATM and animating randomly in patterns ( if you know what I mean ! ) by hand isnt too bad —- in fact much quicker and more convincing than II thought ….

—– will remember he sound keys thing just in case – you never know.

Best regards

————————— chris brett —-

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[Chris Brett]

………….thanks for input Dave but need to deliver an RGBA file – presentation as much as anything, to keep people happy ….

…… will see how it goes ……….

—————- all the best —–chris —

=-======================================

[Chris Brett]

Hi Dave

12 clips of 250 frames each at 25 fps.

I say email but its not too bad as I will FTP zipped results to a server – I dont think file size is an issue but the line is slow from here and its the time that causes problems.

Tested PNG sequence first but the zipped result was same file size as the folder at 540 mb – and at 1hr 40 per clip thats out of the question.

— tif sequence zipped to about 10% of that and would be easily useable, just not so sure about the uncompressed quality — looked ok to me……

— figured there would be plenty of users out there who are more knowledgeable than I on this kind of stuff… need to focus more on a few of these technicalities…..

——– all the best —

————————– chris —

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[Chris Brett]

Hi Matt

Points 2 and 3 are about stylising reflections from a photograph.

Have used this a few times to give a bit of gloss but only on atmospheric comps.

It may not be useful to your job ( now that I’ve seen the ref ) as the ref is informational and it might just get in the way of the type — could be that its going to be easiest and perfectly good to just Photoshop it and keep it simple… ( some thoughts on this below )

Anyway — explanation here :

Reflections can be complex but comping one up sometimes works well if you use a high contrast image and only key the highlights –if used carefully this can give the impression of windows ( or other highlighted areas ) being reflected from behind the viewer.

If you key the highlights in at 100% it will almost certainly be way too much but if you use a percentage and are selective it can look pretty good on the right shot–

For example, most of the ‘glass’ you are building might have no keyed highlights at all but you might just catch a subtle hint of something accross a top corner ( say ) – NB subtle is usually important here – which is why I was suggesting an additive mix but only applied at 10% ( say ) — then possibly a few smaller brighter highlights on top…needs experimenting depending on what you are working with….

Curves can be used to control the contrast on the reflected image and can be found under / effect / colour correction / curves / — — you will quickly see how you can control the contrast by adjusting the curve in the display panel.

….anyway .. having seen the ref I’d say this level of detail is probably not required because your ref is quite simple and it might be that too much fancy stuff will just get in the way….

… would probably artwork up a panel ( with seperate edges on another layer )in photoshop then use a lot more transparency on the panel then on the edge( s ) .

OR

If you are using CS6 you can artwork the panel by extruding a shape( possibly using bevel edges as well which might be nice ? ) – and render out on black first to key over — but I think its probably more trouble than its worth if you are new to AE as setting up the material properties / environment map / lights etc can be a bit tricky and time consuming at times….

Think I would say ‘photoshop it’ and keep the edge(s) on seperate layer(s) so you can control the relative transparencies

—————————— chris —

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[Chris Brett]

Hi Matt

— have you seen this tut from copilot ?

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/futuristic_hud/

Also — if you still need to add reflections you could try this :

1– get suitable image

2 — use curves ( whatever ) to turn into a high contrast image

3 — selectively key on top – ie just edges / one corner / whatever —- partial mix using additive mix sometimes works well ….

4 —– maybe finally add a bright highlight or 2 — you can do this by crushing refection image further or just take a a still of a few room lights / whatever.

—————– chris —

===============================

[Chris Brett]

Thanks Kevin –

– did not know about this — will check it out tomorrow .

All the best

——————- Chris —

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