[Chris Brett]

Hi Bob

— if you havent done it already check your import field order as well as the comp setting and the render output —-

— also I got caught out once rendering up a submaster which had some kind of field issue ‘baked’ into it and this could not be sorted by adjusting the settings in the final comp.

———- good luck I know this stuff can be a pain sometimes .

————————– chris ——-

[Chris Brett]

Hi Mitch – 2 things come to mind

1 ) shoot a book with tracker markers and add the type in post

2 ) you probably need a visual ‘device’ of some kind to make it look cute — such as a helical twist or a ‘portal’ – not only will this add interest but it will make the transition a LOT easier.

My instinct is that simply morphing the text from one thing to another might look a bit clunky unless there is a visual ‘reason’ for it – or at the very least a trigger in the audio track.

If you have a big enough budget and plenty of work might be worth talking to your favourite 3D guy as well.

——————————- chris —

[Chris Brett]

— wondering exactly the same Roland ……

………and I still reckon there is more picture info in the square pixels option ………

——–chris ———

[Chris Brett]

Hi Roland / Simon

——— whats the consensus then — does the pixel ratio make any difference to the quality and what would one do with the settings.

for instance if you comp at 1024 x 576 square pixels do you then precomp it / change comp settings to something less wide ( 720 ? ) and alter the PAR to anamorphic.

If this is the case I cant see how the picture quality might be improved as you are ( presumably ) reducing the picture information.

Anyone else got any thoughts on this ……

—– sort of thing that can catch one out from time to time …

———————–chris —

[Chris Brett]

Hi Paul

— had a similar problem yesterday positioning an item……….

… and ( as far as I can see ) the problem is that the AE motion controls / bezier curves are, quite frankly, not very good ….

….and sometimes I just have to give up and find a way round it – and think you could do the same if that suits…

For instance in your case it sounds possible to do this in two layers one slowing down and the other speeding up with transparency controls to swap from one clip to the other

This is effectively how I solved my own animation ‘ issue’ yesterday.
… an hour trying to get things to work is far too long …. the temptation is to ‘stick with it’ because you think you will know the answer ‘next time’, but it does not seem to work like that ! ! !

I know the controls are complicated and I know I need to do more homework on them but I still think that at times they actually do not work properly.

Anyone interested in improving these controls would do well to look at the way the animation curves work in Flint / Flame – very easy to use, very responsive and very subtle.

BTW if anyone knows a brilliant tutorial on how to set animation curves in AE I would be very interested just in case I havent already seen it ! !

————– all the best ——-chris —

[Chris Brett]

– depends how realistic it needs to be / what look you want.

If you want it to look very real suggest you shoot a real-life firework fuse or similar and key it on / add a bit of glow what ever..

— but you might want a different sort of look and suggest a particle generator will do the trick though cant offer anyting much more than that as I wouls just get on it and play till I got something ie dont have a previous job I can supply actual info from …

———– anyway — god luck — just dont forget the ‘real-life’ option if it is the look you want …

…………………. chris

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

[Chris Brett]

hi chris – dont know for sure but I would try pre=comping the bg plate plus the additive mix layer then adding te next layer to the pre-comp —-chris —

[Chris Brett]

——- Joes idea is good – sometimes a shot change looks better anyway …

…………….. however – you could try corner pinning the control panel and using lots of motion blur — chris —

[Chris Brett]

— easy one …

1 ) scrub through timeline to select frame you want to print
2 ) slide the left hand ( yellow ) timeline selector up to the time line marker
3 ) slide the right hand selector right up to the time line marker ie whee the selected frame is — this will give the frame you want with selection markers either side.
4 ) send to render queue
5 ) before printing make sure to deselect ‘fields’ and also consider whether motion blur needs to be ‘on’ or ‘off’.
6 ) render out as usual

————– all the best ——chris —

[Chris Brett]

Hi Ted – either : –

1 ) if the highlight does not move take frame into PS and paint everything else out with solid black

2 ) if the highlight moves make an animating matte to remove unwanted areas

…… then put result into separate layer and mix into bg plate…

…….. and thats it !!!!! ——- chris —