Chris Smith
Forum Replies Created
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[Scott Spengler] “and a reliable, _accurate_ export of Maya camera data to AE”
It’s always reliable for me. Not elegant by a long shot, but always a perfect match. It’s confusing of course because the scales are so different. But when I use nulls in Maya and name them so AE sees them, it’s straight forward to assign an AE layer to the Maya’s null position in AE and it always locks dead on.
However, nothing is a sweet as the way C4D makes a AE project file with all the layers, lights, and cam data ready to go.
Since a Maya .ma file is basically a MEL script in a text file, I wonder if nothing else, one could take the time of converting the data by hand into a .ma file. For example, go into Maya and create a simple camera move. bake the keys. Export as an .ma. Open this in a text reader. You should see the fundamental info that Maya needs for cam data. Then by hand change the numbers to match your AE cam move and lens. Sounds like a bear but I wonder if it would really be that hard.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Don’t know much about them. But 1600x isn’t a LOT of resolution. My “Old” Apple 22″ display does 1600x. My 23″ Apple Cinema Display on my PC does 1920×1200. The Apple 30″ displays do 2560 x 1600.
As far as HD input, sounds good. Of course decklink makes an SDI to DVI converter box or you can use a Plasma screen which will input SVGA or Component HD for a big client monitor.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
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Assuming your AE output will be added to the FCP timeline for output, use Animation codec at 100% Best quality. So it’s lossless RGB which FCP will render back to what it needs in the timeline.
Of course if you need an alpha channel, turn it on and make sure the output is set to Millions of Colors+. The + meaning an alpha channel is included.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
As far as I know, the closest you will get to that is to start in Maya with your camera moves and throw nulls in where you want layers in 3D space.
Then you can import the .ma into AE and replace the nulls with your layers. That way you have a “synced” project. However it only flows from Maya to AE and not the other way around.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
If you are going to get that complex with reveals, you may want to render out your project in passes and treat each layer seperately in the composite stage.
Other than that, if you are talking about doing the “flash” thing I think you are describing whithin C4D, yeah, then I think you may want to keyframe some material parameters. Like keyframe the luminance and glow to hit in a short blip then they fade out to only leave the material’s normal settings.
Also, in the posts below we’ve talked a bit about experiments with the alpha channel to do more interesting reveals.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Just need an incredibly simple mask to split the screen unless one part of you crosses into the other’s area in which you will need a more complicated mask (roto) to isolate whatever crosses “the line”.
AE, Commotion or Combustion can all do these without breaking a sweat. They are all compositors with different strengths.
Commotion is a bit older now, but still has clone/superclone, roto, tracker, auto paint tools that are still better than AE is today.
Combustion on paper is superior to AE in most ways IMO. That being said, I never use it except for the color corrector and particles because I can never wrap my head around it’s workflow. I spend more time hunting for my keyframes and figuring out why my layers aren’t showing the way I expect rather than working. Maybe because it’s because I have the attention span of a small field mouse.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Well to make sure your arrow has a chance, are you giving it a good amount of subdivisions on your loft nurbs? Also maybe check where it says “grid” having to do with the tesselation or whatever they call it in C4D. So that instead of ngons stretching all over the surface, it has a grid like pattern that’s more controllable and I imagine easily more bendable. Sorry I’m not at my comp so I’m going from fuzzy memory. Seems like you don’t need to do the hypernurbs thing as long as your loft nurbs has enough subdivision. Not sure why it’s twisting. I wonder if that’s a product of the path deformer.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Re-reading your last post, did you hit the ‘c’ key at any point to make your primitive editable? If it’s still a procedural primitive and not true geometry, the Xpresso tree won’t know what to do with it.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Glad to help. Did you load it and just play it first? It should have built the entire building without you haveing to do anything. Then you could modify it from there.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com