Chris Smith
Forum Replies Created
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He could smoothly make a path over to the manual and read about tags 🙂
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
At this point, video cards do almost nothing in AE. They help with the 3D view when you have it set to open GL, but any decent card should do fine.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
i wouldn’t. your best bet is to render lossless and have ‘Compressor’ do it for you. It uses VBR so you’ll get the best image for the best data rate.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
I’m partial to AMD myself. BTW, when I built my PC for gaming I just took the part list like you have there and ordered it on newegg.com and had the same machine (albeit in an uglier case) for half the price.
My machine is almost identical to your first config (except with FX-55 chip) and it was only a few grand instead of like 6 or 7.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
I think a consumer DV cam is good enough if you give it good flat light. That’s why I think putting it in the sun will give you tons of light. Then you should have almost no noise. Ideally you want a cam that shoots progressive because interlacing (60i) is not artistic IMHO.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Here’s my opinion on the roto thing and after lots of practice:
1. Yes, if it’s a complex shape, break it up into parts: Head, torso, arm, etc..
2. First get a track from the main parts. For example, the head. Do a track on something in the person’s face, like a glint off the nose or whatever. Apply this data to a null. call the null, “head track”.
3. on the main video layer, go to the first frame and draw a mask around the guy’s head. Cut this matte and paste it onto a new solid. Turn on keyframing on ‘mask shape’ parameter. Use this solid layer as an alpha matte on the main footage layer. So your mask is still masking the video layer from another track. Now parent the mask/solid layer to the “head track null” assuming the track was good, your mask will travel with the head. But by time you get to the last frame in the clip the shape is off in shape only. On the last frame, reshape your mask – a key will be made. Now go to the very middle of the clip. The mask shape should be extremely close to being good because the tracker put it in the right place and the beginning and end keyframes on the shape should make it interpolate to a decent approximation. But it probably is off a little. so reshape it a touch to fit the head. Now if you need more reshaping, always split other keyframes in the middle. This way AE can do the interpolation for you. So find two keys and go half way between them. Also make sure the keys going down are not linear but auto. Nothing in nature other than machines move linearly. you’ll find that if you have auto bezier that your interpolation will often match up better to real life.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
first of all your video noise is coming from your cam and not the tape format. Obviously the better camera you use…well…the better. But you are just trying to get a matte working. So I would do black ink on white. Because your white ink would have to be pretty thick not to let black show through too easily. Besides you can just invert the image in AE very easily. So use plenty of light. When there is a lot of video noise in a consumer cam it’s because there isn’t enough light and it’s gaining up which adds noise. Take some white foamcore out in the sun and set it up in front of your cam on a tripod. Then put black ink in a dropper and go to town. Don’t forget other fun trendy ink stuff, like dropping the ink into water. against a white background.
Once you have all your ink footage, bring it into AE and add a hue/sat and pull all the saturation out so it’s truly B&W. Then use levels to crush in the blacks and whites a little so that your levels hits true video black and true video white. Then add a channels>invert so that you have white ink over black.
Now if it were me I would render these out to a lossless QT to keep for other projects.
When you do use them, bring them into AE and use them as a luma track matte on other layers. So on a red solid for example the red will look like red ink over a transparent BG.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Ah yes, I see what you mean, I half read the content thinking it was the 100th time it was asked how to leave a color “like in Sin City or Schindler’s List” 🙂
my bad. I haven’t seen Sin City yet. Yes I know, shame on me.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Effects>Stylize>Leave Color
is the quick easy way.
or for better control, dup the layer, key the color you want to keep. use this as an inverted alpha trackmatte on yet another dup so for example only the dress is left over. This will be laid over the original footage which you pull all the color out of. So in the end you have a red dress laid over a B&W image.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Your focal length looks like it’s at it’s widest point. Just set it back to what lens you want to use. Make sure you are moving your camera through space and not just changing the Focal length (zooming).
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com