[Chris Zwar]

The videos have been updated with cleaner audio, thanks to the generous help of Andrew Deme. So you can now enjoy them with considerably less background noise.

I have to say that I didn’t really mind the hum. Yes it was annoying, and slightly embarrassing, but as I said in the intro they weren’t ever meant to be professionally produced videos with cutaways, noddies or tight editing. It really was just two guys having a chat that we recorded on my own cheap DSLR.

Cheers,

-Chris

Motion Graphics Designer
Will animate for food

[Chris Zwar]

Thanks for posting the link here.

I’ve had to update and change the URLs for the interviews, so the current links are here:

Part 1 – An introduction, and a general chat about the art of cinematography

Part 2 – The impact of digital cameras

Part 3 – The Blackmagic Cinema Camera

Part 4 – Post-production with the Blackmagic camera

Sorry for any inconvenience and I hope you enjoy our chat.

-Chris Zwar

Motion Graphics Designer
Will animate for food

[Chris Zwar]

Not sure if you’re on the AE email list, but Frank Capria posted something about this the other day:

https://www.capria.tv/2007/06/19/prores-422-after-effects-gotcha/

Maybe email him and see where he’s at with the problem?

-Chris

[Chris Zwar]

I’m only thinking out loud, so I could be quite wrong.

But basically the correction itself is probably just a levels adjustment, so depending on whether you’re using blue or green screen just tweak individual channels accordingly.

If you want to get more complex, then apply the levels filter to an adjustment layer, then duplicate your keyed layer and use it as a track-matte for the adjustment layer, perhaps applying a second key to pick out spill colours, or an edge detection plug-in, or other secondary keys to pick out the regions which are giving you grief. This way the adjustment is only being applied to the areas you have keyed out in your duplicate layer.

That may work. Personally, I’d just use the AE “Spill Suppressor”. It’s always done the job for me…

-Chris

[Chris Zwar]

Hi,

Glad you sorted it out.
When you use expressions, you’re basically writing a small program in JavaScript, so all the basics of computer programming applies, including variables.
When I’m writing expressions I tend to choose variable names which remind me what I’m doing- x, y & z for co-ordinates, scl for scale, min and max for minimum and maximum values I might be using, etc etc.

Some words can’t be used as variables, because they’re reserved by After Effects- such as “time”. So I’ll often use t=time when I’m working with time.

When you use the pick-whip, After Effects automatically uses the variable name “temp”, because it’s a temporary variable. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you’re doing more complex stuff then it helps to use variables with more appropriate names.

You can also add comments to remind yourself what you’re doing – anything you type between // is ignored. This is really useful when you devise long complex expressions which may be useful in 6 months time.

If I look at the example I posted yesterday and tidied it up a bit, a version with more accurate variable names and comments would look like this:

audkeys = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”); // get music volume from audio keyframes//

audiomin=5; // set this to the softest values in the music //
audiomax=40; // set this to the loudest values in the music //
resultmin=0; // set this to the minimum scale value required //
resultmax=100; // set this to the maximum scale value required //

scl=linear(s,audiomin,audiomax,resultmin,resultmax); // interpolate between the audio keyframes and the required range //

[scl,scl]

There you go. So the reason you had to change “temp” to “s” (originally) is because After Effects automatically uses “temp” when you pickwhip, and I changed it to “s” as an abbreviation for “scale”. As you can see from above, you can change it to “scl” or almost anything else you like- but not “scale”, because that’s a word reserved by AE.

Hope this helps,

-Chris

[Chris Zwar]

I don’t know what tutorial you’re referring to, but I often animate to music and can give you some pointers.

The problem is that all music tracks are different, and when you use the “convert audio to keyframes” function the values can vary widely.
So I always pad my expressions out with the “linear” interpolation function, with a few settings which allow you to fine-tune the results.

So a simple scale expression might be:
s = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”);
s=s*8;
[s,s]

But what I tend to do is this:
s = thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”);
audiomin=5;
audiomax=40;
resultmin=0;
resultmax=100;
s=linear(s,audiomin,audiomax,resultmin,resultmax);
[s,s]

Then what you do is adjust the “audio min” and “audio max” values to suit the music track you’re using, and set the “result min” and “result max” to the smallest and largest values you want to end up with.

Anyway hope this helps and gives you something to try,

-Chris

[Chris Zwar]

This blog is interesting:

https://prolost.blogspot.com/2006/03/tale-of-three-blurs.html

But there are also 3rd party blurs which are fast too… I’ve been using the Tinderbox T_Blur for years and the old Composite Wizard Super Blur is very fast too. I’m sure that the Boris and Sapphire blur algorithms are highly optimised as well.

Composite Wizard (which is old and has been replaced by a completely new product by the same programmer) came with a thick manual that had a whole chapter explaining the difference between box, gaussian and camera blurs. Unfortunately I don’t have it any more…

-Chris

[Chris Zwar]

Thanks, I’ve got one.

-Chris

[Chris Zwar]

Animations are generated and rendered in the usual way, but at very high resolution. These high-resolution renders are then played out with multi-projector setups like watchout (https://www.dataton.com/watchout). I’m not sure what alternatives there are to watchout but I’m sure there are a few. A typical resolution for a 3 projector setup might be 2344 x 768.

-Chris

[Chris Zwar]

You need to create a greyscale energy wave animation in a precomposition, then use it as a displacement map in your main comp.
If you have a many-layered composition to effect, apply the displacement map effect to an adjustment layer at the top. You can use other effects such as compound blur and vector blur with the same greyscale displacement map to enhance the overall look, depending on what you’re after.
If you’re new to displacement map effects then check out the tutorials, Aharon’s got some very comprehensive details on them.
If you’re up for something more advanced, and more fiddly, then you can use your greyscale displacement map with the caustics effect. Again- check out the tutorial section for the caustics effect. It can give you really cool energy wave effects if you spend some time with it.

-Chris