[Curious Turtle]

You’ll already have the required Quicktime bundled as part of the Final Cut suite. So you’ve got all the tools you need.

Cheers,
Ben

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[Curious Turtle]

FCP doesn’t handle image sequences in an efficient way. You’re best off converting this to a QT movie first. An easy way to do that is just in Quicktime Player:

i) File > Open Image Sequence
ii) File > Export – to desired codec (and resolution!)
iii) Bring it back into FCP and edit to your heart’s content.

You can easily work with image sequences in Motion too, if you want to do a push or something special on your large images.

Hope that helps,
Ben

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[Curious Turtle]

You’ll get repeated frames rather than interpolated ones.

From the manual:

# If a clip’s media file frame rate is faster than the sequence frame rate: Final Cut Pro drops frames of the clip’s media file as necessary to create the appearance of playback at the sequence frame rate. Because frames are skipped, you won’t always be able to trim these clips with frame accuracy. In those cases, you may want to open the original clip in the Viewer to set a specific In or Out point before editing the clip into the sequence.

Cheers,
Ben

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[Curious Turtle]

If you use Cinema Tools to change the frame rate there is no interpolation between the frames. It just plays those frames that were shot at 60fps at 25fps (or your chosen frame rate). You get sharp frames the way that they were shot, they’re just playing back at a different speed.

Changing the clip’s speed in FCP forces a render and creates interpolation between frames. So FCP is making up new pixels instead of playing the original back at the new frame rate.

Hope that makes sense,
Ben

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[Curious Turtle]

Why not use the alpha either as a Track Matte or Channel > Set Matte on your blob layer?

Cheers,
Ben

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[Curious Turtle]

Here’s a few things you can do:

i) In the Sequence Settings > Video Processing set the Motion Filtering setting to Best (not at my system at the moment so the name might not be 100% but it’s the bottom dropdown)
ii) If you are never going up to 100% on your stills, consider scaling them down prior to using them in FCP. Not perfect when you’re on a tight deadline.
iii) Add the Flicker filter to a clip. Set appropriately, then copy that to the rest of your problem clips. This will soften the image slightly to reduce your problem.

Hope that helps,
Ben

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[Curious Turtle]

And an Additive Dissolve that takes you between shots. That’s done very easily in your NLE.

Good luck in your project,
Ben

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[Curious Turtle]

Also check the clip settings in the bin (or using Item Properties). Make sure that the pixel aspect ratio is set to Square and that the Anamorphic flag is off.

With regards to you text, this could be the Sequence Settings like Nels mentioned, and related to that, your codec choice. What codec is your sequence set to render to?

Cheers,
Ben

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[Curious Turtle]

I’m going to be honest with you. This is going to be a hard shot to pull off if you’re still learning the basics.

If it’s a moving shot, then you’re going to want to do some Motion Tracking to track the movement of the camera and/or actor. Next create or shoot an animated ant. Then you should take a look at one of the particle filters to make the hundreds of copies you’ll need. Two that are part of the After Effects core install are Particle Playground or Foam. Foam sounds like a weird one, but you can better create trails of ants with Foam.

I hope that leads you in the right direction. You may be able to find another practical solution to the problem. Does the audience actually have to see ants on the person? Is the shot tight enough that we can’t just infer that from the acting? Trails of ants on furniture or scenery is going to be easier to pull off than virtual ants on a real person.

All the best,
Ben

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[Curious Turtle]

I’ve not tried this configuration, but do you have any multi-processing helpers (BGRender script for example)? As those open multiple copies of AE in the background to speed renders up. Maybe AE 6.5 on OS 10.6 doesn’t know what to do with them :o)

If it’s not causing any other problems with the system, then I’d be happy with it just running!

Cheers,
Ben

Curious Turtle Pro Video
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