Darby Edelen
Forum Replies Created
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[jorberg] “something I’ve always had trouble with is making sure that the colors that I’m seeing on screen, actually look the same once I view them on a tv or someone else’s computer monitors.”
There isn’t yet a wholly accepted method of color calibrating consumer TV/video displays, as a result your footage will look slightly different on each and every TV you ever view it on… Sad but true =)
An external monitor will definitely help you get a better grip on what it will look like on a TV (not every TV, just a TV).
If you’re producing video for a device that does have a color profile, then by all means you should load that bad boy up in AE! But your footage will look different on any device that doesn’t use the same profile…
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[MikeyBee] “It makes all the footage incredibly dark and also squeezes it from 4:3 to 3:2.”
First, I recommend that you use another program to compress your AE render into an MPEG-2 (Compressor comes to mind if you’re on a Mac). Secondly, there’s no reason that it should squeeze your footage to a 3:2 aspect ratio. What are the composition/render settings of your footage?
I’m surprised you find it looks darker, as I usually see the opposite effect in most MPEG-2s. If this is the case you can apply some corrections to it either in AE or in Compressor (or another 3rd party app).
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
You could try this expression on the anchor point:
x = width / 2;
y = height / 2;
[x, y]
This will put it in the exact center of the layer.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[inigomyeggo] “Please don’t tell me that my machines described above can’t even preview a clip out of the bin!”
Well, I won’t tell you that… But I will tell you they can’t preview an HDV clip out of the bin =)
HDV uses intra and interframe compression (spatial and temporal compression), it’s based on that MPEG-2 format that we all know AE loves to hate so very much. I recommend that you transcode your HDV footage to a lossless/uncompressed codec for work in AE.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Motion Sketch allows you to do this. Window > Motion Sketch. Hit start capture, then drag the layer you want to capture the motion to around in your comp window and it will create keyframes in real-time (you can change this with the Capture Speed setting, higher amounts will result in faster animation).
However, you can’t do this to 3D layers.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[Steve Roberts] “That’s an aesthetic choice, not a requirement.”
It’s true! It’s true… I’m just trying to lead more people to my camp =)
To expand on my thoughts, if your footage will be potentially displayed on progressive & interlaced you should definitely go with progressive. If you know it’s going to be on an interlaced device (which is over 99% of all TVs in the world) I prefer to render with interlaced fields as I find it helps capture motion better.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
You should de-interlace your footage for compositing and effects. If it will be displayed on an interlaced device you will want interlacing in the final footage (it can be added in when rendered). Note that DVD players can take 23.976fps progressive footage and display it properly on a 29.97fps interlaced NTSC device (for us North American folk).
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[CaptainMench] “What’s the pattern on the original footage? (don’t know what W and S are…)”
W = whole frame
S = split frameWhole frames are frames in which the fields contain the original fields of the 24fps footage, split contain one field from the previous frame and one from the next.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
A 3:2 pulldown is used to go from 24fps footage to interlaced NTSC 29.97fps footage. It sounds like you’re trying to go from 29.97 to 23.976? If your footage was originally shot at 24 frames per second then a pulldown was added and you can use the remove 3:2 pulldown feature in AE (or even better, get the original footage!).
Otherwise, if your footage was shot at 29.97fps you should probably look at Andrew Kramer’s Frame Rate Conversion tutorial:
Basically he drops 29.97fps footage into a 23.976fps comp and uses Timewarp to speed the footage up enough to playback at the proper frame rate in a 23.976 comp, he includes a handy animation preset that does this math for you.
As for interlacing, AE has a built-in method for removing interlacing in the Interpret Footage dialog (since you don’t want to apply effects or composite with interlaced footage). You just need to know which field in your footage is rendered first (usually lower for NTSC).
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[yikesmikes] “Basically you draw a mask over the text, Copy the Mask Shape, then Paste that into the brush position, and change the Paint Style to Reveal Original Image.”
Just a friendly reminder, you can accomplish the same thing with the Generate>Stroke effect without having to copy and paste the mask into another property.
The Write-On effect may be more helpful if you have a camera tracking the signature (you can link the camera’s point of interest to the brush position) but otherwise I find Stroke to be much simpler.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA