Darby Edelen
Forum Replies Created
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The term ‘overlay’ is very general, but I think I understand what you’re asking.
You can use the MOV as an alpha track matte for other footage. Just place that footage below the ‘overlay’ and set its track matte mode to Alpha. This is assuming that your footage has an alpha channel and isn’t just a white object rendered on a black solid in RGB (in which case you should use a Luma Track Matte, or re-render with alpha).
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Import the AEP that has the composition you want into the AEP that you want the composition in =)
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
The first step would be to make sure that your Anchor Point is at the center of the object, unfortunately this is largely perceptual (in the case of text you can center align horizontally). Then make the position property’s X value equal to 1/2 the comp width and the Y value one half of the comp height. So for a 720×480 comp this means a position of [360,240].
I wish the Distribute & Align panel were more helpful, but it isn’t =(
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[MikeyBee] “an animate-in part, a long middle that can be cut to the proper length, and an out part, however this may prove to be too much work for the editor. BUT before I do this, I want to get other ideas of how you might go about this.”
That’s how I would do it… and too much work for the editor?! They LIVE to edit things together (;
The only thing to be concerned with is the end of the middle animation and the beginning of the end animation may not line up properly without some precision edits. You might try rendering out a 5 second loop in of middle animation in which the beginning lines up with the end of the intro animation and the end lines up with the beginning of the outro animation. Then the editor can repeat this clip indefinitely on the timeline until it’s been up long enough (you could use a 2 second loop if you wanted more flexibility, but it might be more evident as a loop).
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[airheadjordy] “The problem was my computer could not handle rendering the image high res.”
You’re not going to like this, but… use a different computer? =/
Why couldn’t yours handle it?
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[pixeldustfilms] “I’d say, as a rule, most things that come out of AE wind up back in FCP, where I do further editing, etc…then I go out from FCP using Compressor…”
If you render out of AE in a compressed format then FCP will recompress it using that codec whenever it renders. This means that if you’re using cross dissolves or effects/color corrections in FCP your footage could end up being re-compressed several times.
If you want the best possible quality you should do your editing in FCP before you go to AE, then use something like Automatic Duck to import the edits into AE. Make your color-corrections, etc. in AE. Your final render should be out of AE in a lossless codec, you can then use compressor to make several different files using different codecs from this lossless file.
This is really for nit-picky perfectionists, and even then it seems unnecessary since your original footage wasn’t lossless, but it is the best way to preserve as much of the original footage’s quality as possible.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[Prime Mover] “And how would I do that?”
The best way to do it would probably be to allow the luma channel to remain as it is after the Median effect. Then do your keying to generate a matte with this slightly funky looking, but more readily keyable footage. Then apply the matte to your original footage (Track Matte or Set Matte). If you have color spill on the original footage you could apply an instance of Keylight solely to despill, or use AE’s Spill Suppressor effect.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
You can use the Channel>Channel Combiner effect to go from RGB to YUV (YCrCB) color space in which the ‘red’ channel in AE will contain the luma, while the ‘green’ and ‘blue’ channels will contain chroma information. Then you can either apply a Blur>Channel Blur to the green & blue channels (watch them as you do this, see what happens and compare it to the luma channel) or use a Noise & Grain>Median effect (try a setting of 3) which should give better results, but is more complicated to impliment. Median affects all 3 channels, so you need a way to get the default luma channel back before you apply Channel>Channel Combiner again and go back from YUV to RGB.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[pixeldustfilms] “Am I further “recompressing” the footage by choosing the HDV codec out of AE?”
Yes.
[pixeldustfilms] “What am I picking up using the Animation codec (I’m assuming it’s things like Alpha channel support, etc).”
Lossless compression (though, as you’ve noticed, not usually very much compression).
[pixeldustfilms] “I’ve read some other threads on this, but haven’t been able to easily find the answer. And I guess while I’m at it, when would one use the Animation codec, given my situation?”
If you don’t see any drastic differences on a monitor in your footage after Rendering to HDV from AE then you can probably get away with it, it’s up to you. Rest assured that you are recompressing the footage, and if it is recompressed again and again (going to tape?) the generational losses will begin to be evident.
In addition, FCP recompresses your footage with it’s native codec by default whenever you render in FCP (cross dissolves, color correction, etc).
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Of worth noting is that you lose some precision using the HDR Compander/Expander effect, from Adobe’s Documentation:
“Because the first instance of the HDR Compander effect compresses the range of values through sampling, some precision is lost. For this reason, use the HDR Compander effect only if you