Darby Edelen
Forum Replies Created
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I assume you’re talking about the Background Color. Under the Composition menu there’s a Background Color option. There’s also a shortcut which I believe is cmd-shift-B (Mac) or ctrl-shift-B (PC), but I’m not positive as I’m not near a copy of AE right now…
If you’re talking about the interface, then look in preferences. You can set the brightness of the panels in one of those preference options, check the documentation (F1).
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
I believe you will need to keyframe your Source Text property to achieve this.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[jimmybee500] “I do love it when people say “Flame can’t do this, Flame can’t do that””
I read an interesting argument against Flame and other real-time compositing/color correction systems (Da Vinci) in Stu Maschwitz’s “The DV Rebel’s Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap.”
The basic thought was that since you aren’t working in real-time you have much greater flexibility in compositing and color correcting and can actually achieve better results in many (though not all) cases. Stu even goes so far as to note that in working in real-time you must output in real-time to tape, and tape always means compression of some sort. AE allows more flexibility and the ability for an entirely digital workflow. The downside, of course, is that you have to wait (sometimes hours, sometimes days) for your vindication to render =)
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[Alex Kuzelicki] “Just say you have a project that you will ultimately render in 32bpc but you have a bunch of effects that are only 8bpc.”
Note: while the color information in your compositions may be 32bpc, the file you render out of AE will not be 32bpc, there are no codecs that support this. You will ultimately render to 8bpc (well… some codecs support 12bpc). 32bpc is beneficial not for what it gives you in the final render, but for what it allows you to do to get that final render.
Now, here’s the problem with using 8bpc effects:
The simplest way to put it is: calculations that After Effects makes while compositing are much more accurate and ‘natural’ in 32bpc.
When you use 8bpc effects in a 32bpc project you are introducing errors. The 8bpc effect can only generate 256 unique values per channel, if this effect is used in a 32bpc project it will still ‘work’ but you are sacrificing the accuracy that 32bpc allows you (significant digits anyone?).
In addition the values generated by any 8bpc effect will only range from 0-1 in the float (32bpc) realm, giving you no overbrights from these effects. You can, however, introduce overbrights by stretching the values out with, say, a Levels effect.
So the bottom line is, feel free to use 8bpc effects, but be very wary of how you do. If it looks alright in the comp window, I wouldn’t worry too much, what you see is usually what you get in the AE comp window.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Well, I have to start by saying “No” I’ve never tried anything like this =)
But I do have a couple of ideas.
Since you mention Illustrator, are you setting the imported layer to Continously Rasterize? Does changing the state of that toggle affect render time?
And also, you could try making several instances of the map at the same ‘scale’ but cropped tighter. Then when the camera is close enough set an out point for the ‘huge’ map and transition to your ‘not-so-huge’ map, then transition to your ‘kinda huge’ map, etc.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
I’m almost positive this is possible using AE’s scripting functionality, however I don’t know how to do it myself (I really would like to learn more about scripting). I think Dan Ebberts would be the man to talk to. He hangs out on this forum, but you might have better luck in the AE Expressions forum.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Try typing “bad tv” into your effects & presets panel’s search field. You can use one of these preset effects as a basis for what you’re trying to do.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
How about just selecting all the keyframes that make up the motion path, right clicking and choosing “Time Reverse Keyframes”? Or maybe I misunderstood the problem…
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
I believe the 120% percentage is relative to your physical RAM, but the actual allocated memory (2.0 GB) is based on your RAM + any paging files that AE uses.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Effects to look at include Trapcode’s Shine (www.trapcode.com), Radial Blur (or CC Radial Blur/CC Radial Fast Blur), and CC Light Rays. All of them accomplish something similar to what you’re looking for (although I would consider CC Light Rays the worst choice).
Shine and Radial Blur (set to zoom) need a layer to use as the source for the rays. I would suggest doing something simple like looping 2 simple strings of gibberish text (askhlznx?awlekhb might work) in a back and forth motion on a 3D layer (keyframe the position). Then apply Radial Blur or Shine on an adjustment layer above this and try different orientations for the text and different source points for the effect.
Another option would be to use some simple high contrast fractal noise instead of text as the basis for the effect.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA