Darby Edelen
Forum Replies Created
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I’m not entirely familiar with the effect, but I think you’ll want to use a Text Animator. Look at the Animation Presets and see if there’s anything similar, then play with the settings to get what you want. Text Animators are very powerful (and only get better in CS3!) and I suggest you take the time to try and understand them =)
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[MikeyforVFX] “Would there big a significant difference (i.e easier keying) from using a mini dv consumer camera vs a mini dv prosumer camera?”
For keying you want to have the best resolution possible, specifically the best chroma (‘color’) resolution possible. NTSC DV records in 4:1:1 chroma compression, meaning that you have 1/4 as much chroma information as luma (‘brightness’) information. This works pretty well for most uses because the human eye is less sensitive to color than brightness, but it can cause some problems (blocky edges) when keying.
You can blur the chroma in After Effects by applying Channels > Channel Combiner and setting it to RGB to YUV, then apply Blur > Channel Blur and set the Green and Blue blur values to something like 0.5 (more or less as needed), then apply another instance of Channels > Channel Combiner and set it to YUV to RGB. This will blur the chroma (UV) of the footage and should make for less blocky edges when keying.
Otherwise, if you have a big budget, buy a camera that uses 4:2:2 chroma compression (the DVCPRO50 and D-9 formats use 4:2:2).
That’s some technical info about keying, but there are also things you can do when shooting to improve your key. Use as much of the frame as possible when shooting your subject (you can always scale it down in AE) even if this means turning your camera on its side (you can always rotate the key 90
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You can accomplish this with any kind of matte to hold out the object you want in color. The trouble is you need to be able to generate the matte accurately and predictably, which in most cases is not entirely possible. Different techniques will work better for different video clips. It will depend entirely on the clip you’re trying to work with, and you’ll probably end up needing to do some roto work to have something acceptable.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
I felt like my last post was a little too negative, so this is an attempt to post some constructive information as well =)
What you really want to accomplish is convincing people that a bullet has flown by. Seeing the bullet will most definitely give the opposite impression. You never see bullets, you hear bullets and you see what bullets do. The best tools you have are good sound design and something to represent bullet impacts. Pros often use squibs (tiny explosives) but you can manage it convincingly in AE as long as you have an eye for detail. A quick particle explosion should be your foundation. Then you need to take into consideration: lighting, the material the bullet should be hitting (will it throw up dust? sparks? blood? splinters of wood?) and the way that material should look after a bullet has hit it (hole in the wall? hole in the head?). Add details as needed… It’s all in the details =)
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[Bequinta] “it wouldnt look convincing at all because in real life you woundn’t see the bullet unless you were using a 1000 FPS high speed cam.”
It’s true! And just so I could give you some numbers to really convince you I did some calculations…
A bullet passing 10m in front of a camera with a 30
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[George Evatt] “am I right in thinking it will not recognise or open the DVCPRO HD quicktime file?”
I was under the impression that After Effects would recognize any codec that QT does, although it might not necessarily work with them very efficiently. Am I wrong?
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You don’t need to create the text with Illustrator, you just need to create a full frame of text spaced evenly (use a monospace font in which all letters are the same width) against a transparent background. You can do this with Photoshop or even in After Effects.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[MikeyforVFX] “I do believe you can import 3d models into after effects 7.0 and camera paths”
Unless I missed something, I don’t think support for full 3D models has been implemented in AE CS3. I know that you can import vanishing point information from Photoshop into AE CS3 and it will give you a composition with 3D planes arranged to match the Photoshop info, but these are still simple 3D planes. You can also import image sequences with 3D channel information (depth, material id, etc.) as you could in AE7.
I believe Zaxwerks Invigorator is still the only option for working with 3D models directly inside of AE. I’d like to be wrong though, can anyone confirm this for sure?
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[Boyd Hawkins] “What is the proper procedure to add different images in as layers in a .psd document? Is it to create a layer and copy and paste the new images, or is there a better way?”
I think the best way is to have both PSDs open and shift-drag the layer from one to the other. Holding shift when you drag the layer over will force Photoshop to keep the layer in the same relative position in the destination PSD as it was in the source. This means that if the PSDs are the same size the layer will appear in the exact same location in the destination PSD.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[raystar] “I’m not all that familiar w. MPEG as I’m on the mac”
Now that shouldn’t be any kind of an excuse =) QuickTime is an Apple product and has championed various MPEG formats over the years!
That said I think you should render the file as lossless, making sure that your audio bit and sample rate are the same as your source file (also make sure you can hear audio when you RAM preview or audio preview in AE).
As a matter of fact you might want to get more information about the source file before you decide how to proceed. You can do this in QuickTime player under Window->Show Movie Info. It will tell you the video & audio codec used as well as sampling/bit rates.
Also, if you don’t have another application for compressing video (like Compressor) you should have QuickTime Pro (which I highly recommend) which will allow you to export footage to a variety of codecs. It doesn’t give you the same degree of control as a dedicated professional compression application but it will work in a tight squeeze (no pun intended… well maybe a little bit).
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA