[Darby Edelen]

Also, it’d be a good idea not to try to pull a clean key with only one iteration of keylight. I’d recommend creating an edge matte in which you have good detail around the edges but the matte isn’t entirely clean on the interior. Also create a core matte in which the edges are hard, but rolled back slightly from the edges of the ‘edge matte’ and the interior is entirely clean/solid. Then combine these two mattes for your final matte.

This may not solve your problem, but it is generally good keying practice =)

Although I think you mentioned that you tried using Matte Choker and it was chewing up some of the matte you wanted to keep, I might recommend trying it at a very minimal setting as well.

[Darby Edelen]

RAM is important, but since AE is a 32-bit application running on a 32-bit OS (for the time being) it can’t possibly address more than 4GB of RAM at once (and less in real world terms, Windows only allows 2GB and Mac OS 10.4 3GB). So there’s a definite ceiling in terms of RAM. However, if you’re running After Effects and Photoshop at once (as I often do) you’ll want extra head room in terms of RAM.

Processor is by far the most important aspect, but it’s important to balance this with RAM.

One note: although multiple cores/processors will help if you have GridIron Nucleo, After Effects is itself not able to tap into the benefits of multiple cores.

[Darby Edelen]

I’m not sure if this is your problem but I recommend never using MP3s as audio tracks, they are compressed quite a bit and although they sound alright they are difficult to work with.

If all you have is an MP3 then I’d recommend converting it to a WAV or AIFF which will give you an opportunity to make sure you are using the proper settings: 48khz and 16bit stereo sound.

To be more specific, the problem you are describing usually occurs when you try to render out a 44.1khz (or lower) audio file at 48khz.

[Darby Edelen]

[Mister T.] “Now the NULL01 Rotation i pickwicked it to the R expression see above.
But the expression gives me:

temp = thisComp.layer(“Master Null”).transform.orientation[0];
[temp, temp, temp]

So i am confused because its not the same in the book : (
IM a looser in expressions. Im trying realy hard 🙂

So why does it sais Temp(probebly meaning tempary?), what does it mean?
Can you help me with this?
Iff so GREAT!”

First off I will tell you that yes ‘temp’ means temporary, and this is the default variable name that AE will assign whenever you pickwhip something.

So here’s some explanation of what’s going on in this expression:

temp = thisComp.layer(“Master Null”).transform.orientation[0];
[temp, temp, temp]

You’re setting a variable (‘temp’) equal to the FIRST ENTRY of the orientation ARRAY (a sequence of values, the first of which is X orientation, 2nd is Y, 3rd is Z) of the layer “Master Null.” To translate: if the orientation of “Master Null” is 230

[Darby Edelen]

If I were you I’d play around with some color solids with different blending modes and masks applied to them. Maybe an adjustment layer as well that blows out the saturation a bit or alters the color. Then it’s simply a matter of animating the opacity of these layers drastically over a few frames. I’d recommend using a Null object and linking the opacity of the ‘burn’ layers to its opacity, you could also add expression that stutters the footage a bit based on the opacity of the Null object (if you like that old film look).

This is assuming I understood the effect you’re looking for, the YouTube footage didn’t load all the way for me =)

[Darby Edelen]

For textures I recommend checking out the Fractal Noise effect (Noise & Grain > Fractal Noise).

This is a very versatile effect that can be used to create clouds, water, terrain, abstract shapes, etc.

Play with the settings. The most significant changes will be noticed as you alter the Fractal Type and Noise Type.

For animation you can keyframe the Evolution or any of the Transform properties of this effect.

[Darby Edelen]

While it sounds like you ended up with satisfactory results I thought I’d suggest a technique you could use in the future if you’re faced with such a scary scenario. This should help take the guess work out of Color Correction for the most part.

Since you had some footage that was correctly colored it’s just a matter of matching the color channels in the incorrectly colored footage to the correct footage.

This can be done with a Levels effect if you tweak each color channel independently. View the red channel of the correct footage and the incorrect footage and you’ll notice that the incorrect footage (in this case) has a much ‘whiter’ red channel. You can use the Levels effect on the Red channel of the incorrect footage and match the correct footage’s red channel (since the footage is too bright start by bringing up the Black Input, bringing down the White Output and adjusting the gamma to taste). Do this for each channel (Red, Green and Blue) and you should end up with something that looks almost perfect without the guess work (A Curves effect can help as well).

There will still be tweaking involved, but it’s a great place to start with a very straightforward workflow! =)

[Darby Edelen]

As someone who works regularly with video and photoshop layers for final output on NTSC displays I have to ask: what is the benefit of working in square pixels at all?

My entire workflow I use what I assumed was the ‘correct’ NTSC pixel aspect ratio of 0.9. In Photoshop my documents are always set to NTSC pixel aspect ratio… when I draw a circle in Photoshop and import it into After Effects everything is interpreted at 0.9 and nothing appears stretched (my circle is still a circle).

What is the purpose of preparing documents in square pixels if they will never be viewed in square pixels? It’s not a rhetorical question really, I really want to know if I’ve been wrong all this time and should rethink my workflow =/

[Darby Edelen]

It sounds like you’ll be getting most of the effect you want during production and only tweaking (Color ‘Correction’) in After Effects.

If this is the case then I would recommend taking reference footage. Shoot (or borrow: https://images.gooogle.com) a still photograph of a sunny day and one of a cloudy/overcast day. Then when you’re working in After Effects use these photographs as reference when you’re making your adjustments via Levels channel by channel. Workflow to follow:

Place your ‘Sunny Day’ reference footage/photograph and your source footage side by side in a large comp (2x as wide as you need it, probably 1440 x 480)

Apply a Levels effect to your source material

Hit alt-1 (opt-1) to view the red channel of your comp

Select the Red channel in the levels effect of your source material and tweak the settings until you see no distinguishable differences in the levels between your reference’s red channel and your source footage’s red channel.

Hit alt-2 (opt-2) to view the green channel of your comp

Select the Green channel in the levels effect… etc.

When you finish this process for each channel, the color in your source footage should very closely resemble the color in your reference photograph. From here the simplest thing to do would be set a keyframe for the histogram in the Levels effect, advance to where you want it to look cloudy and repeat the above procedure. Only this time use the ‘Cloudy Day’ photograph as your reference.

Sorry if this is a little more than you bargained for getting in a forum reply =) If I left anything out or you have any questions feel free to let me know.

[Darby Edelen]

If stencil luma works well you might try a Luma Track Matte? I don’t think this is ideal by any means, but if it works it works =)