[Darby Edelen]

[Luke Simpson] “Does anybody have any insight in to why this might be happening and how to change it so I only have 3 points per keyframe?”

Every keyframe has two points in the Graph Editor when viewing the Speed Graph: the incoming speed and outgoing speed.

You can lock these two points together by selecting them, right clicking, choosing “Keyframe Velocity…” and then clicking on the “Continuous (Lock Outgoing to Incoming)” checkbox. This replaces the outgoing speed with the incoming speed and locks them together when you work in the Graph Editor.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

You added one point to the Curves. Curves has a minimum of 2 points. So adding one point makes 3 points. Don’t add any points, just move the curve on the upper right to the left.

Also if that’s all you’re doing you might be happier with Levels and adjusting the Input White down below 1.0.

Switching to 16bpc may fix this problem, but if you were counting on pretty blooms and blurs then 16bpc will introduce a slew of new “problems.”

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

My mistake, sorry I missed that.

It would be ideal to output a true 29.97 file from Flash.

If that is not an option you should find out if you can deliver a file with 3:2 pulldown and if that will be handled well (I’m not sure how broadcasters prefer their files these days). If so then work at 23.976fps and export to 29.97 with a pulldown.

If the timing on your composite is not essential then you could re-interpret the output from Flash as 29.97 in AE (resulting in a file that is ~4/5 the duration of the original) and render to 29.97.

If you are out of options then I’d composite and render at 29.97 in AE. However, this will result in every 4thish frame being repeated and may appear as stuttering. There are some time-remapping plug-ins that can help alleviate that issue but in my experience they never quite deliver what I’d want them to.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

[Adhish Yajnik] “They use the Fill effect, but I’d rather the effect work with the opacity attribute if possible. Is there a blending mode or an effect I can apply to my layers so they’ll behave this way?”

I can’t think of any way to do this. If it were me I’d use Levels to adjust the Output White of the layers and not mess with Opacity.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Was this question posted to the correct forum? You say you’re working on a Flash animation and don’t mention After Effects once.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

You may have enough difference in the Green & Blue channels to create a decent matte from those.

I seemed to be able to get a decent matte by using these on a copy of the footage:

Channel > Invert
Color Correction > Channel Mixer

Monochrome, set Red-Red to 0, Red-Green and Red-Blue to something around 50

Color Correction > Levels

Adjust the input black and white levels so that the background screen is black and the foreground wreath is white.

You can then use this as a luma track matte for a copy of the original footage. Of course this process will be improved by using a garbage matte and doing some work on the edges of the resulting image.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

[Simon Matthews] “I have no idea what the pencil icon is for”

The pencil allows you to draw an arbitrary curve into the curve display area. It’s not based on the same smooth curve algorithm as curves normally is. You could, for example, posterize the image by drawing flat lines at intervals across the curve display area.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

You currently have 3 points in your curve, you need to remove the one in the upper right and use only 2 points.

You’re working in 32bpc and that last point causes your Blue channel to begin to invert at values near 1.0. If you use only the first 2 points it will allow the Blue value to properly increase well above 1.0.

If you need to clamp the values for some reason then I recommend using a Levels effect after the Curves with Clip To Output White turned On.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Interesting. Well if you’d like any help finding alternate methods to achieve a similar result feel free to post back. I’d like to see the miraculous still frame before/after 🙂

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

I’m glad you found something that works for you. I’m surprised that 126 does what you want as it’s sort of a random number 🙂 Also I wouldn’t expect that to turn any channels ‘off’

I’d be curious to hear more about the process you’re using.

Darby Edelen