[David Bogie]

Never seen this but try turning off all of the other layers and see what happens to the Fractal Noise layer.If it seems to work, print it as a stand alone movie and import it to replace the effects layer.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

[Owain Street] “Maybe this is just the way AFX does this, but it seems a little suspect!”

Negative. After Effects does not introduce pixel aspect errors.
I can’t help you figure this out other than to refer you to the documentation and help system. but i can assure you that when you fix it, you’re going to know it was a simple user error, not the software.

bopgiesan

[David Bogie]

You really don’t need FCP training, you just need help understanding how to use that camera and those file formats. You can spend a few hours on google and find everything you need on those topics.

But I hope someone local can help you out. contact the local Mac user group, there has to be one in the Spokane area.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

Thanks everyone, fascinating reading. Problem for me with any kind of server (virtual or real) at my shop is that the IT geeks have the prerogative to run the thing.

Anyone want to put a price tag on your systems besides Shane’s estimate of US$15k?

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

I cannot see what you’re seeing but the only possible explanation is that the pixels aren’t really square.
“Absolute” is exactly absolute so you do not really have square pixels, regardless of what your display is telling you.
The difference between setting up a comp for square pixels and having your display set properly to correct pixel aspect ratio for preview purposes only can get confusing.
Try to find a perfect circle built in Illustrator or Photoshop and import it into your comp.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Practical, on-site effects take great effort to do well and are often enhanced with computer generated graphics and After Effects is one of many applications up to the task.

If you are planning on trying to do yourself you will need to master motion tracking and the creation of particle effects such as smoke, sparks, and flames.

When shooting on the set, you plan your shot angles very carefully to make it easy for the effects to be added. This usually means you try not to require too much in the way of hand rotoscoping. You also might want to incorporate color targets for motion tracking into the costumes.

Practical lighting effects help sell the CG stuff that you add later. Flashes of colored light and atmospheric smoke are far easier to have on your film/tape than trying to add them later artificially. But this is very advanced filmmaking even if the film is Saturday morning fare.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

Great. And thanks for closing your thread with a workable solution, hardly anyone ever does that around here and it really gets on our nerves.

I would add, for the benefit of those searching for “heat distortion” that the topic comes up often and there have been many solutions offered.

I usually point toward additional research to distinguish between what most folks incorrectly assume is a blur effect and the reality which is that heat distortion is a light refraction effect caused by atmospheric discontinuities often caused by severe temperature gradients between adjacent air molecules.

And that natural phenomenon are sometimes difficult to simulate in AE.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

RAM helps but the 4870 card is the only thing that matters in the currently available rev of Motion.
Just a few weeks ago the 3870 was the last word in graphics so on a few months, the 4870 will be obsolete, no doubt.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

Most of our suites are exceptionally sweet.
This could take the wonks a few days to post suggestions, patience.
Meantime, the topic comes up several times every month. You can spend hours researching it here on the Cow.
Reading between the lines of the many threads you will find, shared media and project storage is a huge nightmare. You throw money at it. One thing most of the installations seem to fail to plan for is the amount of geekiness required to maintain live networked storage. You will need someone on your staff who can take on the responsibility.

bogiesan

[David Bogie]

[Robin Plomp] “To repeat my first question: what is the fastest configuration and best codec for the job? “

Repeating it won’t help without providing more information. Your acquisition format has almost nothing to do with your compositing application. If you are new to this HD stuff and Meida 100 is your only major editing experience, you have much to study. Our advice has now turned into efforts to either help you spend lots of money or convince you to spend much more time offline trying to figure out your business plan for the next few years. If you think you know where you want to be in three years, you can start to plan backwards.

[Robin Plomp] “Acquisition is on XDCam HD 35 Mb/s. We’re doing a lot of short form (commercials), many layers,
masks, grafics and color correction. “

That’s completely different. The fastest config is the fastest Mac and the fastest graphics cards. In six months all of that hardware will be obsolete. but you will be using Motion for your short form stuff and, unlike After Effects, Motion requires massive GPU power. Since you are giving up the M100 codec (with its hardware supported alpha) you are going to be surprised at how much time all of your motion graphics and compositing will take regardless of the machine’s specs.

Listen, try not to spend any money for at least three months. You’ve really got to think this trough carefully on your own.

bogiesan