[Eric Barker]

Thanks! That’s EXACTLY what I was looking for! Wow, I feel powerful now. This may really improve my workflow. The “dragon drop” method is a lot faster (I have all panels open all the time), because there’s less clicking involved. And yes, Dave, it’s “alt” on Windows, but thanks for the Mac info, since I use AE on a mac at home.

Television Producer
KTVF-11 Fairbanks, Alaska
video.ericbarker.com

[Eric Barker]

Wow… that IK tutorial is EXACTLY what I’m looking for. I had already done exactly what the setup was (minus the “effector” layers), since I animated the walking by simple looped keyframe animation, but with the addition of IK, things could get very interesting. Of course, with what I’m hoping to do, there are multipul figures, all linked together, so I’ll have to modify the code a bit to get what I want, but it should work.

Unfortunately, the finished spot I had to just make do without anything past simple walking, but I’ll play with making an IK version just for the sake of learning how… for next time.

Thanks alot!

Television Producer
KTVF-11 Fairbanks, Alaska
video.ericbarker.com

[Eric Barker]

Ooops, I should have explained, these are FLOOR shadows, not back wall drop shadows. Yeah, adding wall shadows is easy enough because you can simply use the shape of the keyed subject (either by using a simple 2D drop shadow, or adding a light to a 3D project). But floor shadows are not possible to synthesize since they’re created by overhead lights and take into account the depth of the subject. Many of these shadows are created by hair lights, so the shadow is actually in front of the subject.

Television Producer
KTVF-11 Fairbanks, Alaska
video.ericbarker.com

[Eric Barker]

Good question with a surprisingly effective answer.

I just started doing this in the last 6 months or so, and I use it more and more. It’s especially effective because AE, while being a good precompositing program, isn’t exactly the most efficient editing environment, but thankfully, transfering between the two is a breeze.

First, setup your footage in Premiere the way you want it. Keep your organization as best as possible. I would recommend designating a video track specifically to only that footage that will be edited by after effects, just so that you have the original around in case you need it back. After you’ve placed your footage, select only the footage you’ll be using for after effets; if it’s a very short segment in a longer clip, I’d recommend slicing it up and only using a small chunk. Select Edit > Copy.

Open up a new After Effects projectand create a new composition with the same parameters as your Premiere project. Here’s the trick, hold “Ctrl + Alt” then press “V” to paste the clips directly at the play head (in this case, at the beginning of the composition). See, a normal paste (Ctrl-V) will place the clips at what their times were in Premiere, which was likely not at the beginning of the sequence, but holding down the Alt key forced AE to place the footage right at the beginning.

After that you’ll want to move the play head to the end of the clips (which will now be on separate layers if there are more than one). Click the current time indicator in the timeline, and hit Ctrl-C in the window that pops up. Then open up the composition settings dialog, and paste that time into the Duration field. This will setup your composition to only the length of the clips. You can actually skip this last step and just set your work area bar to only the duration of your clips, but I find that shaving off that excess time makes it easier to move around in the composition.

Now, apply whatever effects you want onto your clips.

Lastly, add the composition to your render cue. If you’re planning to have any transparency in your footage, like if you’re using After Effects to key out footage (which I do all the time), you’ll want to mess with your output module settings to give an alpha channel. I find the best way to get an alpha channel is to output the composition as a QuickTime MOV with the “Millions of Colors + Alpha” option selected, since AVIs can’t include alpha channels unless they’re uncompressed, which nets you HUGE file sizes. You might want to make a custom template if you plan on doing this a lot. Click “Render” to render your composition.

Back in Premiere, simply import the modified footage. If you did like I suggested and placed the after effects footage on a separate track, you can just turn off that video track, to save for safe keeping, and drag the new footage into the layer above/below it along with all the rest of the footage.

This may have sounded long winded, but it’s actually pretty simple, I just explained a little more in depth because I’m not sure what you do/don’t know. But I’ve gotten switching down so that I can do this all within about 3 minutes, depending upon how complex the effect is.

One last thing. If all you need is an after effects plugin, you should know that MOST after effects plugins now work within the Premiere CS3 architecture, and I find myself using them all the time. The only thing is that you’ll need to copy the plugins from their place in the Program Files folder, into the Premiere plugins folder in order to get them to work. I use things like “Glow”, “CC Light Sweep”, and “Reduce Interlace Flicker” all the time in Premiere. Unfortunately, all plugins that take advantage of After Effects masks will not work in Premiere, the biggest loss being “Keylight”.

Hope this Helps.

Television Producer
KTVF-11 Fairbanks, Alaska
video.ericbarker.com

[Eric Barker]

I’ve noticed this too, but only in CS3. What I’ve noticed is that it commonly shows previous pre-renders of the frame, or severely altered versions. A common phenominon is when tracking the play head, one object will appear to be in a different place from where it actually is.

If anyone has any answers, I’d like to hear them, this has only started becoming an issue with AE CS3.

[Eric Barker]

If I had asked about other software, I would have asked about other software. I have Audition, I have MOTU Digital Performer, I have Avid Pro Tools… but it’s silly and complicates the workflow to have to load up and edit in every little thing in a different program. This is the second time this week I’ve gotten a response like this, and I’m getting exasperated.

Must I remind everyone that NLEs supply the bear-bones to do most things, but not the means to do a lot of them in detail? That meas that if I simply need a bit of reverb on a voiceover (but nothing extravigent), it’s much more efficient to do it right within the NLE, and not switch around.

This is the same with Greenscreening, I shouldn’t have to switch over to after effects just to do a simple greenscreening job. Why does Adobe take the time to supply shitty reverb and greenscreening plugins, if the answer is “just do it in another program.”

So, I’ll ask again, “what is a good reverb PLUGIN for Premiere?”

[Eric Barker]

Unfortunately, Premiere’s keying doesn’t do spill correction, and it’s boundary isn’t feathered, so it’s very pixilated. Wispy hair just flickers, and people commonly look sick. I’ll continue to do all my “good” greenscreening in AE, and the really basic, home-towny stuff (ie: low budget), I’ll just accept that it’s going to suck, and the client won’t care because they hardly ever do anyway.

[Eric Barker]

My thoughts exactly. Truth is, I’m in market 202 (out of, what, 213 markets in the US?) Fairbanks, Alaska. I make up 50% of the in-house production division, and the bulk of the editing. As a TV-station, we regularly deal with station promotion, as well as outside clients. I wear hats as producer, editor, videographer, graphic designer, voice actor, and even composer, when I feel the motivation.

I’ve gotten very skilled with AE in the past year and a half, and I can safely say that there’s noone else in this market that can do motion graphics anywhere as well as I can. Heck, the number of people who can use AE in this state are probably in the double-digits, and nearly all of them are in Anchorage.

We don’t have the time or the lighting to do “great” greenscreening. We just use the weather set, and cross our fingers. If I had my way, we’d never do greenscreening here, but clients sometimes feel differently. I’ve resigned myself to the feeling that “greenscreening is just not something we can do well, at this leve.” But with keylight, I’ve found that I can make greenscreening look “decent” instead of “horrid”, I just wish I could use it in Premiere.

[Eric Barker]

It’s not that I’m not used to that workflow pattern, at all. I do animations and text manipulation in AE on a daily basis. But those are for full fledged commercial spots, where I can afford to put the added time into it. But most of our greenscreening is low budget stuff, usually for weekly specials or for inhouse IDs, things that I need to churn out in 45 minutes or less.

But this is mostly a logistical issue. If I were to leave (which I’m planning on doing so here in the next few months), and if I had done all our weekly’s and specials using AE, there would be no one here who would know how to pick up where I left off. I’m teaching my boss AE, little by little, but it’s going to take her a while before she’s comfortable using it on a daily basis. So, for now, my business has had a “no After Effects” policy when it comes to required, longterm campaigns, and for good reason.

Greenscreen is used in compositing and animation, but it’s just as much a part of non-linear editing, as well, if not more-so. In my experience, it makes more sense to be a part of a non-linear editor than in a pre-compositing program like AE.

[Eric Barker]

First of all, plugin ARCHITECTURE is universal, regardless of whether it’s third party or not.

Secondly, workflow has nothing to do with it. I work at a small TV station, many times, we just shoot talent on greenscreen and throw in a background scene or a virtual set to be used in a weekly template format. I, personally, am fairly knowledgable in AE, but many of our news team and producers are simply editors. AE is a terrible non-linear editing environment, as it is designed more for compositing and creating smaller elements.

90% of our greenscreening consists of shooting lost pets on a weekly basis. I don’t have time to pre-composite in after effects first, and AEs clumsiness with audio and realtime playback makes it difficult to put a whole spot together.

So, “just use After Effects”, is not an answer I’m looking for. I don’t mean to sound bitchy, but I get that answer a lot, and in this instance, it’s very inconvenient and shouldn’t have to be that way.

Every other plugin I’ve ever tried (including the Cycore set) works… why won’t the plugin that would be MOST at home in a non-linear editor (a greenscreen plugin) not work? I almost wonder whether Adobe has PURPOSEFULLY made it not work, for legal reasons.