[Graham Macfarlane]

With the 45 minute file registering as 1min 14sec, what is its frame rate displayed as?

In AE if you drag the 45 minute file from the project pool list, onto the “create new composition” icon, what happens? (Do get a comp that is 1min 14sec long? What is the comp frame rate? Does it play in the comp at all?)

Is the problem reproducible?
For example if you go and record another avi file (2 minutes long for example), and load that into AE, does it read it as less than 2 minutes?

Graham Macfarlane – CGI specialist
Elyarch Ltd – London UK

3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

[Graham Macfarlane]

Hi Jesse,

What codec did you use for your AVI file and what was it recorded on?
Has it been processed in any way before importing to AE?

Graham Macfarlane – CGI specialist
Elyarch Ltd – London UK

3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

[Graham Macfarlane]

Hi Garrett,

After effects can have issues dealing with compressed audio (m4a, mp3). Generally best to avoid it. Try using the WAV format instead.

I’ve found that WAV behaves much better in AE although one can still get very slight cumulative sync issues with RAM previewing over longer playback durations.

So far the only work around I’ve found, to check if things actually line up or not (with WAV files), is to do a RAM preview which starts a second or so before the point of interest. This prevents any noticeable sync issue building up.
I suspect the reason for this may be to do with a bad audio card or audio drivers. I would be curious to hear any other experiences, fixes or work-arounds on this matter.

Graham Macfarlane – CGI specialist
Elyarch Ltd – London UK

3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

[Graham Macfarlane]

Marker points are there to help Mocha with the planar tracking. If you only have a solid board colour, Mocha may not track it well. You could include the edges of the board in the planar track to counter this, but that might pick up moving hands or fingers, which could throw off the track, unless you roto out these elements from the tracking first.

Once you have a planar track, and get the corner pin data into AE, you simply have to link your AE animation to it. Your AE animation should include a solid background colour to cover the original board and dots.

If you want some of the original board to be visible through the AE animation (e.g. light, shadow, or sheen) then things get a little more complex and yes you would have to forgo the dots. If this is the case there is a video tutorial that might help you, but I’d need to dig it out.

Graham Macfarlane – CGI specialist
Elyarch Ltd – London UK

3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

[Graham Macfarlane]

Yes, Mocha would certainly be the better tool.

Make sure you have some marker dots on the board surface, away from any fingers, for Mocha to track (5 should be a good number, arranged like the five on a dice).

Mocha would make short work of any roto around fingers too, since you can link your finger roto splines to the planar track of the dots. Then you are just left with adjustments for any fingers changing position on the board.

Your planar track and roto can then be exported as a corner pin data and shape data respectively, into AE.

You could do all this purely in AE, but it would take longer.

Graham Macfarlane – CGI specialist
Elyarch Ltd – London UK

3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

[Graham Macfarlane]

Hi Tom,

Some colour spill from the boards animation would be expected to appear on the fingers/hands of the talent. Therefore, I would try to have the board the same or similar hue as the solid or dominant colour of your After Effects animation. This way you have less to do in post, managing colour spill.

This is of course assuming that the chosen board colour is not too similar to any skin (or nail varnish) colour. This would make your keying trickier and you may need to do hand roto work to isolate any hands/fingers occluding the board’s surface

In such cases it would be better to choose a different board colour you can more easily key against, even though it may give you unwanted colour spill. Cleaning up colour spill should be quicker than the extra roto work!
A green board should work fine. White may match nail/skin reflections and black may match shadows between fingers so be careful with those.

Graham Macfarlane – CGI specialist
Elyarch Ltd – London UK

3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

[Graham Macfarlane]

Hi Sevy,

For a simple effect, you could use the CC Particle Systems II effect on a solid layer.
Basic setup is in attached image, which should give a good starting point.
From there it’s a matter of colour, blur, glow and overlaying to taste.

Graham Macfarlane – CGI specialist
Elyarch Ltd – London UK

3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

[Graham Macfarlane]

Thanks, Abraham.

This is a useful feature.

Graham Macfarlane – CGI specialist
Elyarch Ltd – London UK

3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

[Graham Macfarlane]

Hello Ryan,

You could use Adobe Encore.

In Encore: create your menu; import, arrange and linkup your media; then export it all to a USB drive using the flash format.

Detailed instructions here should help:
https://helpx.adobe.com/encore/using/exporting-projects-flash-format.html

With this method you won’t need to be concerned about apple or windows based media formats as everything is encoded to flash by encore, on export.

Graham Macfarlane – CGI specialist
Elyarch Ltd – London UK

3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

[Graham Macfarlane]

I would suggest trying Media encoder and see if that helps with the washed out problem.
For the black outline issue, try precomposing the graphics in your comp and switching on the continuously rasterize layer switch.

Graham Macfarlane – CGI specialist
Elyarch Ltd – London UK

3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha