Grant Swanson
Forum Replies Created
-
Are the black and white points that you select moving around? You can animate these to follow along with the points you set. Also, if your footage is grainy you’ll want to increase the sample size.
You said that the blue of the sky was flickering, does this just mean the exposure? You may want to try just using the brightness setting. Levels in best for when the overall contrast, not exposure is changing.
Good luck!
Grant Swanson
Visual Effects Supervisor
Video Apex – Minneapolis, MN
videoapex.blogspot.com -
Hi Toby,
After you add the composition to the render queue, in the Output Module Settings, set the channel to RGB+Alpha. Depth should now have a + symbol next to it. For the colors just choose pre-multiplied or straight depending on your case.
When you render out the alpha channel will be included.
Hope this helps!
Grant Swanson
Visual Effects Supervisor
Video Apex – Minneapolis, MN
videoapex.blogspot.com -
[Vincent Genova] “I would like to take a 2-D image of a movie theater and fly down the aisle. My idea of doing it right now would be to make each row of seats a layer in photoshop and spacing them out. Is there a better way someone can help me with? Maybe something with a more 3-D feel?”
I’m assuming since you wanted “to take a 2-D image of a movie theater” you mean that you wanted a 2-D image, offset in 3D space.
By all means you can create a theater in a 3D program, but it will take far more work to create a room that even comes close to the free amount of realism using the protocol I suggested with Vanishing Point. All the work’s done for you, and you decide the amount of detail you want by simply dragging out another plane. This would be more close to the look that you requested in the first post.
Grant Swanson
Visual Effects Supervisor
Video Apex – Minneapolis, MN
videoapex.blogspot.com -
I would try using Motion Sketch, draw out your path, and parent the position of the footprints to the data from the motion sketch using auto-orient. Then you can animate the opacity of the footprints using hold keyframes, just create two to animate them on and off, and duplicate them as many times as you need.
Hope this helps!
Grant Swanson
Visual Effects Supervisor
Video Apex
videoapex.blogspot.com -
I’m not quite sure I know exactly what you’re trying to do, but try applying the tracking data from the text to a null object and simply place a minus sign (-) in front of the y value for either position or anchor point, depending on where your text applies it. The data will still be applied, but it will all be negative (only in the y-coordinates).
Let me know if this works for you, or if I’m misunderstanding what you’re doing.
Grant Swanson
Visual Effects Supervisor
Video Apex
videoapex.blogspot.com -
Hi Vincent,
You can quite easily do this using either image projection right inside of After Effects, or even easier, just use Photoshop’s Vanishing Point, which will bend and distort the 2D image to whatever planes that you make, and you can make it as complex as you want; Photoshop will export it to After Effects as a series of 3D layers pre-arranged in 3D space for you. Here’s a great demonstration:
https://tv.adobe.com/#v=https://adobe.edgeboss.net/flash/adobe/
adobetvprod/nab_2008/58_nab_007a.flv?rss_feedid=1116&xmlvers=2Hope this helps!
Grant Swanson
Visual Effects Supervisor
Video Apex
videoapex.blogspot.com -
Hi Jose,
To do this simply select the compositions being used in the project panel, then go to File–>Collect Files. Choose “For Selected Comps.” Check “Reduce Project,” and only the files in use will be collected. Then choose “Collect,” and choose a location to save the copy project.
Hope that helped!
Grant Swanson
Visual Effects Supervisor
Video Apex
videoapex.blogspot.com -
Hi Bill,
Luma mattes in After Effects work like this: you start out with a black and white matte which will be used to generate the alpha channel. Brigther areas will be opaque and darker areas will be transparent. You place this black and white matte ON TOP of the layer you want to matte out, and then set the layer ON BOTTOM to use the layer directly above it (the black and white matte) as the luma matte.
After this, the layer on bottom will only be visible in the brighter areas of the matte, and the rest will be transparent.
Hope that helps!
Grant Swanson
Visual Effects Supervisor
Video Apex
videoapex.blogspot.com -
I love the basic color correction tools of After Effects, I challenge you to find much that cannot be achieved with just Levels and Hue & Saturation. Of course for anything else there’s always Curves.
Color is a wonderful program although it’s stability is still debated whereas After Effects is very stable. But as a CC tool Color is very excellent.
I don’t like to use Color Finesse, since I can’t think of anything that be achieved with it that isn’t possible with just those three main AE-native tools.
One plug-in that I really enjoy though is Magic Bullet Looks, it makes quick and easy work of whatever look you’re going after and adds a nice cinematic touch; highly recommended!
Grant Swanson –
Video Apex -
Hi Michael,
For keying white you almost always want to use the “Extract” keyer, not “Luma.” Just drag in the top right point, and then drag the bottom point back a little to smooth it out. If you’re still having problems with your edges just apply a Simple Choker or a Matte Choker.
Hope that helped!
-Grant Swanson
https://videoapex.blogspot.com/