Greg Neumayer
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First thing to do is check your input settings (footage interpretation). If your footage is interlaced, make sure you’re not throwing away a field.
Then, do a test a full res, no compression, or something lossless like Quicktime PNG (set to “best”) to make sure it’s not just your compressor causing the problem.Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com -
I’ve had almost all of my clients switch to requesting 1920×1080 (HD) in the last couple years (all US clients). Sometimes a client will spec HD when we really don’t need it (like web usage), and I’ll try to talk them down into something more appropriate for their master (which ended up being 1280×720 in this case), but for the most part, clients seem to want to master in HD “to be safe” even when they don’t have an immediate HD output need.
Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com -
One of the biggest limitations of AE and the subject of many a compositor day-dreams is the ability for AE to do two things:
1. Allow for true 3D distortion of layers. (e.g. Twist my footage like a spiral)and
2. At least allow some degree of import ability of 3D objects prepared in a 3D app. (which, yes, begs the question, “why not just use a 3D app?”) I’m holding my breath for “Adobe Cinema 4D” or at least that level of drag-n-drop interoperability.
Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com -
I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to accomplish, but it sounds a bit like the reverse of an effect I did a while back. I was creating a “blast wave distortion” that emanated from an on-screen event (in my case, a good football catch). I used radio-waves (or just masked circles), rotated them in 3D to match the angle of my footage, then turned them off and used their black-white values and Effects>Displacement Map to make the “shockwave” emanate from my touchdown pass.
Does that sound at all inspiring for what you’re trying to achieve?
Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com -
LIFE.SAVE.UR.
CFX Mappit will be perfect. I had given them a quick look previously, but didn’t realize their product will also do the number-crunch prepping for creating animation to use as spherical texture in Cinema 4D. The math is odd enough that there’s no way you could do this without a plug– or at least some crazy-serious expressions.-Greg
Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com -
Hmmm. That didn’t really work, at least not the way I was applying it. I need to distort my graphics so that pixels at the top and bottom of the (2×1) image get smeared across the whole horizontal length. Much like how Antarctica spans the width of a map, even though it’s basically a circle.
Photoshop’s Polar to Rect distortion filter seems to be trying to do something like that, except that it’s only stretching it for one pole, so I’m not yet sure how to utilize it, or replicate it in AE so that it can be animated.
Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com -
Also be aware that some effects are only 8-bit effects, so they may cause the banding/stepping of colors, even if rendered in 16-bit. “8-bit only” effects will have a yellow “!” triangle next to them in your effects pallet.
(To quickly switch to 16bit mode, option-click (mac) the word 8-bit at the bottom of your Projects window. )
Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com -
The new version (CS4) also includes a turbulent displace under your effects (maybe under noise or distort), which can simplify the process of making a displacement map. Just apply it as an effect to the desired layer. Not as flexible as being able to see your displacement map by using turbulent noise, but handy for a quick cloudy/watery displacement.
Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com -
Update:
This isn’t really a solution, but I got out of my timeline brain-freeze by holding down SHIFT and moving the timeline to another spot (doing so is supposed to move the timeline without updating the editor window). After doing this once, everything worked as expected again, with the viewports updating as I moved around on the timeline. It was as if I had SHIFT-locked it into the SHIFT-ON position.I haven’t yet been able to replicate the effect. If this is a common feature that I’m just being bone-headed about, please reply and let me know what the keystrokes are. Thanks.
Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com -
Don’t forget to post your solution, especially if you’re going to take the time to post that you solved it. That way you’re part of a growing database of helpful–and searchable–information.
Thanks!Antifreeze Design
https://www.antifreezemotiongraphics.com