[Harryjf]

Have you experimented with using a Z-Depth pass from Maya?

The downside is that Maya produces a non-antialiaed Z-Depth Image. But, it’s often usable.

Or, a simpler way without screwing around with Z-Depth is to isolate the object that needs to go in front/behind and put that in a render layer in Maya to output it separately. This could then be used as a simple track matte in AE.

Although not the world’s best tutorial, here’s something that may help you:

https://highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/rendering_lighting/shaders/209.html

http://www.graymachine.com

[Harryjf]

Have you experimented with using a Z-Depth pass from Maya?

The downside is that Maya produces a non-antialiaed Z-Depth Image. But, it’s often usable.

Or, a simpler way without screwing around with Z-Depth is to isolate the object that needs to go in front/behind and put that in a render layer in Maya to output it separately. This could then be used as a simple track matte in AE.

Although not the world’s best tutorial, here’s something that may help you:

https://highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/rendering_lighting/shaders/209.html

http://www.graymachine.com

[Harryjf]

One of my favorite type animations is MachoBox by MK12.

Go here:
https://media2.mk12.com/mk12_version_five.html

and click on Brazil Inspired: MachoBox under the 2003 section.

[Harryjf]

The perception of movement comes from the relative movement of one object to another… ie… one object is stationary, another moves, and we perceive motion because we have a frame of reference in the stationary object. This could be achieved with several objects, or a background, etc.

So, if your wipe is moving and the camera is moving with it.. what is providing your frame of reference?

Just a thought. Maybe I am way off as to what your problem is.

[Harryjf]

AHA.. found it. FCP refers to it as “black” or “white” rather than ‘premultiply’ with a color picker.

Works for me.

[Harryjf]

These aren’t “bad” files. They are rendered properly… in this case out of After Effects. They are files with semi transparency in the alpha.. nothing odd or incorrect.

Most compositing apps (AE, Flint, Flame, Shake, Combustion, etc) have either a “straight” or “premultiply” method of interpretting an alpha. “Premultiply” removes a background color defined by the user… usually black.

Now, I realize that FCP isn’t a compositing application. But, it certainly isn’t uncommon to render a foreground animation with an alpha to overlay in FCP.

So, it looks like there is no premultiply option in FCP? This is very odd.

[Harryjf]

Did you find these?

https://www.avid.com/onlineSupport/supportcontent.asp?browse=&productID=94&contentID=7952

These are Windows only, but then again… so is DS.

You can get the Avid Meridien codec for both platforms, but that only supports SD.

[Harryjf]

This should be a feature request.

You can have an object Cast Shadows “Only”, but not have an object Accept Shadows “Only”.

[Harryjf]

For really long text, I suggest using an expression by typing the source text in the “Source Text”. Create an expression for source text, and put your type in quotes. As for the animation, I am not aware of any simple “crawl” preset. Although, I will keep thinking about it. I’ve got a question posted to Media-Motion about this.

As for the looping, the following expression:

loopOut(type = “cycle”, numKeyframes = 0)

..will continuously loop from the last fram back to the first. Make sure your last keyframe and first keyframe are identical.

[Harryjf]

For really long text, I suggest using an expression by typing the source text in the “Source Text”. Create an expression for source text, and put your type in quotes. As for the animation, I am not aware of any simple “crawl” preset. Although, I will keep thinking about it. I’ve got a question posted to Media-Motion about this.

As for the looping, the following expression:

loopOut(type = “cycle”, numKeyframes = 0)

..will continuously loop from the last fram back to the first. Make sure your last keyframe and first keyframe are identical.