[Jim Arco]

Subspace warp can get a bit wierd on complex shots like yours – try using Position Scale Rotation or only Position from the Method pulldown.

You may want to try not using Autoscale (in the Framing pulldown) to help the zooming problem. You may then need to keyframe scale the footage manually.

Jim

[Jim Arco]

Thanks guys for your thoughts.

But I still can’t figure out what’s happening that throttles PPro / AE to less than 40% of processing horsepower that is available.

Jim

[Jim Arco]

Dave,

Thanks for the info. Actually what I need most is (unfortunately) the date that is imbedded in the video itself. Ideally, in a way that would be able to be used in an expression.

There are any number of utilities that let me look at the date and time that are contained in the video, but none integrate into PPro/AE.

Is this worth doing a feature request, or is this one of those things purposely omitted because someone else has the copyrights/patents already locked down?

Jim

[Jim Arco]

Thanks Vishesh, but that only works for file-based video recording.

I am currently working with a bunch of video captured from DV tape and the “Date created” is the date the video was captured. (Also, AE seems to be changing that date to today’s date when I apply the timecode effect.)

Jim

[Jim Arco]

Thank you, I don’t know why I didn’t find that with a search. Apparently, I still can’t show the actual date that the source material was shot?

Additional strangeness:
When I add a file to AE CS5.5, the date that the file was created (in Windows) is shown, but when I add it to ‘create composition,’ the ‘date modified’ of the file is changed in Windows and AE. So everything winds up with today’s date.

What is AE doing to change my files? And how can I prevent it?

Jim

[Jim Arco]

For a very short clip, it is possible to take a single frame, pull it apart so that there are several planes in the image, then rebuild the ‘missing’ background elements. Put this in After Effects, move the planes in 3D space, and then move a virtual camera around the action.

This effect was used extensively in a movie, “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” so you might want to start googling there. Also Andrew Kramer’s tutorial has some similar ideas:
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/timeFreezeCow.php

Jim

[Jim Arco]

A “wet and reflective” look is probably going to require more creativity and judgment than can be coded into a software plug-in.

When something is wet, it appears to change color and brightness depending on the material and the surface finish. For instance, masonry or wood usually get darker. However, the moisture on the surface also reflects the light sources in the scene. In your example, the reflections show up as diffused vertical bars or stripes similar in color to the light sources in the scene. (Had the camera angle been different, the reflections would be at a different angle.) In other scenes, you’d want to add ‘puddles’ to large areas of pavement, a blue haze for large open backlighted areas, or ‘glistening drops’ on grass and leaves to create an illusion of a recent rain.

I would use curves on a masked layer to create brighter or darker “wet” surfaces, and also to change their color to create a wet look.

Jim

[Jim Arco]

Curves, desaturate, sharpen.

[Jim Arco]

It sounds like you want to modify the footage so it looks correct when projected on the yellow wall.

So, you want to ‘subtract’ the yellow from the existing video. To be accurate, you need to subtract the specific yellow that is on the wall.

The technically accurate method would be to determine the exact hue of the yellow wall. Use a calibrated color meter (yeah right) or accurately balanced camera and vectorscope. Then subtract that hue from the image (or add the same amount of the opposite hue -blue in this case- to the image.)

One method: Have the projector show a white frame on the wall, shoot it (still cam would probably be OK), then put that footage in your project and ‘subtract’ the color by inverting (ctrl-I) the footage. Adjust opacity to suit.

Jim

[Jim Arco]

I have a PC with similar specs to yours and bought an Intensity Shuttle for USB 3. It’s a solidly-built box and does the job.

I found it a bit finicky to get working correctly. Be sure you follow Black Magic’s hardware requirements, especially in regards to the USB3 card and drivers. Seems that the “USB3 standard” is maybe not quite as standard as we’d like it to be. I eventually had to roll-back to an earlier version of Black Magic’s drivers and still have to occasionally fuss with it a bit.

In fairness to Black Magic, I’ve bought numerous analog capture/output cards and devices over the years, including several that were rather pricey. NONE of them were easy to get working reliably. You’d think we’d have worked past all the technical issues of analog/digital conversion by now.

Jim
Colorburst Video