[Jimmy Brunger]

So the concensus is that Quantel is over-priced andoutdated jibberish unless you need close-to-air news gfx and the like? Thought so!

I’ll push for us to go the Smoke/FCP route then and try get myself a super-fast Mac or PC and keep on with what I was doing in AE, etc!

Ta for the info chaps.

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Jimmy Brunger]

Thanks for the info Craig. Yes, I started out on Quantel – found it a total pain to get used to after using PS/AE at college, only to realise how rubbish an archaic it was, so went back to Adobe! I’ve no experience of their GenQ stuff though, which looks more flexible and logical but I just don’t really like Quantel’s workflow, nothing’s automated and you have to to EVERYTHING yourself and repeat and repeat an…

I’ve still got the Paintbox gathering dust in the corner for when we need old work off those bloody MO disks! Do you know a decent way of converting the data on those disks into 32-bit Targas BTW? I tried something from AuroraBorelialis software, but it didn’t work. Would love to get it all transferred and finally throw away the PBox!!!

I’m on PC now so Shake is not an option – it’s more compositing based than mograph though isn’t it? If we switch over to Macs I will defo get the boss to pick Shake up though while it’s so cheap!

I’d also thought about integrating Zaxwerks with AE – looks good. Would help me do more when our 3D guy is tied up or away. I don’t think he’s mad keen on the idea – he’s using Lightwave (and XSI a bit) and has stuck his nose up at Zaxweks stuff for being too slow, but for text and logos/shapes, etc it’s pretty fast isn’t it?

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Jimmy Brunger]

Thanks Dave.

Well…we mainly do low to midish-budget TVCs that range from half a day’s post>delivery to Tx to projects that go upto 3-4 days. All pretty fast turnaound projects (and time constraints mean fairly basic from my POV – but I would like to be able to offer a bit more ‘bang’ in the time I’ve got) We’re a pretty small post house – 10 staff (2 x senior editors, plus freelance AVID editors, me on GFX/VFX/Encoding, 1 x 3D & DVD guy, a tape op and then the camera dept/FOH staff)

I generally feed an Editbox, the AVID and a Linear Digibeta suite and need to fire stuff out at pace. When we upgrade I guess it’ll be a Smoke or EQ, a HD Avid or FCP and the Linear Suite for our regular football edits.

I need something fast, reliable and pretty versatile. Like I said, I’m fairly settled and happy in my AE/PS/Illust/Combustion workflow, but was just dipping a toe in the water to see if people had any other suggestions..

This being an AE forum I guess it’s going to be a little biased – I probs should’ve put it somewhere else, but there’s no Quantel forum and I spend most of my time here!

Any other thoughts?

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Jimmy Brunger]

Sorry…I really didn’t think that question through did I! If there’s 4GB on a system and all of it were used up in one app, the thing would blow up!

Sorry, but embarassed now… I’ll slink off.

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Jimmy Brunger]

I think sp_key was just wanting to stroke around the edge of the text (Like in photoshop? – Annoying that AE doesn’t keep PS styles isn’t it!?)

If so, and you are running AE7 then if you look on your text palette you will see two overlapping colour boxes. (like in Illustrator/PS) The one with the border is your stroke colour and there should be a bunch of other animatable parameters for it there too. If you’re in AE5.5 then you’ll need to goto: effects>stylize>stroke.

If it was animating a layer on via a stroke reveal then ignore me and listen to the other guy! (Great tutorial that btw – you should watch it anyway)

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Jimmy Brunger]

Sorry, I know AE is a 32-bit app…what I meant was – can it only use the 4GB of RAM you mention when it is on a 64-bit system? (i.e. can you get 4GB out of it on a 32-bit?) Cheers.

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Jimmy Brunger]

Just OT a little bit…can AE only make use of 4GB on a 64-bit system? If so, 3GB can only be used by editing the 3GB switch on a 32-bit system? IS that right?

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Jimmy Brunger]

Look a bit further down the page – someone was asking the very same thing the other day.

Or search “aviator” “technicolor” in the archives and you should get a bunch of answers.

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Jimmy Brunger]

Are you using a domestic television to monitor? This could be caused by your colours not being ‘broadcast safe’. After Effects natively produces colours on a 0-255 range (in 8-bit) but domestic televisions can only handle 16-235, hence pure white can give a ‘bending’ effect sometimes as it’s too strong for the tube to handle. Reds also especially can be problematic. Red on Black can make TVs go mental!

You don’t usually see this distortion on a broadcast quality monitor because they are more robust, but when making graphics to be broadcast on TV you need to make sure your colours are ‘legal’ (i.e: your black must be no lower than 16, your white or pure colours not more than 235. The best way to clip your colours in AFX is to apply an adjustment layer of Levels and clamp your colours to 16-235.

I think there’s a tutorial somewhere about it and explaining it better. Search for ‘Broadcast Colours’.

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Jimmy Brunger]

On this subject…has anyone worked out a quick way to make an editable gradient mask for a layer? By that I mean sometimes you need to fine-tune the matte’s grad (like you would a gradient layer) and it’s opacity to make it look just right cutting out the image..would be useful. Is there a way?

Next best thing I can think of is by applying the original mask (a solid square matte cutting out a box for instance) and then selecting transparency of a grad I’ve overlaid and applying that as the new mask to the ‘box’ layer and then unlink it and free transform the matte until it’s just right.

Not ideal though is it!

Any ideas muchly appreciated.

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
————————————-
Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation