Joey Foreman
Forum Replies Created
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[Joey Foreman] ” Alpha is a grayscale image that defines the transparency, black being fully opaque, white fully transparent.”
Sorry, that should have said the reverse. Black is fully transparent, white fully opaque.
Long day.
Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist -
[Irene Vega] “-Before rendering, do I have to set my layers in the composition in a particular order? hide/show anything?”
Don’t sandwich any 2d layers between 3d ones. Turn off the visibility for the background video that was your reference. If you hit the checkerboard icon at the bottom of the comp panel, you should see checkerboarding under your graphics. This isn’t necessary for rendering, but just a visual reference to confirm that there is transparency to render. You can also see your alpha channel by clicking the RGB icon on the comp panel and choosing alpha. Again, this doesn’t affect your render, it just let’s you see the alpha you’ll be rendering.
[Irene Vega] “-In the render settings panel there is an Alpha and RGB+Alpha option, which one do I have to use?”
RGB + Alpha. RGB is the graphics you created (the color info), Alpha is a grayscale image that defines the transparency, black being fully opaque, white fully transparent. Some applications require the Alpha channel to be separate from the RGB channels. Most non-linear editors and most compositing apps can read one that’s embedded. You’ll most likely want your alpha to be Straight, rather than Premultiplied.
For more info:
https://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WS08A8A927-0E3A-48a6-AFF9-BB40FD445B35.html
[Irene Vega] “-No OpenGL? why?”
It hasn’t been fully implemented for all graphics cards and platforms, and can introduce errors into your renders.
[Irene Vega] “-Also, for the compression, should I use the Animation codec/setting?”
It depends. Do you know what app will be used for editing? I won’t speak for Premiere or Avid, but if it’s Final Cut Pro 7 I’d recommend ProRes 4444. It has greater bit depth, but a lower data rate than Animation. It’s optimized for working with in FCP.
[Irene Vega] “I usually set this to H.264, but I’ve read it doesn’t support alpha channels, is that right?”
Yes, that’s right. And some NLE’s can’t edit it, FCP being one.
[Irene Vega] “Is there an alternative to the Animation setting so the file isn’t too big?”
File size should be at the bottom of your priority list. High resolution, high bit depth, pristine graphics with transparency have large file sizes. You have to live with that. Fortunately, storage is cheaper than it’s ever been, and getting more so all the time.
“Does it affect render time?”
High resolution, high bit depth, pristine graphics with transparency take a while to render. You have to live with that, or buy a faster computer. They don’t currently make ones that are fast enough;), though render farms can help.
Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist -
[Albert Succar] “What is the best way of doing this (without having to pay for any programs)?”
Well, hopefully you paid for After Effects and Final Cut;)
Your proposed workflow is fine, assuming that your raw video is in a format that AE can work with. CS5 can work fine with most, but if you have an earlier version of AE, you’ll need to transcode your footage to ProRes 422 if it’s in a long GOP format like HDV, .mp4, or H.264.
After you’ve done your work in AE, render to ProRes 422 HQ or ProRes 4444 (straight alpha) if you need to retain an alpha channel for some reason. You must have FCP Studio 3 to work with the 4444 format.
Be sure to enable Final Cut Studio compatibility in the Quicktime 7 preferences to avoid a gamma shift between apps.
Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist -
Actually Time Remapping should work just fine with a still, as long as you animate it in the precomp.
I don’t use Time Warp much, precisely because of its tendency to cause distortion and artifacting.
Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist -
Remove Grain defaults to a small region of interest preview. Change the Viewing Mode to Final Output.
Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist -
I tutor a student who has the academic version of AE CS4, and I can confirm that it does indeed include all effects, Cycore, Keylight, and Color Finesse.
I suspect that the ones without those fx that have been cropping up are trial or cracked versions.
Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist -
Precompose the layer, then apply the Scatterize effect in the precomp. Apply Timewarp in the main comp.
Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist -
Not sure, really. Do you have the latest update for your version of AE?
If you have openGL on, turn it off.
Does the problem persist if you render to Animation instead of ProRes?
If you’re in version CS4 or earlier, I would be happy to take a look at your project.
You can upload a version that just has a couple of the photos (for a smaller upload,) and I’ll attempt to diagnose the issue.
Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist -
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Have you tried restarting the computer?
Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist