Joseph W. bourke
Forum Replies Created
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You should be able to just grab the right edge of the solid and drag it out to the length of the comp.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Hi Dustin –
A large part of any project which involves “automatic” tracking, is manual tracking. I’ve done many complex projects, using both Combustion and After Effects, and I’d have to say that I’ve never ever had a perfect track happen in which I didn’t do manual cleanup, or even do a section entirely by hand, when there weren’t enough clear targets to get a track.
If you’re lucky, and you choose the perfect points for your track, and have the best squeeky clean footage, you’re still going to end up with probably 30 to 60 percent of the project being cleanup via manual tracking.
So I would suggest following Ted’s links, and also saving yourself at least part of the headache by using the automatic tracking features. The two go hand in hand on any tracking project.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Mark –
I totally agree with your post – there is a place for FCPX, but not in certain industry sectors. My feeling is, that if the tool works for you, then use it. If it speeds up your workflow, much the better.
My analogy pertained only to the larger workgroup type of setting. In my last job in broadcast, we went from an AVID setup with four AVIDs on a Unity network. The workflow, which had promised the world (thanks AVID), cut our productivity down by roughly 30 to 40 percent, due to crashes (in which the media wasn’t lost, but a day was lost re-linking media), and a slow, quirky, interface. We were also promised an upgrade path to HD, which never transpired.
It was so frustrating that we managed to get engineering to let us try a station of CS3, editing on PPro. Workflow quickly came back to where it was pre-AVID, when we were using EDIT* workstations. Since the first test, the corporate owners have adopted the Creative Suite workflow in all 28 of their broadcast stations. I know it seems off topic, but this shows how even the “king” of the editing hill is not always the best tool for the job, especially when you’re cutting news, promos, and low-budget spots with multiple users/workstations/shifts.
Use the tool which is best for the job at hand. I use PPro, but I wouldn’t hesitate to use FCPX if it made my job easier, without any loss in what I could offer my clients. Carrion my wayward crow!
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
And Herb, the Luddite metaphor is so far off as to be laughable. The Luddites were a group who fought to keep a superior technology, mechanized looms, which would put them out of work, from being adopted.
From what I’ve heard in this forum, FCPX is anything but a superior technology, at least at this point in time. And the user has the choice to adopt or not adopt, which was not the case with textile artisans of the 19th century.
I think a better metaphor might be calling early adopters of FCPX “the Hemlock Society”, at least in certain industry sectors, in which it just doesn’t work (yet)(maybe). In parts of the broadcast industy, and post houses where backward compatibility with projects, tape input and output, and other features which have been bandied about ad nauseum here are considered, adopting FCPX now is akin to suicide.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
One other suggestion, since you mention the gravel, which contains a lot of fine detail which is no doubt smaller than a scan line. You might want to try just the slightest gaussian blur on your footage, then take a look at it.
You’d probably want a number below one, maybe start at .5 and work your way up until any nasty looking aliasing goes away. You want the lowest possible setting which makes the aliasing go away but doesn’t appreciably effect the look of the shot. It may also have something to do with Ted’s suggestions as well.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
The hard way to do it (without plugins) would be to create all of your layers that you want to animate independently in Photoshop, then import the PS file into AE as a Comp, then convert the layers to editable text. You should then be able to animate the layers using the Numbers Effect:
https://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103a9d3c597-7a65a.htmlI’m not sure whether you can convert your imported and converted PS file to the Numbers Effect, but, at worst, you could cut an paste to achieve the result you want.
The much simpler alternative is to purchase Text Anarchy from Red Giant Software for 200 dollars. It will save you way more than its’ cost in the time you’d spend without it. You can set up controlled or random animations, set parts of your animation that enlarge or reduce the size of the text, and a load of other capabilities. If you buy the full Trapcode Suite, I believe they throw it in with the purchase.
https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/text-anarchy/
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Dennis –
I will most certainly give Story another try. As I said, my test of Story was very early on, and it wouldn’t be giving it a fair shake to not try it again.
I’m so used to writing scripts in Word, that it would be a tough transition (sound familiar in this forum?), but I’m always open to new tools which will enhance my workflow. The toughest part will be getting clients who can barely use their email, or get their heads around Dropbox, to understand a collaborative workflow which isn’t on paper.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Yes, it is tougher than it sounds, and, in addition, there are many fonts which are both font AND cheese. Hobo, Mistral, and many others too horrifying to name (or use).
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Hi Clint –
I worked and played with the early versions of Story, and, at the time, gave up on it temporarily because it wouldn’t import Word documents in column form, which is how I write my scripts (most of my clients – industrials – work in Word as well).
I saw it to be extremely promising, and I should actually go back in and test it further. I use the CS5 suite, and see loads of potential there as a workgroup tool. Although I was never a FCP user, I’ve worked on both Apple and PC sides, and find either to be just a tool. What I like about Adobe, as opposed to Apple, is their openness to show you what’s under the hood, and their sincere efforts to listen to their users, as well as how them what’s coming down the road.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
I’m with Walter on this one. If you look in the Render panel of 3D software (I use 3DS Max 2011), you will find a wide variety of presets. I’m talking about the default scanline renderer. The selections look like this:
Look in the Filter Dropdown List (in the above help file) for a list of the choices, one of which is a 25 pixel blur for NTSC or PAL video. You’ll also notice that the other filters in the group are mostly blurring filters, not sharpening filters. If you’re not using Motion Blur, as Walter mentioned (which eats up a lot of resources and lengthens the render time, even on a 64-bit machine), it’s not a bad idea to do a slight blur. I think it enhances the realism of the scene. Sharp 3D smacks of “old” 3D to me.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com