Joseph W. bourke
Forum Replies Created
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It was produced by Lion Television, now owned by All3media:
https://www.all3media.com/companies/lion.html
This site should lead you to the graphics company that created the open.
Joe Bourke
Art Director / WMUR-TV -
It’s pretty easy…looks like a radial gradient with a free plugin called “AE Flame” superimposed, maybe in additive mode. Here’s where the plugin lives:
https://www.andrewdavidson.com/aeflame/
The only downside is that the plugin, when animated, renders very slowly. Maybe allow for an overnight render. Good luck.
Joe Bourke
Art Director / WMUR-TV -
You can’t get much cheaper than this, and some of the clips can be downloaded for free! These guys put a lot of work into their stuff and don’t charge much. If I remember right there are some green screen smoke effects as well. Here’s where to find them:
https://www.detonationfilms.com/atm0zph33r.htm
Joe Bourke
Art Director / WMUR-TV -
Panopticum makes one that does several types of curtains, animated opens and closes. Pretty good looking, too:
https://www.panopticum.com/ae/curtains/curtains.shtml
Joe Bourke
Art Director / WMUR-TV -
I just ran into this problem with AE 6.5 and Quicktime Pro 7 (and the freebie QT7 as well). Thinking for sure it was an incompatibility with QT and AE, I sent an email to Apple. It turns out that I just had to update my graphics card driver (Nvidia) and the problem was solved. I hope this works for you.
Joe Bourke
Art Director / WMUR-TV -
Hey…don’t apologise for your English. You should hear my French! Anyway, there is a product that will up-rez your footage. I have no experience with it, but it’s on my list of tools that I’d like to own. You can find information at:
https://www.algolith.com/index.php?id=algosuite
If it does what it says it does, it’s a pretty cool product!
Joe Bourke
Art Director / WMUR-TV -
Daniel –
While this may not be the “perfect” way of doing things, it works for me:
When I start a project, I try my best to give it a name that will somewhat describe what the project is, for example…I’m currently doing a new on-air look for our Newscast, and I’ve got bump banners as part of the project, so my initial title is
Bump_Banner_1.aep
As I do versioning of the idea that I’m coming up with (no outside input yet) I add a lower case letter to each version that’s roughly based on the original idea, for example…
Bump_Banner_1a.aep – this might be a version with the original idea, but I’ve added a light flare to it.
Bump_Banner_1b.aep – this might be a version with the original idea, but I’ve dropped the light flare, and added a hot 3D stroke to the background.
Recently, if I find that it’s an idea I like and want to pursue further, I make the letter after the number in caps, so I know it’s something I want to look back at as the project moves on.
If I do a new bump banner that’s a complete departure from the base idea, I will change the number after the title incrementally, for example…
Bump_Banner_2.aep
Once I’m happy with a version/versions of the bump banner, I will show it to our Promo Manager, and any subsequent changes that come from the outside (GM, News Director, Promo Mgr, etc.) will add REV# to the file name, to indicate that there’s outside input on the project, for example…
Bump_Banner_2_REV1.aep – this name immediately lets me know that it’s version 2 of my own ideas, with the first revision based on outside input.
Once the project nears the final approval stages, I add FINAL to the project title, for example…
Bump_Banner_2_REV3_FINAL.aep – I will also use a different folder for the FINAL versions of the project, as it gets finalized, to cut down on the clutter for searching revisions. Folder name would be a sub-folder of the original project.
Oftentimes (most often) the project will go into more revisions after the final approval (managers love to tweak, don’t they?), so I will create a sub-folder called REVISIONS to keep all the final stuff in one place. I also keep notes on a yellow pad with the general content of the particular version, plus meeting notes, so I don’t go totally crazy. Anyone who tells you you don’t have to take notes during a complex project (or even a simple one, for that matter) is lazy, or totally new to the industry.
I don’t know whether this would work for you, but it works beautifully for me…if I’ve got lots of versions of revisions, I will also do a directory sort of the files, so as to get the latest version on top. It cuts the clutter, once again. When the project is revised, approved, and on the air, I’ll burn a DVD or CD, depending on the project size, which collects all of the media files (I use Collect in the Files menu of AE, which puts all the media in one place, and generates a log with files used, plugins used, etc.) so that if the project gets revisited, or I had an idea I want to use elsewhere, I can find it. I also use a free utility called Catfish (free on the web), that catalogs disks, CDs, and DVDs, so you can find a file or project without having to search through dozens of disks. It will also print out logs so I can put them with the disks.
Overly organized, you say? Not when you’ve got management that wants to revisit a project from eight months ago and can’t even remember what we called it. Sorry to be so wordy, but I wanted to outline my whole procedure for you. Good luck, and you may come up with a better way, having seen mine.
Joe Bourke
Art Director / WMUR-TV -
Hi Kevin –
It may not be the ideal way to go, but what we do here is set our desktop to be a very large size (I think 1920 x 1200 is the max on your G5). Then just hit Command-Shift-3 or Command-Shift-4. I’m a PC user, so I hope my memory serves me correctly.
Then we open a new Photoshop document, paste the image in as high-rez as possible, then import the file into After Effects and do whatever animations are needed. We usually make the layer 3D and angle it so the animation is a bit more interesting than just moving over a flat image. Lighting with some falloff helps as well. If you have the time and budget, cut out some of the key elements and give them drop shadows to enhance the feeling of depth even more. Good luck!
Joe Bourke
Art Director / WMUR-TV -
As I posted in my original question:
I’ve tried deleting the .ini file
I have tried that, but it didn’t help. Thanks for trying.
Joe Bourke
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Ken –
The best (and cheapest) test for contrast is to simply print the graphics from Powerpoint to a black and white (greyscale) printer. When graphics get converted to greyscale, you can immediately see whether the contrast levels are acceptible or not. Try, for example, putting dark blue text on a dark red background; while the color version may be slightly acceptible, in black and white the text disappears.Joe Bourke
Art Director / WMUR-TV