Karl-jason Mawdsley
Forum Replies Created
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I don’t think AE handles MP4 (H.264?) all that well. You’re probably better converting it to a more acceptable compression and then importing it. MPEG Streamclip is free and awesome!
KJ Mawdsley
Editor/Mograph Designer -
Do you have Adaptive Resolution enabled? What res is your PSD?
KJ Mawdsley
Editor/Mograph Designer -
Hi Jeff,
Just had a little play around and if you’ve got Flash, you can import your GIF and then export it as a PNG sequence with Alpha and then import that into AE.
If Flash isn’t an option, like David said, it’s probably easier to do it in photoshop and either use the magic wand tool or trace a path around it.
If you want to stay in AE you could try using the autotrace tool but make sure the channel is set to Luminance, not Alpha – that might work. Or you could try one of the other channels in the setting.Another thing I’ve tried in the past to create a mask is to duplicate the layer > use colorama to bump up the contrast of the image > then set the track matte of the original to luma matte. This is hot and miss depending on how much white there is in the image.
Hope this helps.
KJ Mawdsley
Editor/Mograph Designer -
Hi Bala,
You need to use with either the NTSC DV or the PAL D1/DV preset depending on which country you are in. Those are the 2 standard resolution 4×3 settings.
When it comes to rendering out – if you’re playing from a DVD then you need to select the MPEG2 format in your output module.Hope this helps.
KJ Mawdsley
Editor/Mograph Designer -
Hi Phillip,
I had this same problem in after effects about a year ago. For some reason that I couldn’t identify it would just stop rendering at a certain frame. I checked the footage, render settings, and even went through switching of my filters one by one and still couldn’t identify it. In the end, because of time, I rendered the video out to one frame before the problem frame. The I rendered a separate video out from one frame after the problem frame and then joined the 2 together.
Not a pretty solution by any stretch but it worked.KJ Mawdsley
Editor/Mograph Designer -
Hi Jeffrey,
It all depends on a lot of factors really. Speed of processor, settings, compression etc. but I’m not entirely sure what you mean by it’s slower after a render? Do you mean RAM preview? What kind of footage is that you are importing?
KJ Mawdsley
Editor/Mograph Designer -
Sam,
Yes it is. All Cycore plugins are part of a standard install. If you go to Effects > Simulation you should find it there.KJ
KJ Mawdsley
Editor/Mograph Designer -
When rendering from After Effects make sure your specifying the right compression. The default is usually animation which is always pretty big as it’s pretty much uncompressed video. Before hitting ‘Render’ click on the orange text to the right of where it says ‘Output Module’.
Here you can specify your format and compression. Quicktime movie is normally the best format. To specify your compression, click on ‘Format Options…’ and you’ll see a range of different compressions you can use. The one you choose all depends on what your using your final video for. If you let me know I’d be happy to help you with some settings.
KJ
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[Walter Soyka] Most particle systems use emitters that allow you to specify particles per second. If you want to emit only a fixed number of particles, you have to keyframe the emitter and do a little math.
If you want to emit 100 particles, and your frame rate is 30 frames per second, you can keyframe the emitter to 3,000 (100 * 30) particles on the first frame, then 0 on the second.
Also, you might have more joy using CC Particle World rather than particle playground. Particle world runs much faster and you can specify a custom particle by setting ‘Textured Square’ as your particle type and setting the ‘Texture Layer’ to be your fish layer. Just make sure you set your ‘Opacity Map’ in ‘options’ to be constant otherwise your fish will fade in.
KJ
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Hi Sam,
As far as I know there are a number of different workarounds. By far the easiest way to is to just import your .ai file and make sure you select ‘Composition – Cropped Layers’. Then all your layers will come into After Effects exactly as they are in illustrator. Make sure you ‘Create Outlines’ for all your text though. However if for some reason that won’t work for you I find a good way to bring anything from Illustrator to After Effects is to ‘Create Outlines’ on my text, Select all, then copy it. The jump on over the After Effects, create a new solid and then paste. All your stuff will come in as masks on the solid. Then, if you’d like a greater level of control, you can run run the Masks to Shapes script and create shapes of all your masks. Then you’ll be able to add layer styles, fills etc…
Hope this is useful.
KJ