Kevin Camp
Forum Replies Created
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instead of premultiplied, set to straight. this will prevent the fringing, or halo issue.
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i’m not sure that lips on a furnace is ever going to look realistic…
if you don’t have a 3d app, i think i’d try to create a simple furnace in ae, using 3d solids to create the sides, and a few more solids with textures for some grills or vents. then try to create a simple cartoonish face for your furnace. ae isn’t particulaly good a 3d modeling, but if you keep it very simple and have that be your theme, you may be able to create something much better than trying to create realistic lips on a shot of a funace.
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i used to get banding problems on a paintbox, however the airbrush would dither colors, so you could use this to help out…
i’ve found any time you try to create a gradient/blend between to similar colors on any ntsc system you’ll start to notice banding. even if you work in 16 bpc rgb, if you output to ntsc 10 bit you’ll see banding (ntsc 10 bit most closely resembles 8 bpc rgb).
if you work in 16 bpc and can output to 12 bit color, or 4:4:4, you probably won’t see any banding (although i think if you colors are close enough and the area is large enough, you may start seeing banding anyway).
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a guy over in japan has a tutorial or two that walk through how to do this… check out his site at http://www.ayatoweb.com/ae_tips_e.html.
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if your other file is open, once you’ve shift-clicked the layers you want to copy you can drag them straight to the other open file.
in addition, if the layers you want to drag to the other file are already linked (with the paper clip icon), you can use the move tool to drag them straight to the other open file without having to selecting each layer… note, you must drag from the window, not the layers palette in this case.
you should also be able to group the layers into a layer set and drag that set to the other open file as well.
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if you need it right away, i think i’d stay away from mac.
i experience frequent problems with a new mac pro, particularly with the cycore effects (i know they posted known issues with intel macs, but they haven’t fixed anything yet). plus, you’re running a powerpc emulator (rosetta) just to use adobe products, which not only wastes some of your system resources and causes those apps to open rather slowly, but that also, limits your available ram to all non-intel apps to 1.25 gb.
i had actually recommended to wait 6-9 months before getting this mac, atleast until intel native adobe apps were released, and possibly the 8 core mac pro, but the fear was that the money might not be there in 6-9 months, so we got it anyway.
if you can wait, the mac might be a good way to go, otherwise the others suggested would be better.
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do you know what graphics card is in your system now? by your description, dual 1 ghz and ddr ram, i think you have a mirrored door g4, and i believe the minimum card in that model was either the geforce 4mx or the radeon 9000, either of which should meet your requirements.
if you still need/want to upgrade, i would look at an agp card (check your specs, i think you want a 4x card). the apg slot is the fastest slot on that mac. in addition graphics cards are the only cards that i know of that use the agp slot, thus if you want to add other expansion cards (sata, firewire, video capture/monitoring, etc.) you’ll have all your pci slots available.
if you’re having trouble selecting between the two manufacturers, generally speaking, ati cards have performed better on macs than nvidia, although some apps do work better with nvidia cards (but i don’t think ae shows any preference). actually, i don’t think you’ll see great improvement in ae by updating your graphics card.
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you need to know the limitations of the play out device, specificly the data rate taht the system can play out. i will assume the play out device is a computer… so, what kind hardware does it have – is it parallel ata, serial ata, scsi, firewire??? does it have a disk array? and also, what kind of codecs does the play out device have?
i haven’t worked in pal, but if you wanted a starting point, i’d try hdv, or dvcpro100 (mac only). both will stay within the limits of firewire data rates.
also, i belevie that unless the hd sets are crt (most now are lcd, dlp or plasma), you probably won’t need fields (again, i haven’t worked in pal). progressive frames will generally give you better looking compressed renders than compressed field renders.
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unless you plan to scale the photos larger than full screen, they would only need to be 720×480 (dv standard) or, if you’d prefer to stay square pixel for you photos (and usually i would), 720×540. if you want to scale them up beyond full screen, then estimate how much you’ll scale them (say 150%) and create you files at that size (about 1080×810, by my example).
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also, i beleive, Aharon Rabinowitz did a nice tutorial here on animating a signature. check that out, i think it would help you a lot.