[Lars Bunch]

Hi,

If you can open it in Photoshop, check to see that it is in RGB color. If, for example, it is CMYK, AE will not open it.

Open in Photoshop, goto Image>MODE>RGB Color

Save and then try opening it in AE.

Hope this helps,

Lars

[Lars Bunch]

Hi,

While some of these arrangements can be profitable for both sides and can work quite well, they often do not. My advice is to ask for some money – at least a token amount. If you don’t ask for money, people will tend to think your work has no value. I have had to learn over the years to not give away my work and I find clients seem to feel my work is worth more because of it.

I understand the desire to get work and establish yourself, but make sure you respect the value of what you do. Remember that even if this pilot doesn’t sell, the producer has still gained a valuble asset for himself (a show piece) from some of your work.

If you choose to do the job under the arrangement you describe, make sure you know from the start that you can afford to get nothing out of the deal and still come away with something of value for yourself.

Just make sure you don’t cheapen the value of the service you provide. You want to develop a reputation as a person who creates graphics that are worth paying for.

Hope this helps,

Lars

[Lars Bunch]

Hi,

Just to add to the above, if you end up using a single tracker on a distant object, you can add to the realism by including an expression to push the sky movement a little further in the direction of motion than the tracker sets. Maybe only a few pixels, but it can be enough to give that subtle extra realism that makes the replacement un-noticeable.

Lars

[Lars Bunch]

Hi,

Just to add to the above, if you end up using a single tracker on a distant object, you can add to the realism by including an expression to push the sky movement a little further in the direction of motion than the tracker sets. Maybe only a few pixels, but it can be enough to give that subtle extra realism that makes the replacement un-noticeable.

Lars

[Lars Bunch]

Hi Ben,

A couple of things come to mind. First, check the alpha as you are working in AE by setting the viewer to alpha view just to make sure there isn’t anything going on that might screw up the alpha you need. If you are not familiar with this, it’s the little pull down button that looks like a red, green and blue circle at the bottom of the viewer window.

Also, make sure the codec you render to supports an alpha channel. Animation works well, but if you are going to an Avid, you might want to use the Meridian codec which you can download from Avid’s site.

Also, as mentioned above, render the animation straight rather than pre-multiplied – Avid can handle pre-multiplied, but for what you are doing, it sounds like straight ought to look better.

Hope this helps,

Lars

[Lars Bunch]

Hi,

I assume one of the problems you are running into is the amber mask in the color negative.

Some time ago I needed to scan some negatives on a flatbed scanner and as an experiment, instead of using the “negative” preset in the scanning software, I scanned the material as a positive and then used photoshop to reverse the image. Of course you have to have a way to neutralize the amber mask.

What I found worked was to sample the amber color of the mask. The clear area between sproket holes works well or an area where there are very deep shadows and thus clear film. Use this color to create a solid color layer on top of the negative image layer and then set the blending mode of the solid to “difference” This should give you a positive image in aproxamately the proper color.

While the results were not beautiful, it did the basic job of creating a positive image and subtracting the amber mask.

You should be able to do the same in AE with moving footage. I would guess you will still have to do a lot of tweaking of contrast and color ballance after ward, but this should get you in the ballpark… that is unless I’ve mis-remembered how I did the conversion.

Hope this helps,

Lars

[Lars Bunch]

Hi,

Here is a site that discusses some useful information on expressions and some math that can be used in expressions…

https://www.jjgifford.com/expressions/index.html

Lars

[Lars Bunch]

Hi,

Here is a site that discusses some useful information on expressions and some math that can be used in expressions…

https://www.jjgifford.com/expressions/index.html

Lars

[Lars Bunch]

Hi,

If you are trying to render one job while working on another, you can use the command line renderer.

Just so long as you have the GUI version running before you start the command line version, there should be no problem with continuing to work on a project while you render in the background. Just don’t use the “reuse” flag.

My usual work flow is to work on a project and then when I have something I need to render, I reduce to project to just what I need to render, send it to the render queue, save the file, usually with the word “reduced” in the filename (so I know to throw it away after I’m done rendering), then run the command line renderer on it. I then reopen the original file and continue working on some other animation while the previous animation renders. Remember, don’t close the GUI version of AE while you start up the command line version or else the GUI version may refuse to start until the command line version finishes.

I have been doing this on a G5 OS-X 10.4.7 AE Ver. 7 and it has been working consitantly well for me.

Hope this helps,

Lars

[Lars Bunch]

Hi,

What’s happening in the expression is that when you have a animatable element that can take more that one value, you must express it in the form [x,y]; specifically the final values must be enclosed in [] and separated by a ,

So what is happening in Dan’s expression is he is telling the first (X) value to remain the same while applying a wiggle expression to the second (Y) value.

If you needed to return three values from the expression, it might be in the form of [x,y,z]

Hope this helps,

Lars