[Michael Neel]

Hi Michael

Thanks for responding. Yeah, it’s a little confusing to explain. I’d love to take a screenshot to help out, but unfortunately it’s for a client and none of the ai art is public yet, so I’ll do my best to describe it.

There are two issues, actually – one that has occurred since you responded. The first one:

-With regards to the compositions: I imported the .ai file (File 1) as a composition (Comp 1) (404×838), duplicated it into Comp 2 and then expanded the size of Comp 2 to 600×838. I did not change the scale of any of the layers. All of the layers were still in the right place (as they should be) and I animated them with basic changes to position and rotation. I opened File 1 in Illustrator and made a few changes to a layer and resaved the file. When I selected “reload file” in after fx, the layers in Comp 2 moved out of alignment slightly. All of the layers in Comp 1 were fine.

A second, seemingly related issue just popped up. Another after fx project (Project 1) was created on a different computer using identical ai files that I have on my computer. When I opened Project 1 on my computer, the same thing happened: the layers in all of the original, imported .ai comps look fine and any layers in duplicated comps (with different dimensions) are off.

Any ideas? I hope this isn’t too confusing. If you have any other questions please let me know.

Thanks

[Michael Neel]

I think you might be on to something with regards to GPU, CUDA, and ability. The project was created on a new(er) iMac and transferred to an older Mac G5. For this project, I’ve been primarily using psds and very few effects, so that might be why I haven’t seen this issue before when taking a project from one computer to another. The only difference between the computers I’ve seen on this project is in the G5’s faster rendering time and superior ability to handle larger compositions when rendering.

Thanks a lot for your feedback. Fortunately it turns out that these shots don’t have to be rendered until I am using the iMac again, so I should be able to end up with the lightning effects I originally intended. But if I were under a time crunch this could be really annoying.

[Michael Neel]

Hi guys

Thanks so much for all your help! Glad to know that this is doable and not just a pipe dream 🙂

I have one more question: When creating the QT in After effects, does it make any difference how you set up your files in the axis space? For example, if I have a character on one part of the z axis and another character on another part of the z axis, will this have an impact on how the 3D effect looks?

Oh, and for the record we’re using CS4.

Thanks
Michael

[Michael Neel]

Wait, never mind. Found it. Accidentally switched black and white colors. Of course…:)

[Michael Neel]

Great, thanks Chris! I appreciate your advice. I want to know as much as I can about this topic. I’ll check out the links you posted.

[Michael Neel]

Cool, I have an Android phone so I should be able to see how it works on it.

I’ll check out MediaInfo.

Thanks for the info, Craig.

[Michael Neel]

LOL, yeah I don’t want to make something that looks bad on almost everything just to please everybody.

I think targeting iPhones and Androids makes the most sense. Baseline 2.1 is probably the safest bet since I’d like this video to be seen by the largest audience possible.

I forgot to mention that I could use either premiere or Compressor. Which would you recommend?

Thanks for your quick response. These forums have saved me so much aggravation over the years.

[Michael Neel]

[David Roth Weiss]“Michael,

Now you know why my picture is up top and why Dave LaRonde has many more billable hours than I do.”

🙂

Thanks again guys, you rock.

[Michael Neel]

Hi Tom

The good news: we rendered our files from AE using the ProRes 4444 w/ alpha and it worked beautifully! We matched our AE and FCP settings and the editing was smooth as butter. The footage looks great and is easy to use in FCP.

To answer your comment, I was rendering from AE without any Compression (as in it was set to None) and this was causing a huge problem. I don’t know if I was clear in my description – the compressor I was referring to was in the FCP sequence settings, not our AE settings. The guy in our film lab said that he would need uncompressed files, which I think I took too literally! 🙂

Thanks to everyone who responded. One of the things I love about filmmaking is that I have to learn new programs, or get better at ones I already use, and Creative Cow Forums is a gold mine. This site has saved me a lot of frustration and expanded my knowledge of a wide variety of programs.

[Michael Neel]

Hi Dave

My mistake in terminology – yes, I am using the Render Queue. No exporting. No weenies here 🙂

FCP and AE are installed on the same computer. FCP has ProRes 4444, 422, 422 (LT), 422 (HQ) and 422 (Proxy)

Thanks for responding