[Mstleger]

I just realized that we have had these plug ins here at work all along- I’m gonna play with them this afternoon!

[Mstleger]

Well, it could be done with masks, but I’ve seen a plug in that does a similar “Beam” effect by duplicating pixels all the way to the edge of the comp. I know that Keylight does something similar when you crop the image.
Either way, if only specific pixels are selected to be replicated in a geometric form, some sort of mask or matte should be used to make the selection.
MK12 did the graphics, check their site for similar work, maybe something else they did will reveal their secrets.

[Mstleger]

I’m working in CS and AE 6.5, and not having that problem…
My illustrator files are imported as compositions, and I have illustrator open in the background for editing. I edit, save, and reload it manually in AE. If things are showing up “invisible” on import, check to see that your background color does not match the types color, thus obscuring it. Also, make sure visibility is on in illustrator before saving.
If the above does not work, perhaps there is an extension plug in that needs to be updated to read CS files.
If you can do what you need in another version of illustrator, it may be best to work that way if you are against a deadline.

[Mstleger]

Film your actors against a white wall, or greenscreen, with a lot of light on the wall, not so much on the person. That way, they are already almost in full silhouette. Then just start overlaying colors, or you can pull a luma matte. Otherwise, you’ve got a lot of masking to do.

[Mstleger]

Thanks,
I think I found my solution, though…
After rotoscoping the unwanted iris, I’ve softened the mask and created a “clean plate” of the eyeball white, and motion tracked to the movement of the eye.
No 3d was needed- displacement mapping and warping took care of adding our logo to the eyeball.

Thanks for the input,
-Matt

[Mstleger]

save some money and don’t buy a plug in. Just take a video camera and film your t.v. static at home, then play around with displacement and vertical roll, using the black and white data from the static to displace the video. try overlaying some of the static with transfer modes as well. It will look a lot better than any plug in can offer.

[Mstleger]

well, I’m no flash master, but if it won’t read the movie’s alpha, why not render a black and white alpha seperately, import that, and try to use it as a layer mask?

[Mstleger]

um, not so sure how to correct that issue, but I advise you to work off a hard drive, rather than a cd. AE needs fast access to the files that a cd drive cannot provide. When posting, mention specifics, like what type of file you are trying to import, and options you have already tried.
Try importing files from a physical, local hard disk. Make sure there are extensions on the files- sometimes they are lost when transfering files from mac to pc. Did AE give you an error message?

[Mstleger]

Well, it seems that the field order is correct. The problem does not happen to video that is just centered in the composition, only to video that has an animated position or anchor point.

[Mstleger]

Well, the issue is this: When I interpret the fields to seperate (lower first), I see that the render goes soft intermittently, as though it is mistaking the interpolated field for the actual field on some parts.
AE renders very clear when I don’t interpret the fields, but moving areas in the image look like the fields are inaccurate, with visible interlacing even when played on a ntsc monitor.