Paul Conigliaro
Forum Replies Created
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Walter-
That is by far the best quote I’ve seen regarding tools vs talent.
-Paul
CS3, FCS2
[Note: Using Particular, 3-D Stroke, and now Form do not instantly make your designs “teh awesome.”] -
Most of it is basic grunge textures and stock paint splats.
The sports figures look like they were rotoscoped and passed through the Threshold effect.
CS3, FCS2
[Note: Using Particular, 3-D Stroke, and now Form do not instantly make your designs “teh awesome.”] -
Adding image of scope to illustrate issue. That little white dot in the upper left is our superwhite line. No idea what is causing it. Seems like a composite issue on render.
CS3, FCS2
[Note: Using Particular, 3-D Stroke, and now Form do not instantly make your designs “teh awesome.”] -
Let’s take these one-by-one:
1.) In order to change a shape, you have a couple options. If you just want to stick with 4-sided shapes, you can use the Corner Pin effect. The preferred method in this case would be to use masks. Use the pen tool (or shape tool) with your solid layer selected and you can draw your shapes at will. (Just make sure to include all the points you would need for your animation. For example, if you’re morphing a square to a pentagon, you’ll want to start with 5 points.) If its not already visible, twirl down your layer properties and keyframe the Mask Shape property. Instant animation! Definitely play around with this as sometimes the results can be unexpected and undesirable.
2.) There are many, many ways to accomplish what you’re setting out to do here. Without seeing your comp, I can’t give you any specific help, but I will say you already have the right idea, having separate graphics. If it’s something like the laptop screen you mention, you may want to pre-compose those layers. Select your layers for the screen and hit Command-Shift-C (Control-Shift-C on Windows). This way, you can animate your transitions in a separate comp and they’ll stay together in your main comp.
3.) Lastly, I do not believe it is possible to have a 1-sided 3D shape. I could be wrong though, as I’ve never had the need for such an effect. Someone else might be able to provide a bit more help there.
CS3, FCS2
[Note: Using Particular, 3-D Stroke, and now Form do not instantly make your designs “teh awesome.”] -
…could I export a ProRes QuickTime non-self contained file from FCP, import into AE, render it there in ProRes, and then import it back to FCP?
I know several people who use reference Quicktimes (non-self contained) and don’t seem to have any trouble. Try some tests with varying footage (rich colors, fast motion, etc) and see if the results will work for you.
As far as rendering out ProRes from AE, you can try. I tend not to trust After Effects to handle compression. I might do something like that for intermediates, but for final renders, I will always render out Animation, then run through compressor if I need to.
CS3, FCS2
[Note: Using Particular, 3-D Stroke, and now Form do not instantly make your designs “teh awesome.”] -
The gamma shift seems to depend on the codec. DVCPro seems to be the main culprit. Also, it didn’t matter whether or not it was self-contained. There still seemed to be a shift. Uncompressed & ProRes422 don’t seem to cause the issue. Though I haven’t done extensive testing.
Typically, when I go from FCP to AE I use either Uncompressed 10-bit, or Animation through QuickTime Conversion (File:Export:Using Quicktime Conversion…). Though I’ve heard people say to avoid QT conversion at all costs. Again, though, I think it depends on the codec.
However, having said that, I think it’s more important with choosing the proper codec to render out of AE. I would definitely go Lossless-Animation out of AE. If absolutely necessary, run that render through Compressor to get your native timeline codec.
Also keep in mind that my experience with FCP-AE-FCP has been shorter graphics. I’ve never done anything like sending a timeline to AE for color correction, etc.
Let me know if you have any other questions, but my last bit of advice is to test, test, test. Send some color bars back and forth in varying codecs and see what happens.
CS3, FCS2
[Note: Using Particular, 3-D Stroke, and now Form do not instantly make your designs “teh awesome.”] -
After talking to a few video engineer-types, it turns out that the conventional wisdom for the square pixel sizes in graphics for NTSC & PAL are wrong. The clean aperture is 4:3, but the production aperture is slightly wider. The square pixel sizes were incorrectly calculated from assuming the production aperture is 4:3.
I guess if we were to exactly measure, say, a circle which was created in a sq. pixel comp in the traditional settings (720×540 or 864×486), it would be every so slightly stretched. So, in order to completely fill the production aperture and maintain proper aspect, the new values were calculated.
It took a while before I could wrap my head around that, but that is why CS4 now uses, for example, .91 (10/11) for the PAR in NTSC.
(Between that, looking at this article on time, and talking to a friend about Schrödinger’s Cat/Quantum Suicide, my mind was pretty messed up yesterday.)
CS3, FCS2
[Note: Using Particular, 3-D Stroke, and now Form do not instantly make your designs “teh awesome.”] -
If you click on the “Project” link, you will get all the presets used in the video.
CS3, FCS2
[Note: Using Particular, 3-D Stroke, and now Form do not instantly make your designs “teh awesome.”] -
Previously (CS3 and below) it was 864. Now it’s 872.
Adobe says the change is because of a discrepancy between “production aperture” and “clean aperture.”
The problem comes in when you leave the Adobe universe. As far as I know (at least in Avid and FCP) the renders come in slightly letterboxed. However, this only affects SD square pixel comps.
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Do you have Trapcode Echospace? What about precomposing your airpoane animation and using Time:Echo?
Otherwise there may be a way to offset the animation or position using multiple copies and expressions based on the layer index. You’d still be duplicating the layer, but at least the offset would be taken care of automatically.
CS3, FCS2
[Note: Using Particular, 3-D Stroke, and now Form do not instantly make your designs “teh awesome.”]