[Paul Roper]

A fairly belated response, but…

It’s probably your resolution:

When printed out, 1296 pt type should be about 18 inches high (depending on the typeface/weight, etc.), but if your resolution (image size) is something crazy like 10 dpi, then the type would appear tiny, because if you printed out a 2000pixel-high image at 10dpi, it would be 200 inches tall, so 1296pt type would, rightly, be tiny in comparison to the whole image.

Check your image size, make sure ‘resample image’ is OFF, then change the resolution to something more cromulent to match your final output – maybe 300dpi for print, or something in the region of 100dpi for video (not that the resolution – dpi – matters one iota in video – it just makes it easier to get predictable results when setting type in points!) One of my ‘pet hates’ is people saying “it’s for video, so make it 72dpi”. It depends how big yer telly is!

[Paul Roper]

I suspect the only solution to this is to upgrade to Photoshop CS5. It has a handy new preference setting where you can turn this off (which I have done).

You could change the standard grey background to black, thereby hiding the pesky black line. Just make sure your foreground colour is black, go to full screen with menus mode (press F) then using the paint bucket, click (or is it shift-click maybe?) on the grey area to ‘fill’ it with the new colour.

[Paul Roper]

My two cents’ worth…

Interesting that you’re noticing delays in your Photoshop CS5. I recently “upgraded” to CS5 from CS4 and am regretting it – Photoshop is now REALLY SLOW and After Effects is very unstable. I’m using a Mac Pro 8x 2.4GHz with 12GB RAM (and a fibrechannel SAN with at least 30TB free) so it should be able to cope.

Very disappointed.

[Paul Roper]

Get a MacBook Pro. Set up a really long, complex composition rendering in After Effects. Get someone to hold the MacBook Pro. It will get so hot, they will probably burst into flames. Film them in their agony, and voilà! There’s your finished piece!

…sorry…

How about I just say “Merry Christmas” instead!

[Paul Roper]

If you want to try something completely different, you could (in theory) use Apple’s Quartz Composer to make a custom iTunes visualiser. This of course assumes that you have an Apple Mac and knowledge of (or are willing to give it a go) programming Quartz compositions…and plenty of time! Then you could possibly drive the visualiser with a live audio input source. Maybe. Just an idea – I’ve never tried it myself!

Some details can be found here…
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#featuredarticles/WorkingWithQuartzComposer/

[Paul Roper]

Did you render it out of After Effects as an MPEG2? You’d be much better off rendering it as an uncompressed format, then using a separate compression application such as Apple’s Compressor or Sorenson Squeeze to create your MPEG2. You can then check where the weird time stretch is happening – is the uncompressed After Effects render the correct length? If it is, then the problem’s in your MPEG2 compression.

Also, you’ll be able to experiment with different compression settings without having to re-render your After Effects sequence.

I’m guessing it’s for a DVD – that’s about the only reason I can think of that you’d use MPEG2 compression. Otherwise, there are better, newer delivery codecs around, such as H.264.

[Paul Roper]

Fantastic. Does the job perfectly – you are a star!

Thank you!

[Paul Roper]

I’ve got 594.0594 fps on my blits.

No idea what it means though…but I do remember (from my Atari ST days about 20 years ago!) that BLIT is an acronym for BLock Image Transfer, so it’s presumably something to do with moving blocks of pixels around. Which you’ve undoubtedly already guessed.

[Paul Roper]

Well, I’ve tried switching off OpenGL (both in the comp’s preview menu and in the preferences) and the problem remains exactly the same.

The Generate > checkerboard effect has exactly the same problem. But Effect > Generate > Circle works fine.

Any thoughts, anyone??

After Effects version: 10.0.1.19

Mac Pro 2x 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
12GB RAM
Mac OS 10.6.4

Graphics specs:
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT:

Chipset Model: ATI Radeon HD 2600
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-1
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x9588
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-B1480A-252
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.252
Displays:
Cinema HD:
Resolution: 2560 x 1600
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Cinema HD:
Resolution: 2560 x 1600
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported

[Paul Roper]

I submitted a bug report to Adobe earlier today.

I’ll try switching off OpenGL tomorrow…I think it’s on for interactions, but I’ll turn it off completely. I’ll also check what the OpenGL settings are in CS4 (which was working fine) and report back!

I have the latest 10.0.1 update installed.

I got round it by using two layers ( 1: the solid, 2: the grid, parented to layer 1), but obviously this isn’t ideal.