[Paul Roper]

…I just upgraded to After Effects CS5 (with all the updates)…exactly the same problem.

Never mind!

[Paul Roper]

Thanks, Dave for those suggestions…but I still have the same problems. I’m using AE 9.0.3.8 (CS4). As far as I can tell, it’s the latest version (for some reason “Update” is greyed out in the help menu). I’ve tried turning computer off and on, and also tried rendering it on a completely different Mac that I’ve got set up as a render machine. I’m running OS 10.6.4 on my “main” Mac, and 10.5.8 on the render machine.

One more (probably important) point is that the “anomalies” DO show up when I’m looking at the composition view (before I’ve rendered it). Strangely, the process goes like this:

1. depth of field is ON, the still frame shows 3D planes showing through where they shouldn’t.

2. I turn off depth of field on the camera controls; the weirdness goes away and the frame looks perfect.

3. I turn DOF back on, my background appears nice and blurry, but the progress bar at the bottom of the screen is still frantically processing…then the weirdness appears. The weirdness is only in the areas not blurred by the DOF.

I think I’ll just have to live with a boring, non-depth-of-field-loveliness version.

Regarding the 29.97fps thing – there’s no shot footage in the project – just a few photoshop files (brought in as footage, not comps). The entire ‘collected’ project is only about 6MB.

[Paul Roper]

No, openGL’s off.

[Paul Roper]

Thanks for your fast response, Dave!

I’ve chosen 30fps because isn’t 29.97 an awkward number whose existence is a relic of the days when the invention of colour TV was The Next Big Thing? And the final piece will be only viewed on t’internet and won’t go near a TV, neither black and white nor one of those new fangled colour things (I personally think colour TV is just a passing fad and will never catch on).

Anyway…enough of that foolishness and general rambling…is there any reason why After Effects would not like 30fps?

There aren’t any 2D layers in the comp – nor in the nested comps. There is a 3D text layer in the (topmost) comp. My suspicion is that during the depth of field processing, After Effects kind of ‘expands’ each layer in all directions before applying the blur, which makes it poke through the other layers. Adjacent layers are all a good 5-10 pixels apart; there aren’t any co-planar layers.