[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Lots of articles on Color Space Conversion are available on the Net. Just do a google search.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Actually what you needed to do was to offset the z-position of the layer’s Anchor Point. The solution isn’t the Null. It just so happens that often times, the Null’s default setting is offset to the layer. When parenting, the child layer absorbs the parent’s anchor point.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Break down the workflow into two comps. In the first comp, perform your pan/movement on the layer. Then nest that into another comp. Now draw your mask and all should be fine. Another method is to use the Stencil and a single comp. Do your pans and then create a stencil layer on top of the panned layer. Lots of other ways but these should work well for you.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Take a look at Shatter instead of PP. There are a couple of Shatter tutorials here at the COW that may be better suited for your needs. Go to the COW’s AE Tutorials page and do a search within the page for ‘Shatter”. I believe there’s one that’s called ‘Blowing … Sand”.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

The artefact could be due to your display card. Your best bet is to bring the rendered movie into FCP and view the results on a broadcast monitor.

Is there a reason why you are converting the text layer to outlines? Unless you want to manipulate the mask shapes to have more control over each character’s shape, there isn’t a rationale for it.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Duh! So render out a high quality Quicktime from AE – avoid the .flv export from AE.

Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I suggest that you render out from AE using a high quality intermediate file – something like QTs Animation CODEC, with a quality setting of 92%-98%. Then use Flash’s builtin CODEC for the compression.

BTW, Flash8 has a great CODEC to work with.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[kfredericks] “So AE doesn’t simply throw away fields? It interpolates full frames from both fields automatically as part of the rendering process? The reason I was questioning this was because at one point I accidentally rendered out footage for a DVD WITHOUT fields. All video looked really low resolution.”

AE doesn’t throw away resolution unless you ask it to. 😉 If footage interpretation, work within comps, and render settings are set correctly, you shouldn’t lose resolution going from an interlaced footage to one that is progressive.

Then again, what is resolution? What were the artefacts you experienced?

[kfredericks] “I’ll shoot for 320x240x30fps with liberal compression”

Viewer experience is what you should be aiming for – and that involves not only frame rate but also visual quality. Going for 30fps at the expense of visual quality, “liberal compression” is a walk along a tight-rope exercise that you may want to forego.

I’d suggest going for a lower framerate. Perhaps 18fps and upping the quality slider. If you have the time to experiment, I suggest that you experiment with both, or more settings.

At the end of the day, it depends on the CODEC that you choose. I suggest that you visit the COW’s Compression Forum for advice on a CODEC to suit your needs.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated baackdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Try this recipe.
1) Create a Solid the same size as your comp
2) Use the Mask tool to create a path. If it’s a closed Mask Shape, then set the mask’s Transfer Mode to None
3) Apply Stylize->Write-on to the same Solid
4) Copy the Mask Shape and paste it into the Brush Position property for Write-on. Set Paint Style to On Transparent
5) RAM Preview to see the Write-on creating a stroked effect along the path. Adjust brush properties to taste.
6) Create a small Solid for the arrowhead. use the Pen tool to create the arrowhead.
7) Pickwhip the arrowhead’s position property to the brush position property.
8) Initiate Auto-orient for the arrowhead layer.

If you want the arrow’s tail to remain at a constant length, then set Stroke Length to a number other than zero. This works well if the animated sequence ends with the arrow and its tail off screen.

If the tail still lingers on screen, then you need to animate Stroke Length to ensure that the tail remains on screen. Just create a keyframe at the end of the animated sequence. Then move ahead in time to the end of your composition. Create a keyframe here but with the following settings – (current time + first keyframe value)-(time at first keyframe). This will ensure that the length of the tail is consistent and stays so for the entire duration of your composition.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs – customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

There are two tutorials here at the COW that covers the creation of LED meters:
&page=/articles/simpson_mark/jamrack/index.html” TARGET=_blank>Mark Simpson’s – using Card Wipe

&page=/articles/kahlenberg_roland/led/index.html” TARGET=_blank>Mine – using Motion Math (to create the audio keyframes and Expression scripts to animate and finetune the results

To get started on Expressions, visit JJ Gifford’s Website. For more advanced Expression scripts, goto Dan Ebbert’s, MotionScript site

And of course if you search the forum here, you’ll find lots of references to and examples on Expressions.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files