Steve Roberts
Forum Replies Created
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Well then, get Cinema4D from Maxon — it’s not that hard to learn (for a 3D app) and is good for motion graphics. Call their customer service to find out about their $99 version.
Other than that … we can’t redesign After Effects. 🙂
Steve
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Welcome to After Effects. 🙂 That’s the way it works. Any 3D effect just creates a “movie” of a 3D effect, “playing” on one of AE’s flat layers.
If you want true 3D, use a true 3D app, as Chris suggests.
Steve
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You can draw a mask around the truck with the pen tool, hit M to reveal the basic mask properties for that layer in the timeline, then invert the mask using the “invert” button.
However, once you’ve removed the truck, you have to ask yourself “what will I put there in its place?” If you don’t have a shot of the background without the truck, you need to place some kind of layer below that layer in the timeline to fill the hole left by the missing truck. Maybe you can use AE’s cloning brushes to clone some parts of the background, or cobble together some background bits from elsewhere in the scene, maybe creating something in Photoshop.
Getting rid of the truck is easy … it’s filling the hole that’s tough.
… and I don’t own Premiere Pro, but if it has no masking tools, I don’t think you can do this.
Steve
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It works for me. Two keyframes for the offset effect, each with a different “shift center” position, with easy ease for the second one.
S.
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Import each photo, and drop each into your main collage composition. Draw a mask on each layer, cropping/masking each photo as desired. For each layer, hit MM to reveal the mask properties, and adjust the mask feather to taste. Scale and position each photo as desired.
Steve
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Search the COW for “AE 7”.
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It’s my understanding that the Decklink cards are much more stable on Windows than they used to be, but as Glenn wrote, try posting on the Decklink COW forum for up-to-date info. Also search there for “PC”.
Steve
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There’s no “one best” set of settings, otherwise the other settings wouldn’t exist. 🙂
Note that AE cannot record to tape. You need a non-linear editor (or playback utility) to do that.
By “rendering” I mean that the compuer is generating new image frames. AE always renders, but NLEs may not. When you are doing cuts-only editing in an NLE, you are not rendering, you are just playing back the original file at different points in time. However, when you are adding an effect or transition in an NLE, you are rendering, generating new image frames.
When you render, you recompress and risk losing quality.
1. You want to minimize recompression. To that end, if you are creating graphics in AE, and you expect them to pass through one more rendering cycle later on, you should render them to the Quicktime Animation codec. That codec is almost as good as uncompressed, but gives smaller file sizes. It is the standard for all-purpose high quality rendering, because it can handle more recompression cycles.
2. Some NLEs prefer Targa sequences. Those files are comparable to Animation-compressed files.
3. If you expect to drop a clip right into a timeline in the NLE later on with no rendering expected in the NLE, render that clip to the codec of the timeline. For example, if it’s a DV timeline, render the clip to DV. If it’s an Avid timeline, render to an Avid codec. If the editor uses a Decklink card, render to a Blackmagic codec. Ask your editor first.
4. If you don’t have room for Animation-compressed files, try Photo-JPEG at 89% or 94% or so. It’s the codec of choice for stock footage, so it’s quite fine.
5. Most computers cannot play back Animation-compressed files in real-time, which is a necessity for layoff to tape. Your NLE should play back using a codec that your hard drives and video I/O hardware can handle. If you don’t have special hardware, you are probably using DV in your NLE, so your timeline would be a DV timeline as mentioned before.
Does that help?
Steve -
Ah.
I interpreted the post as a request for a way to apply tracking data to individual mask points.
Steve
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Ah.
I interpreted the post as a request for a way to apply tracking data to individual mask points.
Steve