[Steve Roberts]

Nope, sorry. The mask should be drawn on a solid that follows the green stuff. Make the solid the inverse track matte (check the Help) of the head layer below, so the solid cuts a hole in the head.

[Steve Roberts]

Invert the mask.

[Steve Roberts]

There is no such thing as a “PAL codec”. From a digital point of view, PAL is a frame size and frame rate. Any codec that can be applied to NTSC footage can be applied to PAL footage. What compressor is the PAL sequence using?

DV footage comes out of the camera compressed. If you render it to the “none” codec (uncompressed) you do not improve it, because the codec cannot create information that isn’t there. If you render to any other codec, you are recompressing it, with varying degrees of loss. Animation is a lossless codec.

By itself, rendering does not reduce file size. It only does so if the new codec (to which you are rendering) has a lower data rate than the original codec of the footage. So rendering DV material to “none” increases the file size because “none” has a higher data rate than DV.

If the FCP sequence settings match the footage characteristics, then the footage will not be recompressed in a cuts-only sequence. It will only be recompressed in that sequence if effects, transitions or motion is used. So if your footage is miniDV, then use a miniDV (preset) sequence.

Phil, there’s something that you’re not telling us about your FCP sequence and workflow. Please check out my earlier post and answer the questions so we can solve your problem.

[Steve Roberts]

After Effects always has to render. Thats’ the price of being format-independent.

That said, AE hates HDV, MPEG-2 and all formats that use interframe compression. These formats must be converted to another codec (Quicktime Animation, Photo-JPEG, 8-bit Uncompressed) before being imported into AE. Consider doing that in Quicktime Player, or try this: https://www.dvdxdv.com/hdvxdv.html . I’ve heard good things about it.

All that means that you cannot use HDV and AE without recompressing at some point. Hopefully converting to Animation will minimize quality loss.

[Steve Roberts]

You need two layers, a camera and a light.

1. Make text for your logo. Click the layer’s 3D button.
2. Make a solid and click its 3D button. Rotate it 90 degrees on the X axis. You won’t see it yet.
3. Make a new camera from the layer>new menu. Move it up high so you see the floor.
4. Make a new light. Make it a spotlight or infinite light. Move it behind the text.
5. Set the light to cast shadows (hit AA), and set the text to cast shadows (AA).

To animate the light’s position, use keyframes as outlined (in general) in the help.
If you want to free up the camera’s movement so it doesn’t aim at the same place all the time, select the camera, then layer>transform>auto-orient>off.
To see the front of the text, add another light.

[Steve Roberts]

It’s the kind of thing where you might have to combine more than one effect (as you suggest)and experiment. The effects under “distort” should do what you want.

[Steve Roberts]

Maybe we’d better get some terms straight, since in this business, we have to be specific, technically.

“Compressing to PAL” is a misnomer. There’s no such thing, since PAL is not a codec.
Exporting an existing movie to a new movie as “uncompressed” or “none” just freezes the quality of the movie in its current state, but makes a huge file. Exporting with the current sequence settings (assuming they match those of the original codec) also keeps the original quality of the movie, but at the original file size (per second).

1. To which specific codec were you compressing in all (both?) the situations you described?

AE doesn’t have trouble with a file because it’s uncompressed. It has trouble with interframe-compressed files (MPEG-2 or HDV) because it has to generate frames itself. I think you have another problem.

2. Look at the “uncompressed” footage in Quicktime Player (cmd-I, under “format”), and tell us what codec is used.

In case you didn’t know, saving as a reference file means that you are making a tiny file which contains “play the original, unchanged file from here to here now”. When you change the codec of a file, you are not saving as a reference file, you are creating a new file entirely.

3. Are you running out of drive space?
4. Please tell us what your desired workflow is: for example: capture in FCP, export with no effects from FCP, key/composite in AE, edit back in FCP?
5. Generally, I capture in FCP, export a non-reference Quicktime movie with current sequence settings (no changes!) then import that into AE, key/composite, then

… and please answer the questions by number. You’d be surprised how many people don’t do that. Makes it difficult to troubleshoot. Thanks.

[Steve Roberts]

Excellent. 🙂

[Steve Roberts]

You wouldn’t make a comp (twice as wide as tall) containing all the little images, then apply CC sphere to that?

Or maybe parent all the images to a null, then rotate the null with the sphere via an expression?

[Steve Roberts]

Can you switch off Open GL?

Other than that … it’s weird. Never seen it. Sorry I can’t help.

Anybody else?