Steve Roberts
Forum Replies Created
-
It’s just set up to make integration easier. Also, I find the workflow well-suited to client changes. Unlike Lightwave, say.
https://www.maxoncomputer.com/ads/aftereffects/advertisement.asp?cid=62
https://www.toolfarm.com/tutorials/c4d-ae.html
https://generalspecialist.com/2007/10/cinema-4d-resources.aspIf you’re interested in Max integration, check this out:
https://generalspecialist.com/2007/02/export-from-after-effects-to-3ds-max.asp
… but Max interacts better with Combustion. If you have Max, get combustion.You might want to search the COW for “after effects”, “max” and “maya”.
Anybody else?
-
1. Experiment with transfer modes such as “multiply” or “soft light”.
2. If the shot isn’t locked down, you should use a matchmover such as Syntheyes. Why? Because AE doesn’t create tracking solutions in 3D space (like, where the footage was shot). AE can track one point at a time, or four points to attach corners. But it can’t track multiple points and make 3D sense out of them.
That said, if you knew your (flat, rectangular) wall was 20 feet by 30 feet, and you saw all four corners of the wall through the entire shot, you could make your graphics in a 2×3 proportioned comp, drag that into another comp, track the four corners of the wall, then attach the corners of the comp to the tracked corners of the wall so they match. That’s the way AE works — okay for tracking things onto rectangular billboards, posters or monitors, but after that …
-
Cinema 4D is the choice for motion graphics and AE. The others are fine, wonderful and sophisticated, but C4D works the best with AE. End of story.
-
Hm. Never tried that. I think you have to actually record the analog signal to DV tape — it won’t do a pass-through that way. I could be wrong.
But as long as the tape transport on the camera isn’t running, there’s no wear and tear.
-
“Codec”, or “codecs”, not “codex“. 🙂
When you expect to recompress your AE output to MPEG-2 for DVD, it should be first rendered to a lossless codec such as Animation, or 8-bit (or 10-bit) uncompressed, then sent to a compression app such as Squeeze or Compressor. However, some choose to render straight to MPEG-2 in AE. Do some tests to make your own choice.
However, if you are taking that render into a DV timeline in your editing app, then render to DV. Your editing app will have to render the AE output to DV anyway to make it fit the codec of the DV timeline.
If you are going to Beta, you need to render to the codec of whatever system will be outputting to Beta. This could be Blackmagic, Avid or AJA, for instance. If you don’t have access to those codecs, render to Animation.
Anybody else?
-
Purge your RAM before rendering.
Only show one comp window. You know, so you can see the contents. Other comps, whether tabbed or not, don’t affect rendering or previewing. I hope that’s clear …
Pre-rendering layers that require processing does save time. If the greenscreen actors don’t require significant processing, you won’t save time. Regarding HDV and Cineform, I can’t speak about Cineform, since I don’t know it. But HDV should not be used in AE, as it bogs down the system and can cause errors.
Prerendering a layer makes it into a still or a movie. Keep in mind that a layer is really a flat plane, so it never was 3D in the first place. If it was “AE-3D”, meaning that it was a flat layer recognized by AE’s 3D space, then a prerendered movie can behave the same way as a layer if you import it and click its 3D button. However, if you pre-render a comp, its layers will be flattened into one layer: a movie. If that matters.
-
Wow. Thanks for the tip, Jeremy and Jeff.
For those who need proof of this rather inconvenient move by Apple:
https://www.apple.com/ca/macbookpro/design.html -
There’s no wear and tear on the camera, as long as you don’t wiggle the little firewire connector too much, since it’s weak. Maybe duct tape the two together. Hey, low budget. Or get a Manfrotto clamp or something to make sure nothing moves. Other than that, there’s no wear and tear on the transport since it’s not running. Unless you have to be on pause … probably not.
If your DVD player has FW in and composite/S out, you should be able to run the signal through it.
-
Yep.
Compressed video (e.g. DV) has to be decompressed in order to view it. When you stop viewing it, it shrinks back into its compressed state. Basically.
When you take a compressed video file and re-render it “uncompressed”, that basically means you expand it to viewing status and leave it there. Big as life. It doesn’t look any better, but it takes up a lot more room.
If you want to work with DV files in an editing app, cuts-only, you can assemble the DV clips together with no changes to the file quality or file-size-per-second. However, AE doesn’t work that way. It always renders vdieo, that is it changes it. If you have DV in and want DV out of AE, even if you do nothing to the clip, you will render it, and recompress to DV. This means quality loss, since you’re compressing again. To avoid quality loss when recompressing in AE, you have to use a high quality, lossless codec such as Animation, 8-bit Uncompressed and so on. But often, we just live with one recompression to DV.
“Lossless” is like “uncompressed”, except lossless can give you smaller file sizes without quality loss … kind of like ZIP files.
-
Hm … yes. Maybe you should check here, in the Cineform forum?
https://dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?s=952da1b45cc1e589db1528fa999d9d07&f=76