[Stuart Elith]

Thanks for the quick reply, Tudor.

I’m using AE CS5 (should have mentioned that earlier!) on a Mac running Leopard.

Color management is off, which is how we’ve always done things.

I have just tried rendering out some stills:

When I render a dpx or PNG , I still get gamma shift if I import back into FCP, and I still don’t see the gamma shift in AE.

Interestingly, I have checked some footage we received in dpx sequence from another post facility, and when I render out an image from that sequence, there is no gamma shift (checked in photoshop as FCP doesn’t seem to accept dpx). So it does seem to be something QT related.

[Stuart Elith]

Something unusual is happening in your circumstance, because you definitely can continue working with a tracker once you apply it the first time. I did it just yesterday… went back and realised I needed to track more of my clip, so I continued tracking then re-applied the new (extended) tracking info to my solid. Worked fine.

So perhaps there is something glitchy happening, or there’s something else at work.
If you do a test with a new track, applying it, changing the track then re-applying, see what happens. Maybe something just bugged out in this circumstance.

[Stuart Elith]

OK never mind, I think I’ve got something figured out.
It seems there may well be a limit to the number of files available in a sequence. I have split the files into four folders, each with 20k frames, and imported each separately, and it seems to be behaving itself.

I realise that you can select a sub-set of frames in the one folder and just import those ones, but when I tried doing that it was very very slow and not giving me confidence that it would actually work. I don’t know why it has such a problem with only pulling in some of the files, but it’s SO MUCH quicker now that i’ve actually put them in folders and let it import the “entire” sequence in that folder.

[Stuart Elith]

AE can definitely do this, but you are going to have to learn a lot of basics before you have success with this. If the shot is COMPLETELY still it will be a lot easier, if there is any camera movement then there’s more skills you’ll need to learn to achieve your effect.

A good place to start is Video Copilot, they have a series of basics tutorials that will help you start to get familiar with the software.

https://www.videocopilot.net/basic/

[Stuart Elith]

Depending on the shot, i even often prefer to use just a single still image rather than a loop of 4 or 5. With more than one, you need to be more careful with your healing work so there is no boiling or rippling. With a single frame you can just clean it up nicely and you won’t have to worry about that.
If you then run some noise/grain through the image, it can often integrate really nicely. Granted, retaining the ORIGINAL grain is going to be most authentic, but you can still get a very good result. The Add Grain effect has so many customization options.

[Stuart Elith]

Ok, I think I understand what you’re doing, and what you’re asking for. If I understand correctly, then you’ve ALMOST got it right.

So you’ve rotoscoped (traced) the glasses, so now you’ve got a grey covering that moves with the glasses and looks right, yeah?

Now you’ve tracked that to the face, and instead of sticking it’s flying about wildly?

If that’s the case, your problem is that you’re basically DOUBLING the movement of the person… the first step, where you did all the masking, followed the motion of the person so if you’re now moving the WHOLE LAYER then you can see there’s the doubled motion. Not needed (or good!).

Instead, you want to track your IMAGES to the person’s movement, so they move and rotate along with the glasses.
Then, use the gray masked layer as a Track Matte for the images, which will mean that they are basically masked by it, and since they’re moving in time with the person, it should be right.

[Stuart Elith]

Your problem is that Magnify doesn’t use a whole layer, there is a point from which it magnifies (you can specify circle or square only).

So one option is to position the center of the Magnify effect in the center of your glass illustration.

Otherwise if you wanted to use an adjustment layer you could try a different effect such as Bulge or even use the Transform effect and modify the scale.

You should be able to get it working with Magnify, though. Center it in the middle of the glass, adjust the size so that it fits properly, then you need to parent the adjustment layer to the magnifying glass illustration. This will mean that it moves and scales in the same way… so even when you animate the glass, the layer will move with it 🙂

[Stuart Elith]

It just looks like interlacing to me… a blown up screenshot so the fields look a lot bigger/fatter.

If that’s the case, yes, you will notice it most when there is fast movement.

Read the AE help files for a lot of great info about interlacing, and you will be able to introduce it into your footage in the Interpret Footage options.

[Stuart Elith]

Just expanding a little what Joey said…

When you click to Track Motion, it creates a tracker. There is nothing to stop you creating more trackers to do different objects/people, and you don’t have to do a tracker for the whole duration of the clip, you can just track a section by positioning the time marker where you want to begin and then doing a section.

[Stuart Elith]

“I would be curious to know from Adobe as to why a nested comp with a 3D camera, loses all of its properties when Cont. Rasterize is turned on.”

I am not sure that this is a “problem” as such, just a different way of working. If I have 3D objects nested in a comp, I may want them to be affected by the outer camera, in which case the way it is works well. If I want to keep the inner camera’s properties, I won’t use the Cont.Rasterize.

Yeah I’ve had those experiences where you kind of need a bit of both, but I’m not sure there’s an elegant solution, I think it has to be one way or the other.