[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

ProRes will work – 444 is best. For uncompressed- Animation – QT, PNG – QT, or TIFF sequence are just a few options.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

If you mean two preview and timeline windows at the same time, you can if you have all projects imported in a master project. Open one comp, lock the preview window and double click on the second comp to open a separate preview window. You can then drag and position the preview window and the timeline panel for the second comp to a second monitor or position them (one by one) side by side or top -bottom with the initial comp.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Most likely a compression and grading issue.
What I learned that works best is to render the final ungraded pass to a uncompressed format, bring that in AE and grade in a 32bit comp, render uncompressed again and then use Encoder for delivery compression.
While the above does not add any extra quality to what is already there, for me it seems to work best.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

what are you shooting with? What kind of lights are you using? What format (1080/720 25, 24 or 30 p or 50/60i)?

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

My suggestion would be to cut the footage first (convert the files to a low resolution compressed codec for fast editing). Then use the cut to determine the exact files you need to run through AE. Render the low resolution cut out of Vegas, rebuild the cut in AE using the original footage. Then stabilize each shot and render out a uncompressed version from AE. You can then compress this render using Encoder or a similar software to a format that is good for BlueRay (MPEG2 or H264…)

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

How do your side view and front view look like?

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Yes, that would be normal, especially if you use PNG or Animation as a codec.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

That is a very generic question- a bit more details would help. I am guessing that you have some motion graphics or vfx shots done in AE and you want them in your cut in Sony Vegas. For best quality in a .mov container you can use the uncompressed Animation codec or PNG. Depending on your system you may want to render a compressed H264 codec to use for the working cut and then replace this with the higher quality Animation .mov.
One tip- when you render, you can set up in the Render Queue both outputs at once (the Animation and H264) by clicking on the “+” to the right of the Output module (next to “Output to”)and selecting the desired settings. This way AE renders all your versions faster, all at once.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

FreeForm or FreeForm Pro may help you here since you can combine 3d distort with 3d displacement.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

There are several ways of doing it, Tom mentioned a couple.
For older versions of AE that have Free Form included, you can use the 3d distortion tools to bend the artwork in 3d space. To create the illusion that the chain is moving you will need to create a chain segment that can be replicated seamlessly, like a texture tile and use Motion tile to extend that. Make a very long composition, not tall though, just enough for the chain to be in it and animate the chain moving left to right. Precompose that, bring it in your main composition and apply Free Form to it. Use the 3d distortion controls to bend it in 3d space.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist