[Walter Soyka]

[Brian Charles] “You may want to post this question to the Live Events forum.”

I agree… but I’m biased.

Before you post your question, you might read through some results from a search on “multi screen” in the Live & Stage Events forum — you will find a lot of background information that will prove helpful.

I’ll also add that your production pipeline will be driven by your display system, and your display system will be driven by a combination of your creative requirements, your budget, and the physical space for the installation or event. You have to start at the end of the process before you can think about the beginning.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Angel Nieves] “You guys are right. My project was 8bit. Should I have been making my projects 16 bit? I’ve been working on a feature, and outputting my AE files to ProRess 4444. I might eventually transfer to film, but definitely will output to DVD. Everything looks okay, but I’m not sure if 8bit is good enough for what I’m doing. Would appreciate your advice. Thanks.”

It depends. If your material originated 10-bit, you should at least work in 16bpc and possibly 32bpc.

10-bit would certainly be beneficial for extra latitude for film-out. It won’t improve your original material any, but it will improve your effects.

The extra latitude won’t matter for DVD, although you will get a different look on some effects.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

The COW’s After Effects forum would be a better place to ask this question.

My guess is that you are using the demo version of some plugin which inserts a red X on the frame, and either an Invert effect or blend mode. Purchase and register the plugin, and the X will go away.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[John Pale] “ProRes 4444 is the best choice for alpha graphics in FCP. It’s higher quality than Animation and can play in real time on many systems.”

I agree that this is a good codec to use.

On the After Effects side, you should these entries from Todd Kopriva’s blog about ProRes 4444:

ProRes 4444 colors and gamma shift when working with After Effects CS4

ProRes 4444 and ProRes 422 in After Effects CS5

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Dave LaRonde] “Are you working an an 8-bit AE project, but rendering to a 10-bit codec?”

That’s my guess, too.

If you are part of a production pipeline that actually intends to work in 10-bit, then this is a problem as you are truncating data, and you should change your project to 16 bits per channel or float (32bpc). Be sure to check your composites, glows and blurs, as they will look different above 8 bpc. Also make sure that you are using effects that match or exceed your project color depth.

If you’re working by yourself and/or you know the project only needs 8-bit video, then you’re fine, but you could switch your output module for 8-bit output and save some disk space on your renders.

See Color depth and high dynamic range color for more information on color depth in AE.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Mike van der Noordt] “Is there a possibility to mask a layer based on a depth-map.”

Here’s a suggestion: how about rendering separate depth passes, recompositing them as necessary in a precomp, applying, adjusting, and maybe animating Threshold or Levels to the depth pass precomp, and using that as an luma matte for your text?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

It’s been a long time since I’ve used an AVID, but if I recall correctly, the EDL Manager is included with the software, but not installed by default. Your producer may have to go back to her discs or download package and look for the installer.

The Duck is the gold standard, but if it’s not doable, you might be stuck with EDLs. Just be aware that EDLs can be finicky. You may spend more billable time sorting out the EDL and media in Premiere than it would cost to get Automatic Duck.

Another option would be to simply export individual shots from the AVID, apply effects in AE, render, and reimport and replace in AVID. Depending on what work you need to do, this may be simpler and should make your finishing easier. After Effects is great for working on single shots, but it has no conforming or editing tools, so it’s a lousy finishing solution.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Ned Miller] “I can make an “adequate” Word proposal, I’ve done many before, but it just looks like a plain business letter. I’d like something punchier because I imagine the kind of companies I will be competing against will have something nice. I imagine if a company has a graphic artist on staff they can make Word sing, I can’t, that’s why I was hoping there’s something simple to use for Mac out there.”

Like you’ve said here, design is a discipline just as much or shooting or editing is, and final output is more a function of the talent than the tools. If the look of the proposal is that important, maybe it’s worth hiring a print designer to help you put your best foot forward? Have them work with you on an identity and template that you can reuse on future proposals.

That said, Word is a decent word processor, but it’s a maddening page layout application. For simplicity, you might look at Apple’s Pages. There’s a free trial available.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

You might try Automatic Duck’s Pro Import AE, which will allow you to import Avid or FCP timelines into After Effects.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Anthony Dupsta] “I would love if the output module would do this, but it doesn’t.”

I think it can. Add an output module with a DPX sequence, then check out the Cineon Settings:

Set these just as you would the Cineon Converter effect, and unless I’m missing something, you should be able to render lin and log DPX sequences using two output modules as Dave suggested.

And thank you, Dave, for teaching me about a feature I’ve never used before.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events