[Walter Soyka]

[aemilia scott] “What is a good piece of software for OSX that allows effects to be added to live capture video?”

It sounds like you’re looking for some VJ software. Here are some of the popular packages on the Mac:

Arkaos
Modul8
VDMX
Livid Cell DNA

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]

Do you have a work area set?

Also, you should be using the Render Queue instead of Make Movie. It offers a lot more control over your output.

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]

[Per Argentine] “We’ve done a 1080p 23.976 video for an installation but it seems Brightsign doesn’t officially support 24p playback. When I play the video back on the Brightsign it converts it to 29.97 which looks terrible. Tech support says 24p isn’t an option, but I had heard that someone had figured out a workaround. Anyone have any ideas? If all else fails what’s the best way to convert to 29.97 from an Avid? “

In installations, the display drives all other decisions. Producing media at the wrong frame rate means you must either reconsider your playback system or make some compromises on the media.

I recently did a project with some mixed frame rate media that we displayed on Brightsigns. We ended up using 720p60 and playing the 24p media with the 60p variant of standard 3:2 pulldown. If you don’t mind the loss of resolution, this might be an option.

I’m not sure offhand how the Brightsign is handling the 23.976 to 29.97 fps conversion. You could try adding standard 3:2 pulldown and using 1080i, but depending on your display system, it may not look any better. You could also try duplicating every fourth frame (1-2-3-4-4-5-6-7-8-8), but the motion may look a little stuttery.

Finally, depending on your media, you could try using optical flow retiming to handle the 24p to 30p conversion, but this could get soft and blobby.

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]

[Ryan Ochsner] “By fragmenting I mean the project is being rendered correctly up until the last few seconds and the last part of the project disappears. It acts like it randomly chooses what it wants to render at that last section of the project. The project is a hallway if that helps you visualize what I’m trying to say. The last section is a couple of doors and the walls, floor and ceiling, of course. I hope this helps.”

Like Dave said — turn off multiprocessing.

Also, if you are rendering with OpenGL, disable it.

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 want to use https://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7a00a.html“>sampleImage().

See Dan Ebbert’s excellent https://www.motionscript.com/design-guide/obscuration.html“>Obscuration using sampleImage() for a great example might be similar to what you want to do.

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]

Here’s Adobe’s link to download the 8.0.2 update:
https://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3834

Although I don’t think point releases matter for moving projects, there are a lot of important bug fixes in that update, and I’d consider it a must-do.

Also, if you’re working with ProRes media with CS3, make sure you review Todd Kopriva’s blog post ProRes 422 colors in 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]

[gordon liron] “When i press ram preview, I can see everything. When I add it to the render que and press render, only the background plate appears. The foreground layer with all the roto never renders.”

Did you accidentally add the background plate to the render queue instead of the comp with both foreground and background?

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 can use the hand tool in the viewer – just hold down the spacebar and drag the mouse.

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’ll need to supply some more information about your project. What version of After Effects are you using? What OS? What is the container and codec your footage is in?

If you are running After Effects CS5, and you’re using AIFF media, be sure to install the recent 10.0.1 update. If you’re running After Effects CS4 or earlier, and you’re using temporally-compressed audio like MP3 or M4A, you should transcode it to a WAV or AIFF instead.

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 Knapich] “Want to have some slow moving dust particles. I was given a project with 2 Fractal Noise effects. cannot seem to get them to move slowwwwwly in the air. I am guessing that the speed comes from the Evolution setting”

Yes, you can keyframe Evolution to animate Fractal Noise.

Personally, I’d use a particle system like Trapcode Particular to simulate floating dust particles — I think Particular’s physics system would make it easier to get the dust to behave the way you want.

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