[Walter Soyka]

[Aaron Nowakowski] ” was wondering what the difference is using a JPEG Sequence as my format selection? Is there a quality difference compared to an Animation or Apple Pro Res 422?”

As Todd mentioned, JPEG is lossy. You might consider a PNG sequence instead of a JPEG sequence — PNG uses lossless compression.

One other consideration: ProRes 422 is a 10-bit codec, while Animation, PNG, and JPEG are all 8-bit.

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]

Glad to hear you’ve got a good workflow going!

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]

[mathew lisett] “would this mean even though the previous proxy rendering completed before, how ever for some reason currupted 2 files.”

That’d be my guess. You should just be able to render those two frames and have a full, working proxy.

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]

[doug nash] “Out of curiosity, what do you use for making backups of your system? I was carrying on a thread elsewhere and the person said that they use Super Duper.”

I use Carbon Copy Cloner, but the concept is the same — a exact, bootable copy of your system drive. If something goes wrong with the software install, you can boot from your good clone, and clone that back over the bad install.

For on-going data and project file backups, I use Time Machine. For media backups, I use Synk Pro over my network during off hours.

I also archive to hard disk and spanned Blu-ray disc, but I’ve been eyeing an LTO tape archive system for better peace of mind.

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]

Well, technically, isn’t analog NTSC Y’IQ?

Like you’ve said, YUV is almost always misused with respect to its actual technical definition, and I think you’re absolutely right that it’s basically coming to mean “non-RGB” — it’s becoming an industry shorthand for color encoding with one luminance and two chrominance components, regardless of gamma, scaling, or color difference axes. Misused technical terms are a pet peeve of mine because they have such precise meanings, but I’m trying to let it go…

To bring this back on topic, here’s a link with some information on Y’UV420 planar image encoding:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YUV#Y.27UV420p_.28and_Y.27V12.29

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]

[Thomas Leong] “IF there is any stuttering/jerky playback in Watchout, I seriously doubt it is due to PAL per se. If I’m not wrong, Watchout originates from a PAL country!”

Agreed — there is no Watchout issue at 25 fps that I know of.

My guess on the warning to use 50 fps instead of 25 fps is simply that the lower frame rate shows much more “judder” on fast motion than the higher frame rate would. On wide screens like Watchout is commonly used for, there’s a temptation to use big, fast, horizontal motion that doesn’t play well at a low frame rate.

It’s a pretty common problem that pops up on the AE forum here on the COW: AE users accustomed to working in NTSC find that the same animation techniques that work at 29.97 fps produce unacceptable judder at 23.976 fps.

50 fps simply allows much smoother motion than 25 fps does.

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]

Steve’s post on the creative process is very concise and extremely informative. I don’t have anything to add to what he’s said about process, but I do have a few lateral thoughts.

First: the creative growth cycle. I’m a huge fan of Todd Henry; he’s been a huge influence on how I think about creativity and how I run my business around it. Steve’s post on process reminded me of Todd’s model of the creative growth cycle: discovery, imitation, divergence, and uniqueness. It doesn’t describe how a single creative work is created — it describes how we as creatives develop. From what you’ve written, it sounds as if you’ve found an art form (discovery) and explored it some (imitation), and now you are struggling to make something new — struggling to leap to divergence.

Second: creative block. What you describe is very similar to writer’s block, where the writer is almost intimidated by a blank page and unable to put that first word down. How do you get through writer’s block? You just go through it. You write anyway, even if what you write is terrible. Writers call this a “burn draft” — they write it, burn it (because it’s too embarrassingly bad to show, or even re-read), and then start the rough draft with a fresh perspective and renewed confidence.

Third: management. I’m one of those heretics who thinks that creatives can be managed similarly to other professionals (provided the creative process is supported). A good creative director is worth their weight in gold; they provide structure and guidance to push creative work in the right direction. Think about the rails on a railroad; they restrict where the train can go, but they allow it to travel very quickly and very smoothly. If you can think of a thesis statement you’d like to make — a central idea you’d like your project to express — you can use that as a set of rails to guide your creative work and move it forward.

Finally, I’ve found that nothing gets me motivated like the sound a deadline makes as it’s racing at me. Let’s see your boards by next week. 🙂

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]

I just saw and responded to this in the Live Events forum. I’ll repeat here in case any of the other AE experts here has something to add:

Nested comps inherit the frame rate of their parent, so you can simply drop a 25 fps comp into a 50 fps comp (no slo-mo and frame blending required), and AE will recalculate at 50 frames per second. AE-generated layers, transformations, and effects will be smoothly recalculated at 50 fps. 25p footage will be frame-doubled, and 25i footage should be interpreted as deinterlaced 50p.

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]

[Andy Stokes] “I have created a 30 minute video for a show backdrop. Watchout will be used for the playback so I have pre-split into 3x 1080P clips. I’ve heard Pal playback can look shaky/stuttering when played back on watchout. The production company recommened I work in a 50fps comp. Well it’s a bit late now! Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions for converting, but keeping the same length to make smoother? Would slowing down to 50% with frame blending turned-on, then drop comp into a 50fps comp help?”

You didn’t mention, but should I assume from your terminology that you’re working in After Effects?

Nested comps inherit the frame rate of their parent, so you can simply drop a 25 fps comp into a 50 fps comp (no slo-mo and frame blending required), and AE will recalculate at 50 frames per second. AE-generated layers, transformations, and effects will be smoothly recalculated at 50 fps. 25p footage will be frame-doubled, and 25i footage should be interpreted as deinterlaced 50p.

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] “I’ll give you an example. You’ve just created some text in a text layer, but you’re unhappy with the typeface you chose. Were you aware that by highlighting the layer, then clicking in the typeface name window in the character pane, you can change typefaces by using the up & down arrow keys?”

I learned something new today, too. Thanks, Dave!

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