Walter Soyka
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I’d think the fastest way to do it would be to use the Exposure filter and keyframe it manually.
If you really need to do this automatically, I think you’ll have to write an expression using sampleImage(). As always, Dan Ebberts has a great example of using sampleImage() to drive obscuration, and Todd Kopriva also has a quick write-up on sampleImage().
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
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This is not really an answer to your question — but does it have to be Targa? I’ve found that TGA files can be a bit touchy — different software packages have different preferences on byte order, compression, etc. This is also true of TIFF, which I’ve heard referred to as “Thousands of Incompatible File Formats.”
PNG might be another option. Like TGA, it’s lossless and supports transparency.
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 -
Your plan for working in AE in 9:16 sounds good. For output, you’ll need to create a regular 16×9 comp, drop your working 9:16 comp into it, and rotate 90 degrees to match the screen.
You’ll need to determine what frame rate to use. Blu-ray is capable of 23.976p, 24p, 50p, and 59.94p at 1280×720. Some consider the lower frame rates to be more “cinematic” — but I think motion graphics look a lot smoother at the higher frame rates. The location (NTSC region or PAL region) where this will be played back will also be a factor in this decision.
Encore does Blu-ray authoring.
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 -
[John Pale] “The whole thing seems to be done by a small app called “Create Disc”. You can launch the app, but there does not seem to be a way to load assets into it and have it author the disc for burning. Obviously, Compressor can send a job to it and make it do just that, but there does not seem to be a way for the user to do it himself. “
Create Disc.app (located in /Library/Application Support/Apple Qmaster) uses XML files to control how it authors the discs; Compressor creates these in /var/tmp, and they have the extension .1cdvd.
You can modify the .1cdvd file by hand to point to your encoded assets, save it, and then drag and drop it onto Create Disc. I’d recommend doing a quick authoring job through Compressor with the settings you want (but short placeholder media), and then using one of the existing 1cdvd as a template. Note that Create Disc will not give you any feedback on its progress. You can watch it in Activity Monitor and verify that it’s using resources, but that’s about it.
It’s not user-friendly, and it’s not very forgiving of operator error, but it works.
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 -
[Bob Cole] “I wasn’t aware of installing them, but I may have the AJA because I am able to see my previews on an NTSC monitor. How would I identify, and then disable or remove this? “
AE can use an AJA card without the plugin, so you may not actually have it installed. If you do, I think it’s installed in the After Effects plugins folder.
Todd brings up a good point (as always) about removing BCC6. I saw in your original post that you uninstalled it. Did you just delete the plugins from the Plugin folder, or did you run the installer again and choose the Uninstall option?
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 -
Like you said — RAM, RAM, RAM. 2-4 GB per core.
I’d be leery of using an iMac for broadcast work. I’m pretty dependent on my RAID, Kona capture card, and broadcast monitor, and only the Mac Pro has the expansion options to make that happen.
The current Mac Pro has been out for quite a while — it’s overdue for an update, and the if the 12-core rumors are true, it will have a big impact on multiprocessor rendering. That said, no one knows when the next generation is really coming out. If you can afford to wait another month, it might be worthwhile, but if you need to start working now, the current Mac Pros will not disappoint.
CS5 is going to be a big deal for you working on broadcast HD. 64-bit RAM addressing means that you could RAM preview an entire 30-second spot in HD (provided you have enough RAM). 32-bit AE CS4 can’t grab enough the 7 GB of RAM or so that it would need to cache the frames).
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 -
Do you have either the AJA or Matrox preview plugins installed? There’s been a series of reports on them causes crashes here in the last couple weeks.
After that, I’m out of ideas — sorry!
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 -
What pixel aspect ratio are you using in your comp? Is it set for non-square pixels, and do you have the Toggle Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction button checked? It’s right next to “1 View” in the comp window — see Preview video and audio for more.
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 -
This sounds exactly like one of the problems that was fixed in the 9.0.2 update, but I see from your signature you are already running 9.0.2.
Have you tried rebuilding your preferences file by holding Cmd-Opt-Shift while AE loads? Note that all your current preferences will be lost.
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 -
Many plugins tie themselves to the system they’re installed on as part of the installation process, though I’m not sure if this is the case with the Trapcode suite or not.
Unfortunately, your best bet is probably to install them like normal, and then uninstall them when you leave.
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