After Effects

This is where I'm going to be posting some After Effects questions i might have. This is what I've got at the minute;

I've created my animation in Maya at 24 frames per second, and within Maya it's 25 seconds long - so I've gone and rendered it out. I've then imported it into AE, changed the frame rate to 24per second within the 'New Composition tab', but for some bizzare reason the animation is now only 22 seconds long, and it kinda looks like he's in a fast forward mode - what have I done wrong here?

Another question I have is that within Maya I can offset the audio to .eg. 530 frames (so the audio kicks in at frame 530) - is there a way within AE to do the same? I want it to be spot on at frame 530 - otherwise the audio is not gonna be in synch with the lip-sync.

Thanks

hey iestyn!

i'll give these a shot, but i could be wrong!

i think the first question involves that "Main Interpretation" panel. you rendered it out of Maya at 24fps. when you import it into AE, AE has to know what that default frame rate is, so it can play it properly and allow you to work with it properly. That's what the Interpretation Panel is all about. (to open it, select the footage in the bin, then either 1- right click it and select "Interpret Footage", 2 - press CTRL F, or 3 - select "Interpret Footage" under the File pulldown menu.)

in this panel is where you tell AE what the frame rate is of the footage. if the default one it chose isn't right, enter the correct frame rate. this is also where you tell AE what to do with the alpha channel (if the footage has one), how to interpret the pixels (square, non-square, anamorphic, etc), and what to do with pulldown and fields.

For example, if you rendered out of Maya at 24fps, but AE interpreted the footage as 30fps or 25fps, and then you set the composition frame rate (in the "Composition Settings" panel you mentioned) to 24, it's not gonna look right. Once you have it set right in the interpretation panel, when you drag the footage to the little "make new composition" button at the bottom of the Bin panel, it'll make a composition automatically with all the correct settings for you to work with the footage.

if that (Interpretation) turns out not to be the problem, i'd be surprised.

then, once you have all that right, shifting your audio around will be easy. Under the File pulldown menu, select "Project Settings" and change it to "frames". all this does is change the display of your footage timecode in the timeline panel. once it's set to frames, just go to frame 530 and make your audio file start there. either drag it, or, with the audio layer selected and the time slider at frame 530, hit the " [ " button. it'll snap there.

okay, hope that helps!

Dude! Awsome! Good stuff! Everything worked fine! Everything's making much better sense now - I had no idea about the Main Interpretation tab, and setting the frame rate over there as well! Great stuff Sean.

That '[' button is a life saver!

Cheers man - I'll defiantly have some more questions - thanks a lot for the help man!

Hype is a god, all he had to do was say "Main Interpretation Tab"

But he went into detail and provided examples!

hey - yep im playblasting the particles, and even watched them in the flipbook of the render hardware buffer - the speed is ok within Maya, but it's super fast in AE. I've rendered the sequence out twice now to see if it was something I was doing wrong, and even made a new emitter and rendered out that, but it's still the same.

are you watching the snowflake footage by itself in AE, or are you dropping it on top of the footage you already have in your AE project. if you're watching it by itself, maybe check to see if its playing at the right speed. under the Window pulldown menu, select Time Controls, and see what that frame rate thingy says while it's playing.

if you're dropping it on top of a composition thats already playing fine at 24fps, then i have no idea.

Hey - it was very strange. I've done a whole new scene and re-rendered out the particles, it looks to be going ok so far, but ill know for defiante in about an hour or so. When i was doing a playblast in Maya the snowflake were falling down exactly like i wanted to - then when i watched the rendered images in'fcheck' - a program that comes with Maya to view your rendered stills as a movie - and on that as well as in AE - the particles were just flying down, like 4-5 faster that what the playblast was showing, it must be something within Maya - maybe i had too much gavity field or something in there - no idea.

Im in the middle or rendering out the new particels from the fresh scene - i hope this turns out alright

Cheers

Yep, you've guessed it, another question. I'm now trying to export my movie, just to see what is kinda looks like, to see if im on the right track. I go to 'Composition > Make Movie' (Ctrl M), in the 'Output Mode' I change the format to Quicktime, and under 'Format Options' i change the Compressor to Sorenson 3, at Medium Quality (is there any better settings anyware you guys would recommend?)

Then i go and tick the Audio box, and change it from 16Bit to 8bit - so that it compresses it smaller. I then hit render.

It starts rendering the sequence, but when it comes to frame 530 (where the audio kicks in) I get this error message;

After Effects error: Opening Sound Component (-2166).
(10:44)

It happens all the time, the audio is just a simple .wav file. Does any one know what the problem might be?
Thanks

you bet, you can just select the layer and hit ctrl + shift + R and that will reverse the footage, or you can time stretch it to -100 and pull the layer back into place. But the shortkey combo will just reverse it in place.

-Z

Sweet! Thanks Zach!

i TOTALLY agree, zach! almost every other compositing program has it. Thank god for people who can script...

Excellent, ill have a download of that split screen tutorial tonight, thanks Sean.

If you remember i did that tornado shot of me looking out the window and there was a tornado in the backyear area demolishing a house - i'm reworking that, trying to get it up to scratch, and maybe you could remember tht the roto around me was very rough, I'll have a look at the roto-tracking you mentioned, but maybe my scuffy hair in that shot would be too complex for it?

is the link for the tornado still up? what i remember most about it was the tracking being off, i think.

Hey, no i took down the video quite a while back, im up in Liverpool right now visiting the Girlfreind, i'll re-post the video on Sunday if you'd like. The tracking was alright, just there was one house in it that i didnt render out, and this maked it look like it was slipping. The roto on it was very very rough on it around my head.

Anyone know what this problem could be? It's still the same today, whenever i go to import a footage the little box doesnt appear, and my mose cursor changes from white to black as well.

weird. try just double-clicking in the little window where all the files for your project are. that should bring up the import dialogue box. if that doesn't work either, i have no clue. never heard of this one.

might call for a re-install of AE if that doesn't fix it. I'm on the wtf wagon for this as well.

-Z

Yeah, i think re-install is the answer, I've tried to double click inside the little box and nothing happens. I can olny for some reason import recent footage, and that's about it. I remember this happening to me ages ago as well, and since then i decided not to use AE and stick with Premiere. Oh well, I'll re-install.

I ran a 'repair' on it, and everything seems to work fine now, havent got a clue what happened.

Now I'm on to roto! Wooo!! Here's my first question (of many i would imagine!) I'm now trying to roto out the window, ill do another pass on my hair later on, but whenever i add a new point, it kinda curves (puts a spline kinda thing in it) - is there a way to just have it come straight out with out any curve to it, here's an example of what I mean;