Sunday, August 17, 2008

After Effects Tips - Installment 1

Learn something new everyday…

In contrast to the columns and tutorials we’ve been posting so far in CMG Keyframes, we thought it would be useful to also post quick-hit random tips for working more productively with Adobe After Effects CS3. This is the first installment; hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to add your own questions and alternative solutions in the Comments field at the end.

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Monday, July 14, 2008

On Artbeats.com: Article on Mixing Audio

Keeping the viewer focused rather than confused when mixing voice, music, and sound effects.

As some of you know, both of us originally came from the music industry. Chris in particular still composes music and edits dialog for some of CyberMotion’s clients.

Every month, we write a Tips N Tricks article for our friends at Artbeats.com. This month we wrote about how mix audio effectively to ensure the listener can hear the dialog without becoming distracted by the music or sound effects. There’s only a few simple rules you need to learn to make a huge improvement in the quality of your soundtracks. Remember: Bad audio can really distract from good video!

Click here to download a PDF of “Clearly Mixed” from Artbeats.com. (This is an update of our classic 1995 article on mixing, On The Level.)

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Monday, March 10, 2008

On Artbeats.com: Article on Color Management in After Effects

Over on Artbeats.com, we’ve written a gentle introduction to color management in AE.

Every month, we write a Tips N Tricks article for our friends at Artbeats.com. This month we’ve written an introduction to using Color Management in After Effects CS3, covering input, output, monitoring, and the Project Working Space. It was written in the context of how to handle Artbeats stock footage in a job, but the basic principles apply to a wide variety of jobs. You can download the 884 kb PDF by clicking here.

By the way, Artbeats has a monthly email newsletter which contains links to each of our articles for them as they are released, plus a link for registered users to download a free full-size clip every month. Click here to register. To see the full list of articles we (and others) have written for Artbeats, click here.

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Monday, February 18, 2008

Non-Square Strategies

Suggested workflows when dealing with non-square pixels and anamorphic formats.

For a variety of arcane technical reasons (trying to record NTSC and PAL on the same tape, cutting corner on data throughput, being compromised by camera sensor technology of yesteryear, etc.), virtually all digital video formats have non-square pixels. This means they must be projected in a way that stretches or squashes them on playback to properly fill the television screen. Unfortunately, a side effect of this is that they will also look odd on a computer screen. When all you do is send the digital signal from camera to tape deck to switcher to monitor, this is neatly hidden from you. But when you start working with digital video inside a computer, you have to deal with these misshapen pixels.

As a result, a common question is what is the best way to work with these pixels: Stretch them back out to being square? Or leave them in their native format? The answer depends on what your primary goal is in life: preserving maximum image quality, or preserving your own sanity.

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Sunday, July 08, 2007

Motion 3 = 3D

This significant update to Apple Motion includes a slick 3D implementation.

Motion 3 - part of Apple’s Final Cut Studio 2 suite - has experienced a major update, including the addition of motion tracking and stabilization, optical flow (smooth slow motion) technology, a gorgeous particle-based paint system, enhancements to their Keyframe Editor, and interesting new Audio Parameter and Retiming behaviors. But the big headliner is the addition of 3D space - including 3D animation for 2D layers, 3D cameras and lights, and 3D enhancements for their particle and text animation systems.

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Thursday, November 02, 2006

Brighter Whites; Richer Colors Part 2: sRGB

How to best incorporate digital photos into your After Effects projects.

In the last column, we discussed the time-honored headache of managing different video luminance ranges, and how After Effects 7 has made this a little easier to deal with. In this column, we cover an even more common problem with color space issues: working with digital photos or scans that have been saved in the sRGB color space. 

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Friday, September 01, 2006

Brighter Whites; Richer Colors, Part 1: 16-235

Two new features in After Effects 7 ease color-critical format conversion.

Have you ever received washed-out images from a client - or even yourself? Did you just let it slide ("well, that’s the way they shot it"), or cursed them for making you lose more sleep as you tried to make it look better? Well, we have two bits of news for you. One, the fault may not be in the footage, but in the way you’ve been handling it. Two, in Adobe After Effects 7, it’s now easier to handle it the right way. In this column, we’ll talk about video and the infamous luminance range issue; in the next column, we’ll turn our attention to still images and sRGB color space.

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Thursday, August 03, 2006

Work Smarter, Not Harder: Nucleo Pro

GridIron Software’s Nucleo Pro renders After Effects frames while you’re still working.

We all love After Effects plug-ins that give exciting new looks. However, equal acclaim should be accorded those that simply give us more time. A promising new plug-in in this category is GridIron Software’s Nucleo Pro. It was in beta at the time we wrote this (August 2006), but we couldn’t wait to share it with you, and also give you a peek under the hood to understand how it works.

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