Thursday, April 17, 2008

Q&A: Audio Queries

Real users have the best questions.

During the Post|Production World conference that ran alongside NAB 2008, I gave an extended session on audio connections, microphones, and other related issues. At the end, the attendees hit me with their individual problems. I thought the questions and their answers might be useful to others, so I decided to add them to the archives up here, amended with additional thoughts and research I’ve gathered since returning from NAB.

Note that essential companion reading to these comments include my previous article on audio wiring and connections, plus my blog on dealing with ground loop hum.

Audio •
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Pasting Paths from Illustrator to After Effects

The essential trick to paste multiple paths to After Effects Shape Layers at once.

So what’s so interesting about a feature we’ve had for eons? We all know you can copy and paste vector paths from Illustrator to After Effects as mask paths and motion paths (you did know that, right?). But with the new Shape Layers in After Effects CS3, you may run into a little snag when trying to paste paths to shapes.

Motion Graphics • (1) Comments • Most recent comments by: Mez, • Permalink

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.

Motion Graphics •
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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.

Motion Graphics •
Post Production •
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Sunday, February 03, 2008

Key Concepts from the Archives

Where to find the best of what we’ve written in the past.

We have written numerous articles and columns for a variety magazines over the years, including our previous long-running “Motion Graphics” column in DV magazine plus currently a monthly “Tips n Tricks” article for Artbeats.com. A summary of everything we’ve written that’s still available online can be viewed here.

It is our intention to move the “key” articles in this archive (with updates, where appropriate) over to this site to ensure you have reliable access to them in the future. Although some were written years ago, they still contain useful tips and concepts on both technique and design. We will also be adding new articles as subjects come up; shorter takes on subjects will appear over on our Creating Motion Graphics channel.

If you can’t find an article on the subject you’re interested in, let us know in a “comment” to this post. Also, there’s always our books Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects and After Effects Apprentice. You can see summaries of these - including samples - on the books page of our website.

Training • (2) Comments • Most recent comments by: Chris Meyer, Karl Shields, • Permalink

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.

3D •
Motion Graphics •
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Tuesday, May 01, 2007

The Shape of Things to Come: Shape Layers Introduction

An overview of Shape Layers in Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional.

For motion graphics artists, one of the most significant new features introduced in After Effects CS3 was Shape Layers. This feature brings important components of Adobe Illustrator into After Effects, and allows them to be animated.

Motion Graphics • (0) Comments • • Permalink

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. 

Motion Graphics •
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