Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Ease and Wizz

Chris Meyer | 12/02- 07:43 PM

Alternative keyframe interpolations for After Effects.

Virtually all After Effects users take advantage of the Easy Ease keyframe assistants. Applying them makes your animations elegantly speed up and slow down. But there are alternatives, right?

There are. Switching a keyframe’s interpolation to Auto Bezier, for example, will give half the ease of Easy Ease. You can also edit the keyframe interpolation handles in the Graph Editor, or Option (Alt) + double-click a keyframe outside of the Graph Editor to open the Keyframe Velocity dialog, where you can numerically dial in the ease amount.

Beyond these Bezier interpolations are a set of interpolation behaviors originally written by Robert Penner for Flash users, based on other mathematical formula such as sine or exponential curves. Ian Haigh has adapted these for use inside After Effects by writing a series of scripts that apply the equivalent expressions to After Effects keyframes. The package is called Ease and Wizz, and is available for free (although donations are appreciated).

Friday, November 14, 2008

Kensington Mice and After Effects CS4

Chris Meyer | 11/14- 10:54 PM

The secret settings to get the Unified Camera Tool to work.

After Effects CS4 has added a “Unified” camera tool to aid navigation in 3D space. Instead of having to scroll through three separate camera tools - Orbit, Track XY, and Track Z - to reposition an active camera or reframe an alternate view, users can now use a three-button mouse to quickly switch between these three tools.

All of our computers here have Kensington mice that include a clickable scroll wheel as the third (middle) mouse button. And lo and behold, they don’t work out of the box with AE CS4; the clickable scroll wheel defaults to toggling between horizontal and vertical scrolling. But a couple of settings tweaks will make your mouse behave the way you want:

Friday, November 07, 2008

After Effects Error Codes

Chris Meyer | 11/07- 09:30 AM

Wonder what those cryptic numbers mean? Here’s a few clues…

Occasionally, After Effects has a hiccup. When it does, it often displays a dialog box with occasionally clear, occasionally cryptic text, as well as a series of numbers. Understanding exactly what these are telling you can help you diagnose the problem and at least work around it, if not cure it.

Lutz Albrecht (aka Mylenium) has created a useful page that goes through the logic behind these codes to help you narrow down where the underlying error may be. He is actively trying to expand and refine the list, so if you encounter an error in After Effects, email him the information so he can fold it in.

(By the way, Lutz also wrote one of the best overviews of the new features in After Effects CS4 that I’ve seen - you can read it here.)

Monday, November 03, 2008

Making “One Man, One Vote”

Adam Wilt | 11/03- 06:19 PM

Production and post for a seven-minute short.

Ten years ago a fellow named Marshall Spight posted a challenge on DV-L called “Throwing Down the DV Gauntlet”, in which he said, “everyone talks about shooting serious dramatic films with DV, but does anyone actually do it?” I responded, and we wound up making a 20-minute short called “The Beautiful Thing” using Sony DCR-VX1000s, the first 1/3” 3-CCD DV camcorders. It came out so well (it was for a time the top-rated dramatic film on iFilm.com, an early and long-defunct predecessor to YouTube) that we set about making a short political drama/comedy (?), “One Man, One Vote”. This one gave us a few more challenges.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Autodesk+RED Workflow Guide

Chris Meyer | 10/29- 09:56 AM

Autodesk release a white paper on using the RED One with Smoke, Inferno, Flame, Flint, and Lustre.

The RED One camera and its ability to capture large frame size, RAW-format files has certainly ignited the imagination of filmmakers and videographers. But its unusual file format and requirements has also created a lot of head-scratching among users trying to find the most efficient way to send RED footage through a normal production pipeline.

To this end, Autodesk just released a white paper that covers using RED One footage with their Smoke, Inferno, Flame, Flint, and Lustre systems. It covers shooting, lighting, color spaces, proxies, going from offline to online, audio, finishing and final output including suggested settings, as well as an appendix on RED-specific applications and where they fit into the workflow. In other words, this isn’t a brochure; it’s a mini-handbook for users that describes the current recommended practices in some detail.

You can download the white paper here. Here’s a thumbnail sketch of some of its suggestions:

Saturday, October 18, 2008

After Effects CS4 is Shipping

Chris Meyer | 10/18- 07:02 AM

Make sure your computer & plug-ins are compatible.

For those who might have missed the news, Adobe Creative Suite 4 started shipping this past Wednesday. Users are already receiving their pre-orders.

After Effects users looking to upgrade need to be mindful of two issues:

• As reported earlier, AE CS4 will not run on pre-Intel Macs.
• Not all CS3-compatible plug-ins are compatible with AE CS4; some will need upgrades. So far, most of these upgrades seem to be free or available for a nominal charge.

Fortunately, there’s information out there to help you through this upgrade decision and process:

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