After Effects CS4 Exporting Question

I am creating several After Effects CS4 compositions that will be used in a Premier Pro CS4 project. Right now I am importing the AE compositions into Premiere with out exporting them first. It is real convenient to be able to click into PP and see the current changes take effect. My question is this, once I am done tweaking a composition should I be exporting it in another format or I is it ok to use the AE file as is? Am I suffering any quality loss by not going to quicktime or one of the other choices?
And in PP you hit enter to render. Is the AE equivalant hitting the space bar and playing the timeline? I see the green line above any changes but I didn't know if there is another step to maximize the quality of the finished product.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Cole

R-Cole wrote:
Am I suffering any quality loss by not going to quicktime or one of the other choices?
If you suffered any quality loss, you'd know your settings are wrong. Most commonly people make a mess of field order, which of course you can neatly avoid by using DynamicLink such as you already do. The rest is more or less a matter of personal preference and how much performance is consumed by live rendering the AE compositions vs. how much juice your machine has. You wouldn't use that workflow on very complex projects where rendering a single frame can take up to several minutes, but for straight titles and color corrections it's okay.
R-Cole wrote:
Is the AE equivalant hitting the space bar and playing the timeline?
The green line refers to frames stored in RAM, the blue ones to the disk cache, should you use it. Read the help files on how to generate RAM previews to populate both caches. After you have RAM-previewed each segement of the timeline and use the disk cache, it may be possible to get realtime spacebar playback, but there is no guarantee for that. After all, AE is primarily foicused on compositing, not RT editing. There's one caveat, however. The disk cache will only be used, if AE thinks it could not render the frames quick enough, so in your simple scenario it may never be used. And of course specific chnages will invalidate caches, so you's have to re-render. It really depends.
Mylenium

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After Effect cs4 export and render issue

When I tried to render or export a video, After Effect(CS4)
become no respond and close,after that, my computer shut down too!
My computer:
Althon 64X 4600+
2GB DDR2 Ram
ATI HD5870 (500mb video Ram)
Windows 7 32 bit
Can anybody can slove this problem for me?

Mylenium asked very pertinent questions. I'll make some educated guesses, which may or may not apply.
First thing: 2 GB may seem like a ton of memory to you, but in AE-Land, it's NOTHING. You need to trick that machine of yours out with memory. On a 32-bit system, that would mean bringing it up to 4 GB.
If you're trying to use multiprocessing, turn it off and leave it off. On a 32-bit system, you'll never have enough memory to make multiprocessing work efficiently.
Trying to speed rendering by using Open GL acceleration? Turn that off, too.
Since you're on a 32-bit system, the most recent version of AE you can run is Version 9. Make sure it's fully updated.
But if you shot video on a DSLR, HDV Camera, XDCam or Flip Cam, you could still have problems. Since you can't be running AE 10, which pretty much solved the problem of long-gop footage, here's why:
Dave's Stock Answer #1:
If the footage you imported into AE is any kind of the following -- footage in an HDV acquisition codec, MPEG1, MPEG2, AVCHD, mp4, mts, m2t, H.261 or H.264 -- you need to convert it to a different codec.
These kinds of footage use temporal, or interframe compression. They have keyframes at regular intervals, containing complete frame information. However, the frames in between do NOT have complete information. Interframe codecs toss out duplicated information.
In order to maintain peak rendering efficiency, AE needs complete information for each and every frame. But because these kinds of footage contain only partial information, AE freaks out, resulting in a wide variety of problems.
I'm a Mac guy, so I like to convert to Quicktime movies in the Animation or PNG codecs; both are lossless. I'll use Apple's Compressor, Adobe Media Encoder or Quicktime Pro to do it.

I've question about " how to remove background on adobe after effect cs4 ! "

hey , how'r you Guys ! i hop everything is okay !
i've littel question !
i'd like to know , how i could remove " background " on adobe after effect cs4
or -
if i'd to download lattest version of " after effect "#cc
i'll found " tool " that's remove background !!
with select !" the body ?!
i hop you understand what i actually mean !
thank you all

Start here to learn After Effects:
http://adobe.ly/AE_basics
Fo through these resources in After Effects Help for an overview of compositing features:
http://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/compositing-transparency-overview-resources.htm l

After Effects CS4 question

Hi,
Is there a patch to install After Effects CS4 on an AMD Athlon 3200?
AE recognises the cpu as a powerpc and won't install.
Thank You,
John

No. The processor is simply too old and does not support the necessary SSE extensions.
Mylenium

After Effects CS4 and OMF / AAF

My project's sound editor who I recently brought on board asked me for an OMF or AAF file from my film (that I'm editing together using After Effects CS4). I exported the OMF file for a clip that was about 15 seconds and the file was > 1GB!
My questions:
1) Is this typical? Seems like the sound editor shouldn't need anything this massive.
2) I couldn't find any exporting tool for AAF - is there a plugin to do this? Is this a smaller net resultant file?
He said there should be plugins for After Effects to export the kind of thing he needs, so I'm pretty sure these are possible.

Hello, Scireja.
I think there is a very widespread but understandable confusion regarding the nature of two different kinds of OMF files.
From your description, it seems like you want to export an OMF exchange file, which is a common way to translate a video timeline into something you can take to a DAW application like Pro Tools for audio post, while keeping the audio edits as separate clips.
But the OMF export option in After Effects is for OMF essence files. These are video files, in the native wrapper Avid systems use when ingesting or capturing material. It's not a project with embeded clips, but just a video file.
After Effects can't export this kind of OMF exchage files directly. Premiere Pro does export such files, as this feature is more typical of editing applications. Please note that there could be good news: You have the ability to export an AE project as a Premiere Pro project, and once you have this converted project in PPro, you can then export it as an OMF exchange file.

Adobe After Effects CS4 Crashes After Reinstall

Hello Adobe Community,
I come to you asking for help, my After Effects CS4 stopped working after reinstalling Leopard, I already reinstalled my Suite and Runned the Clean Up Script and still not working, first I launch the App and shows me the following error: "After Effects has encountered an error: [/Chinchillada/pro/ext/adobe/MediaCore/MedialLayer/VideoFilterHost/Make/Mac/../../Src/AEP luginVideoFilterModule.cpp-107]" then I click continue and then it shows me another error: "After Effects can't continue: An Output contract violation has ocurred!" then it shows another error: "After Effects warning: Failed to initialize mediacore" then it shows this "After Effects warning: Media Core is not correctly initialized" then it launches and freezes and shows that the app quitted unexpectedly, I'm sure that the app is dead but I already reinstalled with no success.
Im Running:
Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.7
Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz
1 GB Ram
After Effects worked and runned perfectly Please Help!
Mike

Hi Mike,
Sorry you are experiencing problems with After Effects.
I have a couple of questions....
- did you install from a download, or a CD? if from a download, please download again, as their may have been issues
- did you update it to v 9.02?
- did you have a previous beta version on your computer?
- you said you reinstalled Leopard - did you do a clean install? (ie reformatting your harddrive and starting clean)
I have experienced issues on the mac with a variety of different applications is I do a 're-install" vs a clean install.
Finally, are you aware that the minimum RAM requirements for AE CS4 is2GB
So since you only have 1GB, it could be a RAM issue.
If you decided you want to try reinstalling before doing the more difficult task (reformatting Mac OS X with a clean install), I would run the cleanup script first, redownload, install, and then update.
Here's the link: <http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cs4clean.html>
good luck,
elaine

After Effects CS4 tips

People have asked for a document that includes all of the After Effects CS4 tips of the day. OK. Here it is.

Bob,
Please ask this question on the main After Effects forum:
http://forums.adobe.com/community/aftereffects_general_discussion
Hijacking a thread is confusing for other users, and it keeps you from getting an answer, because it means that almost no one will see your question.
If you start a thread in the main forum with your question as the subject line, people will actually see it.

*** Adobe Creative Suite 4 Now Shipping! After Effects CS4 New Features ***

Adobe have officially announced the upcoming Creative Suite 4 group of products, including
After Effects CS4,
CS4 Production Premium bundle, and
CS4 Master Collection.
After Effects CS4 Top New Features
b Live Adobe Photoshop 3D layers import
Import Adobe® Photoshop® 3D layers into Adobe After Effects® CS4, move them, animate cameras around them, adjust lighting, and composite them with other elements.
b Searchable timelines and projects and easier nested comp navigation
Locate any element in a comp or project with the new QuickSearch. Quickly navigate between nested comps with the new Mini-Flowchart.
b Compositions exported as layered projects
Export compositions as layered, XFL format projects that can be opened and edited in Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional software. Many After Effects assets such as text and Adobe Illustrator® artwork are preserved as vectors.
b Integrated workflow for mobile device authoring
Select devices in Adobe Device Central and automatically set up an After Effects project that targets those devices, with settings that match the targeted devices and the Render Queue setup to output to the proper codecs and resolutions.
b Numerous interface and workflow tweaks
Work more efficiently with dozens of user-requested changes, including the new Auto Resolution setting that only renders visible pixels when zooming in and out of a comp view, streamlined memory and multicore processing preferences, and more.
b Dynamic Link between Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Soundbooth
Using Adobe Creative Suite® 4 Production Premium software, now link Adobe Premiere® Pro sequences to an After Effects composition and After Effects comps to Adobe Soundbooth® with Adobe Dynamic Link.
b Independent keyframing of x, y, z values, plus 3D compositing improvements
Composite in 3D space more easily: Keyframe x, y, and z position values separately, and use the new unified camera, which makes the After Effects camera tool work more like those in 3D modeling applications.
b Cartoon effect
Instantly give live footage the look of cell animation. Stylize video by reducing the color palette of a clip and by emphasizing edges.
b Mocha for Adobe After Effects from Imagineer Systems
Use this powerful 2.5D planar tracking application from Imagineer Systems to track the motion of elements even in challenging shots where elements move offscreen or where there is motion blur or excessive grain.
b XMP metadata for asset intelligence
Now retain asset metadata while you work in After Effects. Add new project-, comp-, and layer-level metadata to streamline project tracking, and automate asset auditing and many other tasks.
Also note that
Adobe OnLocation, included in the CS4 Master Collection, Production Premium bundle, and with Premiere Pro, now runs natively in Mac OS X as well as Windows.
Adobe is offering some discounted upgrade incentive pricing for a limited time and/or pre-ordering. Some initial U.S. prices are as follows:
i Product___________________CS3 to CS4 Upgrade_______CS4 Full Purchase
After Effects CS3____________$299__________________$999
Production Premium CS3_______$599__________________$1699
Master Collection CS3_________$899__________________$2499
Please visit
www.adobe.com for accurate pricing, eligibility for upgrades and pre-orders in your region.
Click here to be notified when CS4 products are available for purchase and trial.

There's a list of the big new features in the
"New features in After Effects CS4" section of After Effects CS4 Help on the Web, and you can read about every little change to the UI in the
"User interface changes from After Effects CS3 to After Effects CS4" section.
But I thought that all of you who have posted requests to this wishlist might like to get specific responses to some of the items on this list.
First of all, though, I'd like to point out an innovative set of features that I think addresses a request that many of you have made... just not exactly as you asked for it. All of us have wanted a better way to see into and navigate among nested compositions (precompositions). The Composition Mini-Flowchart and Composition Navigator make moving around in a complex project much, much faster and easier. Telling you to see the
"Opening and navigating nested compositions" section isn't going to do this feature set justice. You'll only appreciate how slick this is when you get your hands on it.
Oh, and we reversed the behavior of double-clicking versus Option-double-clicking a precomposition layer: Now double-clicking opens the source composition in the Composition panel, not the precomposition layer in the Layer panel.
Now, on to the specific responses...
David Wigforss:
> I completely agree that the graph editor needs work....
> Position values need to be seperated into 3 distinct values that can
> be adjusted independant of each other.
Done.
See
"Separate dimensions of Position to animate components individually".
Mark Weiss:
> would like to see XDCam EX import capabilities.
Done.
See
"Supported import formats".
AndyClarke:
> all effects in 32 bit or float
Not quite all. But more are, including all of the 3D Channel effects, which is a category that really needed the upgrade.
See
"Effects and animation presets".
AndyClarke
> prob a really simple little thing but a 'centre anchor point' button could be handy?
Move layers so that their anchor points are in the center of the composition or view?
If so, then done. See the first tip on the
"Move layers in space" page.
silversurfer:
> An intra-project search function that displays properties of every layer.
Done.
See
"Search and filter in the Timeline, Project, and Effects & Presets panels".
(Plus, you can now use the shortcut FF to show instances of missing effects. See
"About effects".)
Thomas Craul:
> the possibility to expand all of the effects parameters in the effect controls window at once.
> just like when expanding all layer properties or all subfolders with strg+klick (little arrow).
Done.
See
"Shortcuts: showing properties in the Effect Controls panel".
Pietje Bel:
> I'd like to see some features I can use with my tablet (I got it for photoshop, though
> I use AE even more than I use photoshop).
We've had features for using the pen dynamics with the paint tools for a while. See
"Brushes and the Brushes panel".
That said, we've made some improvements under the hood that should make using a pen better (e.g., modifying the sensitivity during certain click and drag operations).
Darren McNeill:
> Simple, I would like After Effects to have the ability to extrude Text in 3d space.
> Nothing complicated, just be able to create 3d Text.
How about the ability to do this in Photoshop and then import the 3D object layer into After Effects?
See
"Using 3D object layers from Photoshop"
invisiblerabbit:
> Being able to specify how many processors to use in the multiprocessing preference pane.
Done. Plus other improvements in this area.
See
"Memory & Multiprocessing preferences".
invisiblerabbit:
> I'd love a setting either in the preferences or the output module to write project
> information (importantly: the name of the project) into the metadata of the rendered file.
Done. And then some. On steroids.
See
"XMP metadata in After Effects".
Navarro Parker:
> I'd love AE projects to be searchable. Having the ability to search for comp names or source footage
> names within projects from the Finder would be fantastic.
Done, as long as you have the means to search within XML files. The new XML project file format opens up a lot of scripting possibilities, too.
See
"About projects".
David Bogie:
> I humbly ask the Adobe After Effects team to concentrate first on fixing anything
> and everything that is broken or buggy before adding any more complexity to this application.
> Make it more elgant, make it easier to use, make it faster... sure, fine. But invest the
> creative energy and geek resources to making it work flawlessly instead of adding more stuff.
Though we did add "more stuff", we also spent a lot of time polishing the application this time. The number of small tweaks to address pain points was very large.
AndyClarke:
> I just don't like the help browser.
Better?
After Effects CS4 Help on the Web
Laurie Hogan:
> I got a simple one. Can AE have Spell Check.
AE Enhancers provides
a spelling checker script.
Laurie Hogan:
> Also Can there be more integration between AE and Apple FCP.
I give a link to a script from Dale Bradshaw on the
"Supported import formats" page (at the bottom of the page).

Quicktime X and After Effects CS4 - Unwanted Color / Gamma shift

Hello,
Upon the import of ANY video footage file into After Effects CS4, there is an immediate color (I am guessing a gamma shift) difference between how the video appears in Quicktime (both X and the older player) and how it appear in the After Effects composition window.
Footage appears to be darker in AE and lighter in quicktime, both before and after export. The gamma/color then appears roughly the same when being compressed via h.264 and uploaded to the web (the same in Safari, much darker via Firefox).
My main concern is simply getting AE's color to match Quicktime's so that I can have as close of a match between the color I think I have created in AE, and the actual color that appears in my final output to the web.
I have tried using all of the fixes to be found relating to gamma shifts via .h264, prores, etc. but nobody seems to have this problem with every codec, even animation. I have tried assigning color profiles in AE, matching quicktime legacy formats, etc. All of the options available in AE to no avail.
My monitor is calibrated fine, I am using Perian, All of the latest software updates. Any advice much appreciated!

Hi, thanks for the link. While helpful I am still having problems!
I tried using the method described with Automator to assign a color profile to a test Animation file, created from scratch in AE and rendered out as an Animation with no color management (previously it made no difference to the quicktime gamma shift as to if I had assigned a working color space or not within AE).
Automator only gives three color profile options, HD, SD, or PAL. I tried using HD as this is the size of video I normally work in (although I am also working in PAL), and ran Automator. I also tried using PAL and got identical results. It took about 30 seconds to finish and the result indeed looked much better in QT, and opened up in AE looking identical to a copy of the same .mov file with no color correction.
However, there is *still some change in the image quality as it appears in QT from how it (and the original) appears in AE*.
Original created / displayed in AE: What I am trying to maintain
Rendered out, Automator color profile HD assigned, and opened in QT: Gamma looks good but colors slightly more saturated than original in AE.
Rendered out with no color profile: Original problem with large gamma shift making everything bleached/washed out.
I have a screen shot I can show you to illustrate this here:
http://www.yousendit.com/download/THE0ek9xa0RxRTNIRGc9PQ
While the difference is subtle you can look at the RGB numbers and see the middle example is indeed more saturated.
Perhaps I need to use another color profile when working with the animation codec for animations created from scratch in AE to avoid this saturation shift, other than HD or PAL? Would you know of how to do this?
Also, would you know of how to change this, and perhaps a way of changing qucktime's interpretation rules for all animation files per se, so that I do not need to go through every .mov with the animation codec and assign profiles to them?
Many thanks for your time and sorry for being so long winded!

After Effects CS4 & Wacom Showstopper bug.

Hi! For more than one year I've being feeling that my machine was the slowest machine on Earth, so I spent a good deal of money on a new HP Z800 with a Quadro FX 5800 and 24GB of RAM with windows 7 64 and a set of SSD raid that gives me over 700MB per second, after install After Effects CS4 and try it, was awesome, such a good response and super fast, but.... after finish installing all the rest, AE was slow like on my previous 4 years old machine..... so something was wrong. To make the story short, was the Wacom driver, if I turn it off, all goes back to normal, turn it on and all goes slow, so far I was able to reproduce it on 7 machines, Win XP, Win XP 64, Vista 64, and Win 7 64, the all show the same problem, and all the machines are different. And the problem can be reproduced very easily. I've made a video showing how to reproduce it. This problem render the Wacom with AE as a non viable option for anyone. I've noticed this since about 12 months ago, but never thought is was a hardware / driver problem. Just thought AE was excruciatingly slow.
Here is the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KwzASwrnC0
Hope Adobe and Wacon recognize this problem and fix it as fast as possible,

Hello,
I'm using the trial of CS6 Production Premium, and After Effects CS6 has a terrible problem with the Wacom. After a video preview with audio or even just an audio preview, the Wacom will become very slow, almost like the computer is under insane processor load, but my CPU monitors don't seem to be doing much. I have a 24-core Dual-Xeon PC with 48GB memory and I am trying to make use of the multi-processor capability (it would be criminal if I couldn't use it).
The Wacom becomes slow with AFX and occasionally unresponsive. It makes it impossbile to work with AFX. I refuse to use a mouse, so that's out of the question. Also, this software should work with a Wacom like everything else does. I don't have this issue in any other program.
I've set AFX to use either 20 or 16 processors with .75GB memory per core. Seems this should work ok but the Wacom is being pummeled into submission, and that's a really bad problem if I can't even move my cursor. Makes me want to close down AFX ASAP, so I hope to find a fix.
I am using the latest Wacom driver and the trial for this software is only days old, so this problems should have been fixed by now according to this thread. I'm not too motivated to spend $1800 for this suite if I can't even use AFX with a Wacom, which is the main reason I'm after the Production Suite.
If I can't get this working I will probably just buy Vegas, even though Vegas is a big old crash monkey. No Wacom problems at all though.
Any ideas?
Also, anyone notice funny cursor behavior when typing in this forum? It seems to jump around on its own and this doesn't happen to me anywhere else. Could be a residual effect of the Wacom weirdness. This fields don't seem to like 'Shift+Enter' either.
Thanks,
Dan

After Effects CS4 - the 9.0 folder

One of the other users responded to one of my questions and I do not think the other people who were helping me have seen my response yet. (Since it is a holiday weekend in the states)
"Quit After Effects CS4, take the 9.0 folder located there and move it to your desktop. Restart After Effects and it will recreate the folders and files. Test the problem. If it's solved, trash the old folder. If the problem is not solved, you can quit After Effects and put your old preferences back."
I know I am being stupid, but where is the 9.0 folder? Which one is it again? Sorry, I know I know this, but I cannot remember at the moment and Google is not helping me.

Mylenium wrote:
Location of important Adobe-centric folders
Mylenium
Thanks Mylenium! I was actually able to figure it out. Duh is all I have to say to myself.
Now, I am trying to figure out what caused my original error in the first place so I can avoid it. hmmmm

After effects cs4 not working

Hello i am german and 14 years old so please be sorry for my bad english I have a question to after effects cs4! I installed the demoversio a half year ago but i never used it! Now i want to test it before i will buy the full-version! But if i start after effects it only says accept the lizens and then nothing happens!

You are not asking a design question. Please repost in the Premiere or After Effects forums.

After Effects CS4 & WebM/VP8 Compatibility

I'm trying to create animations for web-use and would like to have them work on mobile platforms as well, so I want to export After Effects projects to an HTML5 video format. WebM is the one I'd most like to use, as that is supported by most browsers, but also in H.264 for Safari users and Ogg Theora if that is possible as well. I don't see a way to export to any of those formats with After Effects CS4 and was wondering if anyone knew of a method to add that functionality, perhaps using a plugin or something like that.
If anyone knows of a method, let me know!

You're best bet is to go .mp4 for now and AE does support H.264 encoding. In fact CS4 is rather good at it. If you are using a Flash player then h.264 will cover all of your basic browsers. As far has HTML5 and WebM goes I would say to hold off, this is coming from experiance. HTML5 is not finalized yet and all of the browsers are implementing their own versions of it. So you end up having to make different files\formats for several different browsers anyway. Why not just contiune to use the Flash player and use .mp4s or .flvs for the time being? And to be honest .h264 looks better then WebM with all the tests we have currently done.
If you are worried about iPads\iPhones that's not really a big deal because they also support h.264.

Contact adobe re after effects cs4 license expired

hello,
does anybody know how to contact adobe via email about license expired?
I can no longer launch after effects cs4 due to license expired message.
I've tried the license repair tool several times. it didn't work.
I found an online live chat support on adobe website but it went silent after introducing ourselves.
I've tried the phone numbers on adobe website many many times, but I only get 45 minutes for lunch and this is not long enough to get through to anybody.
I get 6 complementary questions from customer support with my master collection license but I can't find a way of asking these questions.
Also its more than 90 days since i bought it so maybe I can't ask customer support anything?
I would like to revert to my cs4 license as I find after effects cs5 too unstable
thanks in advance
s

my question was if anybody knows if there is a way of contacting adobe via email about license expired?
Your reply was I must be using pirate software or I've fiddled with my system time and date.
I also wrote.
I can no longer launch after effects cs4 due to license expired message.
I've tried the license repair tool several times. it didn't work.
your reply
Adobe's licensing system is a little diva and quite messy - but just bashing it because you are one of the unlucky ones where it went belly up isn't helping in any way.
a simple statement "I can no longer launch after effects cs4 due to license expired message." is not "bashing it"
these forums are great. its a real shame you are on here Mylenium. Every comment I have had from you is condescending or worse.
Please don't reply to any of my posts

Which areas does Motion3 excel over After Effects CS4?

For those who use both, which types of activities would you choose Motion over After Effects CS4?
Which features in Motion are the strongest?

Great reading, Mark, thanks for the links.
I'd say:
1. AE rules with lights and shadows. (We figure this is coming eventually in Motion, has to.)
2. AE rules with the concept of nesting sequences.
I'm totally biased toward After Effects but I am slogging through Mark's instructional materials to get my Motion chops up to the point where I can take advantage of everything it has to offer.
If you have FCS, there's no question you need to become absolutely fluent with Motion. If you are planning on making a living in the motion graphics and special effects niches, there's no question you must be fluent with After Effects to be taken seriously. But you will find yourself using every tool at your disposal to satisfy the needs of your clients.
bogiesan

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