H.264 Format in After Effects CC

I started making equalizers for my music in After Effects CC, and when I do CTRL + M, I go under Lossless and try to Format it as H.264, but it does not show. Is there anyway to help me with this or a link to a codec anywhere for this program? Please help me.

It's best to render a lossless file out of AE and then use the Adobe Media Encoder to make your h.264.
Alternatively, you could just load your AE comp in the Adobe Media Encoder.
Or, if you must, enable the option in the preferences to render as an h.264 out of AE, but they turned that option off by default for a reason.

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Problem converting WMV movie file to format Adobe After Effects can read...

Need HELP...
Trying to convert a windows WMV movie clip so that Adobe After Effects can read, as the Mac OSX version of After Effects does not like WMV.
Any help appreciated.
Max

i'm with the Captain's answer, Flip4Mac's Windows Media Components will allow you to work with the files directly in AE or other QT compliant application
but whilst the free player version will allow you to view the files, you'll need to pony up for at least the Player Pro version if you intend to transcode to another format (otherwise the copy will have a Flip4Mac watermark)

How do I "mask" or blurr out sections of movie clips saved in windows media format in After Effects

I was informed that I needed to use After Effects to "mask" or blurr out sections of movie clips saved in windows media format.
I have the movie clip in composition, I see the effects and presets drop box on the lower right.
How do I insert the text blocks to mask certain areas of the movie clip?
Thank you,
Preston

Getting started with After Effects (CS4, CS5, CS5.5, CS6, & CC) | After Effects region of interest
There's seriously nothing more to say. Watch some tutorials, read the help, learn the program.
Mylenium

H.264 Output Fails in After Effects and AME

I'm having the same problem - H.264 export crashes around the 1:03 mark every time. DNxHD is fine.
Dragging comps to Adobe Media Encoder and trying to render from there doesn't work either.
My CS6 install [last week] is on a brand new Dell Precision T7600 dual eight core machine with Windows 7.
It's ridiculous to say that we shouldn't render H.264 out of After Effects. Sometimes I render 50+ TV ads at at time from composition templates for delivery to a multitude of media outlets - each with slightly different specs.
Even if AME was a workaround, dragging all these comps over would be a crippling waste of time.
This is an Adobe problem and we've all wasted too much time troubleshooting and talking about it. PLEASE FIX.
Thank you.

What version of After Effects? CS6 with all current updates.
Have you installed the recent updates? Yes.
What operating system? Windows 7 Professional
What kind(s) of source footage? The test composition contains only text created in After Effects. Other test comps have included MTS, MOV, PSD, MP3, WAV, AIF files.
If you are getting error message(s), what is the full text of the error message(s)? After Effects error: Rendering error while writing to file "Q:\...\Test.mov". An output module failed. The file may be damaged or corrupted. (-1610153464)
What were you doing when the problem occurred? Sitting at my workstation with my fingers crossed looking hopelessly at the computer monitors.
Has this ever worked before? Yes. Worked flawlessly in all previous CS releases.
What other software are you running? Other software installed but not running at time of crash: Avid Media Composer 6.5.1, Sorenson Squeeze 8.1, Quicktime 7.5.5 [also didn't work on v7.6.9].
Do you have any third-party effects or codecs installed? Whatever Avid and Sorenson install.
Tell us about your computer hardware.: Dell T7600, Dual Eight Core XEON (E5-2665, 2.4GHz, 20M, 8 GT/s,Turbo+), 32GB, DDR3 RDIMM Memory, 1600MHz, ECC (8 x 4GB DIMMs), 2GB NVIDIA® Quadro® 4000, DUAL MON, 2DP & 1DVI, [1] 1TB system drive, [1] 12TB G-SPEED eS PRO.
Do you have any third-party I/O hardware (e.g., AJA, Matrox, Blackmagic, MOTU)? No.
Are you using OpenGL features in After Effects? Yes.
Does the problem only happen with your final output, RAM preview, or both? RAM previews work fine. Crashes occur while rendering to MOV w/H264 in both AE and AME.
Are you using Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing? Yes. But have tried disabling also.
What is the exact sequence of steps that you are taking? Open AE, create new composition, add some text layers, add some animated effects to the text layers, add comp to Render Queue or AME, select MOV with H264 codec.
Thanks in advance Ben.

Quicktime Codecs/Compressors and After Effects?

Hi,
I have AE CS4, updated.Win XP SP 3 and 560ti Nvidia.
I have a few questions regarding quicktime and after effects.
I mostly render using quicktime and photo-jpeg as the compressor.But in the timelapse I shot, it is not giving me precise colors and the final movie is low on contrast.
I tried animation codec, awesome but file size too large.I am rendering for stock footage where 1GB is maximum file size limit.
My questions:
1 - Will updating Quicktime update the compressor menu list under quicktime format in after effects render settings?Will updating also add new compressors, if any?
2 - Where does quicktime store encoders/compressors if installed on C drive?
3 - I saw many recommending DNxHD codec.I downloaded it.What next?Is it a quicktime compressor, i.e. to be used with quicktime as we use h.264, animation and photo-jpeg?
4 - How do I add DNxHD codec to After Effects for use in renders?
5 - Could you recommend the best lossless quicktime compressor which gives not so big file size as animation does?
Currently I see 11 compressors in format options under quicktime.Are there more?I have the latest k-lite codec pack installed if that matters.
Thank you.
Would be greatful if you can explain, it will help me get clear on this.
Thank you.And sorry if it is a very basic question.

Hi, thanks for the replies.
It is a timelapse footage and not animation file.I meant animation codec under quicktime format gives me the best results.I tried h.264 and photo-jpeg, but the final video looks flat and low on contrast.I have done some color grading and only animation and png renders it correctly.
But the problem is that the file size is pretty huge.I also see banding in photo-jpeg and h.264 renders.
I want to upload the timelapse to pond5 for sale.But photo-jpeg just gives me flat colors and flat contrast.
Can you suggest a compression that maintains colors plus gives a size under 1GB?
Photo-Jpeg render frame:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/42878955/1%20Photo%20-%20Jpeg.JPG
Animation render frame:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/42878955/2%20Animation.JPG
You can see how flat photo-jpeg looks.Also hasn't rendered the colors and contrast properly.
Along with this, can you help me install DNxHD codec?I downloaded it and it has 2 folders, Source and TestFrames.What next?

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.

Bringing Premiere Pro project into After Effects

I tried importing Premiere Pro projects to After Effects, but I only got the various files, not the timeline. I just watched a tutorial about Dynamic Link, but when I clicked Adobe Dynamic Link/New After Effects composition in Premiere, I got a layer that was all black, with no sound. I have CS3 Production Premium and Windows XP Media Center SP2.
Right now, I just want to keep what I edited in Premiere, but I get better quality video if I export it to H.264 MOV in After Effects than anything I've found in Premiere. I can't understand why that's so, but until I find something just as good in Premiere, I want to save everything in After Effects.

Create a project and a comp. Copy the timeline from Premiere Pro and paste it into the timeline of After Effects.

How to Render a TIFF image sequence with After Effects or Premiere

So I shot a timelapse in RAW using my D5200. Developed the images, imported into after effects to make a composition at 1080p 24fps, the clip is 15 seconds long. Then I rendered the clips a few ways and none of them are what I want:
I used the H.264 first, its just pixelated and blocky, doesn't retain a smooth resolution. H.264 output an MP4 that was 6.5 MB.
Then I tried lossless and it output an AVI which is awesome resolution but the file is 2 gigs! Not even VLC media player will play it smoothly without buffering.
Last I tried H.264 BluRay which output an M4V file which is 45 MB and I can't get it to play.
So now I'm here asking you all what the way to go is. When I download films, I will aim for a 1-2 gig 720p or 1080p file on roughly 2hr films. The resolution is great, the audio is great and the file like I said is only 1.5gigs average. So what are the rendering settings I should be using to get a file like this? Should I be importing it into Premiere Pro first or what?
-Thanks
Bruno
For Reference, here was my workflow:
I generally followed an Adorama Rich Harrington Time-Lapse youtube video on workflow which was:
Developed the Raw files in Camera Raw
Used the Image Processor to create the Tif files
Imported into After Effects as a TIF sequence
Interpreted the sequence as 24fps
Changed the Composition settings to 1080p 24fps
Then did the rendering as detailed above

1. You don't need to export your TIFF sequence so as to import it into After Effects, you can import RAW image sequence into After Effects directly. Camera RAW will start automatically on importing. What is more, you will be able to change your Camera RAW settings at any time you want inside your AE project: in Project panel select your RAW image sequence, right-click, choose Interpret Footage -> Main... In the dialog box click More Options... button (at bottom left), and Camera RAW opens.
2. Do NOT export to H.264 out of After Effects directly. If you need to export your composition to H.264, export it out of Adobe Media Encoder. Start from HDTV preset. If your goal is to upload your media file on e.g. YouTube, done. If you want to play it back on your computer, but your mediaplayer can't playback it in real time, start to decrease bitrate settings. Keep in mind that modern AVCHD cameras shoot with 28 Mbps, first AVCHD camcorders were shooting with 17 Mbps, YouTube preset in Adobe Media Encoder sets bitrate to 10 Mbps, Vimeo preset - to 8 Mbps.
Choose VBR, 2 Pass so as to benefit from better quality out of smaller file size.
See this The Video Road blogpost on Understanding Colour Processing and benefits of Render at Maximum Depth option.
3. If you're planning to use your After Effects composition in Premiere Pro project, you can use Adobe Dynamic Link. If your After Effects composition is quite complex, render a Digital Intermediate out of After Effects and import it into Premiere Pro. See this discissuon in AE Forum on some production codecs comparison.
P.S. See also this FAQ: What are the best export settings? entry.

Dynamic link after effects and adobe media encoder

Hello,
I recently downloaded After Effects cc (yesterday). I am running a mac pro with OSX 10.9.3 2.3 ghz intel core i7 with 16 gb 1600 MHz DDR3.
On previous versions of AE I was able to render straight out of AE, I know this is not the case with CC anymore. I am trying to use AME to export however I am having issues.
When I try to send to AME from the Composition tab in AE it looks like it is doing something and then nothing happens. I then opened AME separately and tried to "add after effects comp" from the file menu in AME the error message displayed was "Could not connect to Adobe After effects. Please verify that Adobe After effects and Adobe Dynamic link components are installed".
I have also tried to drag and drop my composition directly from AE to AME and the following message appears "Dynamic link error - Source is empty"
I have read a multitude of threads on this issue and this is definitely not a firewall issue. Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated.

> On previous versions of AE I was able to render straight out of AE, I know this is not the case with CC anymore.
Why do you think that? You can still use the render queue in After Effects to render and export directly out of After Effects.
That said, there are some formats that Adobe Media Encoder handles better.
> and this is definitely not a firewall issue
How have you determined that?
Does exporting to QuickTime (.mov) format from After Effects work? How about the 3D Camera Tracker and Warp Stabilizer effects? The reason that I ask about these is that they use the same communication mechanism that Dynamic Link does, so if they also fail, then it tells us something about where the problem is.

Rendering after effects CC

Как в этой версии можно сжать видео, если раньше можно было сохранять в мр4 / h264.
Возможно ли в after effects CC так же сжать проект/видео??
http://vk.com/mail?act=show&id=2983

After Effects has never been very good at creating H.264 video. It is better to render to a high-quality codec like Cineform, DNxHD, or Quicktime with the PNG codec and then use the Adobe Media Encoder to make your H.264 file. Or, if you prefer, just put your After Effects composition in the Adobe Media Encoder to make the h.264 and do not bother with rendering in After Effects at all.
The Adobe Media Encoder can do multipass encoding and After Effects can not.
That is why the Adobe team took the option to render as an h.264 out of After Effects. However, you can put it back in by going into the preferences.

Horrible final video quality in After Effects CS6 when rendering a 1920x1080 video with H.264 format

I've been using After Effects CS6 on my Macbook Pro for over a year now with no issues. However, today when I exported a video to be rendered in 1920x1080p with H.264 format, I got the worst quality final video I've ever seen. I filmed my video files in 1920x1080p (like usual), and I clicked all the same buttons I normally do to export a video, but every HQ video I try to export looks horrible. I haven't clicked any crazy buttons or anything out of the ordinary.
I always export a video following this sequence:
File > Export > Add to Render Queue > Lossless > H.264 (quality format) > video output (make sure it's checked) > audio output (make sure it's checked) > OK > Output to Desktop
My render settings are always set as "best settings" including "full" resolution and "best" quality.
Now, when I click H.264, a "settings mismatch" pops up and says:
"Warning: Output file will be resized from 1920x1080 (1.00 PAR) to 320x1080 (6.00 PAR) to meet format constraints"
The rendering quality and playback quality within After Effects is great, but once the video is exported, it is horrible.
PLEASE HELP?! I have deadlines I need to meet!

Use the H.264 encoding presets in Adobe Media Encoder.
The H.264 export features in After Effects have been removed in later versions because of numerous problems.

After Effects crash message "A copy of your project was saved at" when rendering 32bpc in H.264, "Vid rate ratios min, max:1,1"

So, I'm rendering out an audio visualization for my portfolio in .mov with the H.264 or any other compression but the thing is, After Effects keeps crashing.
I get the following error message and crash log:
I have absolutely no idea what is going on. I even attempt to trim the work area (pardon me if I get the terminology wrong because I taught myself After Effects many years ago) and render just that selection of the composition to see if it's a problem spot and I get this message.
I'm currently using a 2011 Macbook Pro with OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.5, have 16GB of RAM, an AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics card with 1024 MB VRAM, enabled Multiprocessing in the Preferences, and am using the 2014 CC upgrade. If I can't sort this out, I'm downgrading to CS6 until this bugged is addressed.
Please help, I'm so confused here and relatively new to this whole debugging and attempting to correct problems area! I'm so lost right now and frustrated at my project that I just want this render to be done. And yes, I attempted to use the Adobe Media Encoder and got sloppy results. My color profile in the project is set to 32bpc as per Trapcode and Glows look so much more vibrant and gets rid of banding. But rendering in H.264 in the encoder itself by dragging the composition itself in there makes the glows extremely yellow and ugly with the rest of the composition not even showing up but as black video instead. I don't understand.

So I know this sounds really dumb, and thanks for getting back to me, but an intermediate format like Apple Intermediate is what you're talking about? Or is it something else? Under any of the video codecs, and no matter which one I use, it crashes. I can try and try again but I feel like this project will never get rendered and will forever stay on my desktop.

After Effects CC 2014 - removal of H.264, MPEG-2, WMV, FLV, F4V, and SWF exporters - WHY !?

While reading the features of AfterEffects CC2014, I noticed the following:
"removal of H.264, MPEG-2, WMV, FLV, F4V, and SWF exporters from After Effects"
THAT IS IS REDICULOUS!!
NO FLV !?!?
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT USERS TO IMPORT INTO FLASH ??
IF no FLV export is available under After Effects CC 2014, there is NO WAY to EMBED an flv into flash !! (Linking is NOT always what is wanted!!)
NO H264 !?!?!
HAVE YOU GONE CRAZY ?!!?!?
YOU BREAK WORKFLOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THAT IS REDICULOUS!!!
Any chance of restoring such features so that it makes updating to it worthwhile ?

To date I've primarily been a Photoshop user and have dealt with years of mystifying UX and workflow changes, features that are useless to me added, and critical ones taken away (I'm looking at you Bridge, you worthless piece of garbage). Then, to add insult to injury, Adobe forum mods telling me I'm doing it wrong and should be jumping through more hoops to achieve the same results. Now, with AE becoming a bigger part of my work, I am sad to find, that the same culture of disconnected arrogance and myopia prevails on the AE dev team.
"Oh um user, you really want to be going through AME, because um technically speaking there have been many problems with the H.264 and MPEG-2 exporters in After Effects"
Oh really? Tell me more about my job. Tell me about my experiences exporting these formats directly from AE. Tell me how my client views my content, is it on a Mac, or a PC? Maybe it's on his phone, or her iPad. What kind of phone is it though? Tell me at what point in my process it's ideal to render. Tell me about other tasks I'm performing. Tell me about the resolution and the bit-rate my files should play at. Tell me the final application I will be using the footage. Probably broadcast right? Or is it web? Or is it PowerPoint? Wait, what if there is no final output? What if it's just pre-vis for some other application?
Tell me how to win over my clients; what's the correct method of presentation to engage them most impactfully? Tell me about how much time I have to render massive video files. Is it more time efficient due to the nature of my composite to render once because my file is super shallow and will render quickly or is it more efficient to render twice because my file is extremely complex with hundreds of layers?
That the deprecated formats were hidden away in the preferences menu is dumb and annoying. That this same preference would then be removed is despicable and petty and is further confirmation that Adobe has contempt for me as a user.

After Effects CS4 and converting to a lossless format

I posted in the Adobe Premiere forums about an issue I was having with my renders. If you want to read it then you can check it out with the url below.
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2622969#2622969
What I have figured out is that After Effects does not like my AVCHD files I get from my camera. (They are h.264 in an ,m2ts file type and not mp4)
The issue is that I get "echos" or skips when I render something in After Effects or render with Media Encoder via dynamic link and Premiere Pro CS4.
What I am not familar with is the types of files that many of you who are more expereinced than I am use for After Effects when you need to convert to a lossless format (or one as close as you can get to being "lossless."
I was wondering if someone could recommend the kinds of files I should be converting to and if you have a good method of converting them. Not that I want people to discuss other software here, but if you do not use Adobe programs to convert, then what kinds of files do you convert to?
In other words, where do you recommend I begin reading or researching this because a lot of companies sell conversion programs. I currently have one that I paid for but it does not do the job I need it to do for HD. I would like to keep it as close to HD quality as possible.
FYI I generally will do video work with some effects and green screen work in After Effects. My output is video. If you have any other questions about my process, then please do not hesitate to ask me. Other than that, I appreicate anyone's guidance.

Yeah, AE does not like video files with interframe compression. It processes video in a completely different way than a non-linear editing program like Premiere does. My friend Dave LaRonde from the friendly forums at CreativeCOW.net explains it this way:
If the footage you imported into AE is any kind of the following -- footage in an HDV acquisition codec, MPEG1, MPEG2, mp4, 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.
You have experienced this delightful problem for yourself.
There are several different file formats that people use. Uncompressed AVI is one as is Quicktime with the animation codec. However, lately folks seem to prefer Quicktime with the PNG codec (not a PNG sequence). It produces a significantly smaller file size, but is still effectively lossless.
You can use the Adobe Media Encoder to export it out of Premiere to use in AE.

After Effects Render H.264 Warning

Hello,
I am trying to build an animation for an airport signage display. Here are the specs 3240 x 3840 Resolution, 10 secs, must be a H.264 MOV file.
I built everything in After Effects and go to render. When I select the H.264 Render option I get a warning on the box in the bottom left corner that says "Warning: Ouput file will be resized from 3240 x 3840 (1.00 PAR) to 3240 x 2360 (0.97 PAR to meet format contrains.)
How can I render at H.264 and keep the resolution the same?

3240 x 3840 exceeds the maximum data rate allowable by H.264 at Level 5.1. After Effects is resizing your rendered comp to fit it into the allowable size.
H.264 limits the frame size and the frame rate you can use. Higher levels allow higher limits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Levels
You won't be able to create a video frame larger than 9,437,184 pixels (4096×2304 or another rectangle of equal area) with After Effects or Adobe Media Encoder. It's possible that another app may allow it, but there's no guarantee that such a file will play back correctly. I just skimmed the ITU-T H.264 white paper (see Appendix A.3), and there's not currently an allowance for higher levels in that format. It appears that H.265/HEVC allows higher levels.
You will need to use a different format. Are you sure that the playback device will accept a frame that large?

H.264 Format in After Effects CC

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