Pre-comp 3D Ray-Traced text quality

I've made some text in AE. It looks smooth and great until I pre-comp. Then it gets some aliasing around the edges and is nowhere near as smooth.
Text looks aliased in the pre-comps. If I click the 3D icon on my master comp, it becomes smooth in master comp. Unfortunately, I can't leave 3D checked on because I want to apply effects to the 3D text - hence, the pre-comps. Changing the ray-trace quality and anti-alias filter type does not appear to change anything for me.
Any suggestions?
AE CS6
Win 7 64
2GB GTX 560 Ti
16GB RAM
i7-2600k
Thanks,
JB

I'm not exactly sure what your comp looks like but here are some guidelines. If you want to use Ray Traced rendering then you cannot apply certain effects, blend modes and other things to the 3D layer. If you pre-compose and collapse transformations you should be able to then apply effects to the pre-comp and still see the 3D and move around the object with the camera. If you turn on the 3D switch for the pre-comp the effects will then go away and the edges will show aliasing.
The Collapse Transformations switch looks like a * and is just right of the shy icon.
If that doesn't solve your problem then we need to see a screenshot and maybe a flow chart of your project.

Similar Messages

Effects Don't work with Ray-Traced 3D?

Hello,
I'm working on a 3D logo for a company, and I'm trying to snaz what I have done with some effects, but the effects don't work. For example, I tried adding the CC Light Wipe Effect, but it will only show up when I switch back to the classic 3D renderer. Google searches aren't exaclty effective when I my serach quiere has "Effects" and After Effects" in it, so I'm forced to come here looking for the answer.
Are effects supported in this new renderer? If so, how do I get them to work?
Thanks

Pre-composing and then switching off Ray-traced rendering in the main comp gives you the ability to apply effects to the pre-comp. This may or may not work for your situation.
Another option is to pre-render your Ray-traced work and then apply effects to the footage. There's almost always something you can do if you think about it for a while.
Still another option is to put a 2D adjustment layer above your 3D Ray-traced layer and apply the effect there.

Why does my font/text change when I switch from Classic 3D to Ray traced 3D in After Effects?

My font/text changes when I switch from Classic 3D to Ray traced 3D. Why is it doing this? Also, I cant get the font/txt to look the same after I switch from Classic to Ray traced. How can I get it to look the same?

I am pretty new to After Effects so I hope it's not my inexperience that's causing the problem. (It probably is)
I just updated to the most current version of AE.
I am on a mac pro late 2013 12GB 6 core. Running OSX 10.9.4
Okay so after looking at it a little closer, I think the color is what mostly changes. The first screenshot is the what the text look like with Classic 3D and the second screenshot is what it looks like after I change it to Ray traced 3D. Also under the "Mode" section..the pull down that says "Normal" disappears. I'm wondering why the font color is changing?

Pre-comps loose Quality when putting them in parent Comps

Hi there!
I got quite a problem with my AE project and I really don't know what to do. I already Looked up the forum but didn´t find any useful help till now.
The Problem I got is that I am working on quite a big project and need to fit precomps into parent comps (most of the times through varios layers)
This time when I fit a precomp in it´s parent comp it looses quite a lot of quality. If I do this again (putting the hole thing in a new parent comp) it even looses more quality!
I checked all my compositions and all are set to full quality at 1920/1080. I am using raytraced 3D and fast draft for quick render, but when I RAM preview render my projekt with full quality it still shows big deficits and pixelation.
Here you got some screen shots, maybe they are helpful:
I hope someone can help me.
Thank you a lot in advance!
PS: Re: Precomp "losing" quality on the parent comp Already saw that post, but unfortunately it didn´t help me out/couldn´t understand what I have to do.

Hi there again.
The problems I got aren´t because of a specific Layer. The problem appears when putting one composition into another parent composition. The precomp I put inside the parent comp looses quality. The settings of both compositions are exactly the same and no draft mode ist selected. I am not zooming around or anything either. There are just 2 3D Objects on a 2D layer (and some other 2D stuff) Here I put now complete screeneshots:
The pic. above is my precomp. Quality and everything is fine and it looks like it should. Cool. Now when I take this composition and just put it into another composition with exactly the same settings, it should look exatly the same way (no zoom or anything , just drag and drop into another comp):
As you can see the quality is a lot worse then it should be (the sphere the iPhone etc.). I didnt change a layer or set a keyframe or zoom or anything and the parent comp has the same settings as the precomp. So it should show exactly the same. But for some reason it doesnt.
Now what I found out is that in the advanced comp settings I can put "preserve comp quality when nesting" so I do that. If I put now the composition into it´s parent comp then this happens:
Ok first things first: Quality is fine, so the most important problem is solved.
But what happens doesn´t really make sense for me. Despite the fact that both comps got exactly the same quality/framerate/pixel settings, when I put the precomp into the parent comp it is shown as if the precomp would be 4 times bigger (if I take now the parent comp also with "preserve quality when nested" into another comp the same happens).
It also messes around with a weird anchorpoint position and the comp "margins" are shown only in the upper left size of the layer (as if the layer would be much smaller then it really is). I dont know why this happens, but at least I can transform my (precomp-)layer normally and fit it into the composition, so that´s fine for me.
It´s more work when animating, but at least the quality stays the same.
Maybe someone knows a better solution?
Thank you already for your answers. I hope this is specific enough...

Problem with noise/artefacts in AE6 Ray Traced mode.

I'm having a problem with some kind or weird artefacts appearing on parts of an imported Illustrator layer. Here's the import procedure I'm using:
In AE6 I switch to Ray Traced 3D mode, then I make a new comp, add a camera, import my Illustrator file, drag it into the comp. Then I right-click on the Illustrator file in the comp and and select "create shapes from vector layer" then make the layer 3D. I can extrude etc. but for the sake of this post, I didn't do that. I get the artefact regardless.
Here's a cropped portion of my Illustrator file showing the problem:
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/74/linesc.jpg
Here's another screen-cap showing the problem from a different angle:
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/4757/lines2.jpg
The sample image is in full res and set to AE's "final quality" mode.
I've tried different setting for the render quality (the same image is set to 10), but it seem the higher the quality I set it to, the more obvious the artefacts become!
I've added no lighting or anything else to the scene, jut the camera and the AI file. I've also inspected the Illustrator file inside Illustrator and I cannot see anything at all that can be causing this problem. Is it perhaps an export setting problem in AI?
These lines only appear when I use the "create shapes from vector layer" option.

Thank you very much for your reply.
Could you please explain to me how to import the paths in the manner you describe? I'm not overly familiar with Illustrator, other than loading and saving artwork.
If it's any help, here is the Illustrator file as supplied to me: homepage.ntlworld.com/mike1962/cnet.ai
Thanks,
Mike.

AE CC2014 will not let me select individual/collective mask points, or boundaries on a pre comp and therefore moves the entire comp or scales (depending on where I've clicked obviously)

I'm working on a project that requires a similar style to the 'Criminal Minds Suspect Behaviour' titles. I'm precomping photos so that I can do edits in a separate comp but then placing those pre comps into a master composition where I will use the camera and masks to reveal the images in the required sequence. I am having an issue selecting mask points. It was working fine with no issues earlier today, but now I cannot select single or collective points of a mask nor a boundary of one either. What happens when I do try is that it just moves or scales the comp entirely and ultimately the mask is useless as I cannot animate it at all. Hope someone can help! I've reported it as a bug to Adobe but because I'm unaware of the process that causes it I'm worried they won't get back to me. Any help or troubleshooting tips would be amazing! Thank you in advance!

It sounds like you need to adjust the masks in the nested comps, but you're trying to do it in the main comp. Not good. Nothing happens. Do it in the nested comps.
And if you're doing that, it also sounds like spending some quality time here will be VERY helpful:
Getting started with After Effects (CS4, CS5, CS5.5, CS6, & CC)
It's better to learn AE from the Pros instead of a high school kid with sketchy AE knowledge on YouTube, y'know?

Pre-Comp with Collapse Transformation / Masking / Expression Controls / Etc

Is there an issue with Pre-Comps and with the Collapse Transformation enabled?
I have a Pre-comp that has various layer modes in it and in the main comp, the Pre-Comp has collapse transformation enabled to see the layer modes so the text can blend into the background (otherwise the text is just a flat color).
The pre-comp works completely fine until I add a mask to it or say a expression control and then all of a sudden the collapse transformation stops working and the text loses it's properties.
This cannot be working as intended...otherwise I can't do any sort of reveal with a mask with anything that is pre-composed and has any sort of blend modes within the pre-comp.
The pre-comp also loses it's collapse transformation if you even put a expression control on it.

Contrary to what you think it works as intended. Effects require rasterization as do masks. This is inherent how AE's render pipeline works. You need to restructure your project.
Mylenium

Pre-comp / pre-render workflow?

I've just submitted a feature request at : http://www.apple.com/feedback/motion.html
I wanted to find out if anyone has a workflow that works well for this. I have one but it can be tedious when working with complex animations.
In AE we have the concept of a pre-comp, or a pre-render. Basically you can take a bunch of layers and group them, and pre-render them. You can do the same thing in motion a couple different ways. Motion doesn't have pre-comps, but rather just groups. But you can't render the group within the .motn file. You have to take this group to another motn file, export it, then re-import the ProRes4444 .mov into the larger project. THEN, if you need to make any adjustments, you have to open the smaller motn file, make adjustments independent of the main project, re-export... reNAME export (since the larger project is -using- the media), then relink the media in the overall project.
I'm not an advanced user of AE, but I do understand the workflow and I think motion would benefit from a way to break down the layers into pre-renders, but in a much more straightforward way.
I do know that you can export a selection, and then choose to re-import to media after export, but then you end up with extra layers that you have to hide, and you still have to reimport that .mov and replace the layer you exported. Not very clean.
Additionally, when creating a sub-project, it makes sense to make it the best quality, so if you have something small as part of your project, and you export selection, it will be that same small size in a larger file format. For example, you have a tiny circle spinning in your HD project and you want to "pre-render" it. You export that layer and you have a .mov that's HD size, but your circle is a tiny portion of that .mov. So if you wanted to zoom in on it it would be super pixelated. So the right thing to do is export selection and have the layer autofill into the HD boundaries.
Do the advanced users work their complex projects like this too?...

David/Andy:
Really good points guys. I certainly am not saying Motion should be like AE. I am not starting a thread that is a comparison of the two. Each has it's own workflow, and Andy I think you bring up a really good point. I rarely use clones but they are a powerful tool in the right circumstance. I am curious about more complex design workflows and how some of us push the limits.
David, I agree with your point about keeping Motion simple. Apple is proficient at keeping their software/hardware simple. Software that serves one purpose, or devices that have only a few buttons. The elegance is what we all like.
Additionally, to your point Andy, we can do things withOUT precoming in Motion. Just keeping things in layers is good enough really. Like I said, I'm not really an AE user, but I do understand the concepts. I like the idea of a pre-rendered portion of the animation. Just seems to take the processor intensive portions out of creating complex animations. Moreover I think I am just wondering if I could create more complex animations WITH some of the design workflows that AE offers (like pre-rendering).
At the end of the day I feel like I can do SO much with Motion, and have wiggle room to play around more. I'm definitely excited about a new version of Motion, and to see what sort of new features make it in. Perhaps nodal workflows, perhaps more 3D design tools... we'll see.

3D ray tracing and nvidia ge force gtx 860M

Hi, I found these types of errors when I try to activate the 3D ray tracing for animations in AE CC 2014 trial:
after effects error: ray-traced 3D: initial shader compile failed (5070 :: 12)
after effects error: Ray-traced 3D: Can not create context for ray tracer (5070 :: 1)
after effects error: Ray-traced 3D: Out of page mapped memory for ray tracer.
Your proget may Exceed GPU limits. Try closing other applications.
try updating the CUDA driver (5070 :: 2)
I installed and updated drivers CUDA, I entered my video card in the list of compatible video cards, but I can not solve the problem.
Does anyone know how I can fix this?
Thanks in advance

Unfortunately I just need that setting, as required by a professor for a university course, is part of the examination program, has made its own lesson using that tool for animation of lights and shadows on planes and texts in 3D

Pre-Comp Solid Mode Question

I have a pre-comp that contains a white solid at the bottom of the pre-comp's layers.
I want to set the mode of the white solid to multiply so that it's hidden.
Since there is nothing below the white solid in the pre-comp, this doesn't work.
When I bring my pre-comp into my main comp, I can set the mode of the pre-comp to multiply, however there are text layers in my pre-comp who's colors get messed up.
I can not set the opacity of the white solid to 0 or turn off the layer since I'm using the solid to capture shadows from the text layers above it.
Is there any way to accomplish setting the white solid's mode to multiply within the pre-comp so that the white area is hidden?

Thanks David that worked.
However this solution has caused another problem.
Inside of my pre-comp I have a camera, a light, a 3d text layer and the white solid is also a 3d layer.
When I turned on the collapse transformation switch in my main comp, it seemed to shift the position of the 3d text layer off from where it was in my pre-comp (which is the same exact size as my main comp).
Anything I can do to help keep it from setting things off?

Really bad text quality,photoshop, is it pixel aspect ratio?

when doing dvd's i often use psd files for menus or title boards, quite often at 16x9, now the problem lies with the quality of the text in photoshop and when transferred to dvdsp. In photoshop with a 1024 x 576 sq pixel canvas the text looks crisp and sharp, however when transferred to dvdsp the text feels like it has gone through a verticle interlace, each letter is chopped up and shifted stretched and compressed. Going back to photoshop and making a 720x 576 comp with a widescreen pixel aspect ratio seems to do the same thing but this time in photoshop aswell. The text quality problem is not the usual dvd compression issue that is frequently discussed on these boards where text looks fuzzy, this looks much worse than fuzzy or jpeggy
Is there a standard, a combination of aspect ratio and canvas size in both photoshop and dvdsp? It is really frustrating.
Thanks in advance
Henry

My issue is particular to the crossover between photoshop and dvdsp, it may also be particular to pal dvd's and relating to the pixel aspect ratio, if you try and create a 720 x 576 document in photoshop with widescreen aspect ratio turned on and try adding text you will notice the issue. This also crosses over into dvdsp no matter what i do unless the image uses square pixels in p/shop the text is awful. I was really wondering if anyone else had found a combination of setups that avoid this wierd occurance in both programs.
The issue is not the standard 'my font looks bad on an apple display' issue which is often discussed on this forum, i understand that apple display resolutions are so far superior to standard def tv's that it is impossible to compare. The typesize on these projects are 24pt bold sans serif so well above the 18pt generally accepted standard and the canvas size is pixel perfect for pal resolution no images have been reduced or enlarged. The font looks almost illegible rather than just fuzzy.

? With Ray-traced 3D are animated mattes not possible....

Hallo,
With Ray-traced 3D are animated mattes not possible ( say this help function ).
But - library.creativecow.net/mize_rob/AE_Flame-Effects/1 by Rob Mize - theese animated
mattes work.
And what means a separately area to render in classic 3d renderer?
Simply, can you do the same as in classic only with some better possibilities?
thx a lot,
In german:
animierte Masken sollen nicht in ray traced funktionieren, in o.g. Projekt funktionieren diese aber..
Und was heißt "Sie könne Komps über den klassischen 3d renderer in einer separaten Umgebung rendern?
Mir ist unklar, ob die Einschränkungen für den ray traced für die gesamte Komposition gelten oder kann
man beides - für verschiedene Ebenen - abwechselnd einsetzen?
Vielen Dank
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7W-ipXwfajoV1VVbTBqSnpxMmM/edit

Hallo Mylenium,
vielen Dank für deine Antwort, deutsch ist mir schon ein bissschen lieber!
Was mich irritiert, ist , dass das Projekt von Rob Mize in ray-traced gerendert keine Veränderungen bringt.
Es funktioniert also alles wie vorher - ich meine die vielen animierten Masken -.
Eigentlich sollten die ja nicht mehr funktionieren....
Ich habe das auch mit eigene tests probiert , es läßt sich alles animieren und trotzdem die Vorteile von ray-traced
nutzen!?!
Du meinst, die zu animierenden Masken in einer separaten comp realisieren, rendern und später integrieren,
verstehe ich das richtig ? ! ?
Noch eine Frage: Was meint Adobe Hilfe mit folgendem:
Sie können comps weiterhin über den classic 3d renderer in einer separaten Umgebung rendern.
Was meinen die mit separater Umgebung, - das was du gepostet hast -?
Schön, dass es deutschsprachige hier gibt, echt cool
Nochmal danke schön für dein reply und noch einen schönen Sonntag

GTX 970 not supported? After Effects error: Ray-traced 3D: Initial shader compile failed ( 5070 :: 2 )

I am disappointed to find that my MSI GTX 970 is not supported for Ray-traced 3D in Adobe After Effects CC 2014.
My configuration:
Intel Core i7 4790k 4.4GHz
8GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM (Will be upgrading to 16GB soon)
MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G
Windows 8.1 Pro x64
GPU Specs:
Fast Draft:
Available
Texture Memory:
1562 MB
Ray-tracing:
CPU
(GPU not available - incompatible device or CUDA driver)
OpenGL
Vendor:
NVIDIA Corporation
Device:
GeForce GTX 970/PCIe/SSE2
Version:
2.1.2 NVIDIA 344.75
Total Memory:
3.81 GB
Shader Model:
4.0 or later
CUDA
Driver Version:
Devices:
Current Usable Memory:
Maximum Usable Memory:
I do have the option to "Enable untested, unsupported CPU for CUDA acceleration or ray-traced 3D renderer" but when I do enable it I get an error saying:
"After Effects error: Ray-traced 3D: Initial shader compile failed. ( 5070 :: 2 )"
then
"After Effects error: Ray-traced 3D: Cannot create context for ray tracer ( 5070 :: 2 )"
then another
"After Effects error: Ray-traced 3D: Out of paged mapped memory for ray tracer. Your project may exceed GPU limits. Try closing other applications. Try updating the CUDA driver. ( 5070 :: 2 )"
I have the most recent Nvidia driver. Anyway to fix this? Or am I going to have to wait for Adobe to support my GPU?

Hi LMn0P,
LMn0P wrote:
I'm hoping Adobe plans to at least recognize these cards one day soon so they don't show up unsupported. If anything I would expect the newer adobe software to work better with newer cards than it should with 5 year old quadro cards.
I know a situation like this can be very frustrating, sorry about that.
Unfortunately, the newer Maxwell NVIDIA GPUs ship without the OptiX Library and acceleration of ray-traced 3D compositions is dependent on that. Therefore, acceleration of these comps will not ever be supported with those GPUs. You may want to reinstall that Quadro card if you plan on doing a lot of ray-traced 3D work.
The After Effects team does recommend that you move forward with Cinema 4D Lite, as that is what is being tested and supported currently and going into the future.
Thanks,
Kevin

After effects CC 2014 transparency properties of pre comps, collapse transformation on, no longer keyframeable???!!!

Hey there,
lately I'm using After effects CC 2014. Now I had to make the experience, after optimizing (collapse transformation) the pre comp, the global property transparency is no longer working.
I can make keyframes but the pre comp acts like my easy ease keyframes are hold keyframes. Btw if the collapse transformation button is unchecked it works fine but than i don't have the optimization features. It's a catch 22. Sure, I can go into my pre comp and set the keyframes there, but this is pretty annoying and seriously not the way to work.
So is that a bug in CC 2014?
Help is needed.
Computer specs:
Mac osX 10.9.4
2 x 2,4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
32 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB
Thanks for any advice
Gwen

Layer styles render in a different order so lots of things can get fouled up with you use them. They are still usable in complex situations, you just have to apply them in the right place in your composite. I've never found a situation where I needed a Layer Style and another effect that I have not been able to work around the limitation.
There are other things that change the render order. After Effects only does one thing at a time. The basic render order is listed right in the timeline view. Here's a sample.
Basic effect with Layer Style turned off:
First Mask 1 is applied to the layer, then Mask 2 is subtracted creating the hole
Then Fast Blur is applied, then Bevil Edges to create the button with the soft edges
Then the Transform controls take over and the anchor point is evaluated, the position reported, then the scale, then the rotation, and finally the opacity
Then the Layer Style is applied.
In my button design I want to apply a stroke to the button so that I looks like this but with the soft base and a stroke on the inside hole:
But, as you can see I had to turn off the Fast Blur to get the stroke to work because the Layer Style Stroke is calculated from the alpha channel, which fast blur has made 76 pixels wide so with Fast Blur on I get this:
The solution to my problem is to pre-compose and add the layer style to the pre-comp, then use an adjustment layer with masks for the fast blur to get what I wanted in the first place:
So here's what AE is doing with the final project.
The background layer is rendered
The pre comp is added to the mix
Inside the pre-comp the layer is rendered
Mask 1 is added to give rounded corners
Mask 2 is subtracted to punch the hole
Layer styles are applied to add the stroke
Back in the main comp the pre-comp is rendered
Bevel Edges is applied to the pre-comp using the alpha chanel
Now the adjustment layer is added to the mix
Mask 1 is added and this limits the area in the underlying layers where effects applied to the adjustment layer will work
Mask 2 is subtracted from the adjustment layer poking a hole in the effects
The fast Blur is added blurring only the bottom edge of the button
There you have it. An in depth tutorial on the rendering order in AE and how to use nesting and pre-comps to reorder effects to get what you want.

AE CC Pre-Comp Issue

Please review the screen shots. As you can see the Comp preview in After Effects looks quite a bit different than what Media Encoder and Premiere Pro is displaying.
This seems to be related to pre-comping because if I pre-comp the layers in AE I get the same mis-alignment... Clealy I want to the alignment to stay intact.
Here is what it looks like in After Effects:
Side by side of After Effects and the preview of Media Encoder. Notice how the You are watching right edge does not align with the bottom box right edge in Media Encoder?
And finally how it appears when importing the After Effects project into Premiere Pro. Same issue as Media Encoder.
While the most obvious issue is the alignment of the boxes, there is also an issue with the over all size. The AE project was aligned striktly to Safe Margins, but that alignment is lost in Premiere.
The issue seems to be a pre-comp issue in AE becuase I can produce the same result if I pre-comp all the layers in the AE project.
I'd like to attach the AE project, but cannot seem to find a way to do this. If this is possible, please let me know how.
Thanks for any help.

You are not viewing the scene from the active camera view in After Effects.

Pre-comp 3D Ray-Traced text quality

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