transparent background

[dustinglasco]

i've been trying to make some titles for final cut pro using photoshop and aftereffects 5.0 on my pc. is there a way to either bring in my titles with a transparent background or make the background transparent in after effects? thanks

 

[mandark1011]

are your titles animated??
If not just create a channel in photoshop that has white for visible, and black for invisible.
Bring in both your images and make sure the alpha channel is directly above the image it goes with. then click the switches mode button at the bottom of the timeline to switch to matte mode and change the trk matte button until it works for your image.
If animated you need to create another animation that only contains the black/white information, then reference into after effects the same way as above. This is called a tracking matte if you need to use the help menu

 

[crasherkid]

i think this is relelvant to me.. i want a transparent background in aftereffects.. i have created all my composition.. just need teh background trasnparent. how do i do this?..

any help appreciaited.. thanx.

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

In Photoshop, you can easily make an alpha channel behind your titles. An alph achannel defines a certain quality about an image. In most cases, it defines which part of an image will appear transparent.

I have a short how-to at

http://www.petting-zoo.org/Dreamquest_Animation.html

When you bring your still into AE, AE will recognize the alpha channel and probably apply default transparency to it.

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[crasherkid]

my aftereffects file is made up of lots of layers from different files...


i am confused as how to make the alpha layer... if i want the entire background transparent... how can i select color range.. then delete the color range?


do i have to make the alpha layer on all of these or just one?

 

[crasherkid]

i have worked it out now

one more question..

which render options preserve transparency as i am having trouble outputing as transparent...

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

You want to export a video that contains a transparency channel?

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[crasherkid]

yeh i want to export it as avi... keeping the transparencey channel, which codec wud allow that?

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Um, I don't know of any codec that allows for a transparent component. Seeing as how there's no application that uses such a thing, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

If you're using After Effects and you want a bit of animated stuff (say, credits) to appear composited over some other piece of animated stuff (say, Mel Gibson doing something unmentionable with Carrottop), then you just animate it that way.

If you must do it separately, then simply precompose the first bit.

So, to answer your first question, if you're producing titles in Photoshop, then you are producing still images of one sort or another. In Photoshop, just leave the background blank of your credit image and import that layer from the PSD. It'll be transparent.

If you must export to some kind of file, then export to a file type that supports alpha channels (for example, PCT files) and After Effects will assume the alpha channel is for transparency.

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[crasherkid]

right, i'll tell u what im making..

im making sum animated logos for use in a club, my logos will be placed on top of another video.

my video has to have a transparent background so that the other video (that will be mixed in later live) can be seen underneath it.

is there anyway i can export my movie from aftereffects so i can get that to work?

martin

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Give them the *.AEP file and the raw footage files. If they're using AE, then they can put your logo over their video no problem. It's especially easy if you precompose the animation, such that they can't as easily screw with it.

If they're not using AE, then the best you can hope to do is export your video with a very obvious color (bright green, or bright blue, or just anythig that is very, very far from the logo) as a background and tell them to chromakey that color out. That's how I would do it.

I don't think there is a way to export a video with built-in transparency (or else no one would bother chromakeying!), but I might be wrong.

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[johnnytheboy]

What they do in the real world - ie cinema or TV - that requires graphics to be produced in one place and then composited somewhere else is export the sequence as either Targa, Tiff, or uncompressed AVI with alpha.

No codecs support 32 bit alpha as once you have COmpressed the DECompressed the footage any compossiting would be unuseably 'furry'.

The advantage of exporting an image sequence is that it can span mulitple CD's or DVD's for transport to the other desk.

Alternatively, if the other desk has AE, collect oll the footage togather and let them composite and render the final sequence...

Hope that helps

by the way, if they have real time colour keying facilities (eg the canopus DV Storm Card) then you could output your sequence with a really strong garish colour either green or blue are common where you want it to be transparent and they can use that colour to key on to they footage.

Cheers,
John

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

When I started doing this, I checked in at a new digital TV station down in Phoenix. They use PCT files -- compresses and maintains an alpha channel mask. Whatever works.

The idea of exporting with a garish color against which they can color key sounds nice, but I've never really seen a color key done super well for any but rather expensive projects. But it's been a while, so who knows?

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door