Adobe After Effects Help Thread
 

Like the long esteemed Karaoke help thread which has graced this forum for quite some time and has served many a typesetter well I thought it was about time that there was a AFX thread so those new to the black arts of AFX can learn from the masters.

Thread Guidelines

- No trolling about the rights and wrongs of using Adobe After Effects in fansubs (this includes the SSA typesetting vs AFX debate, the AFX kara is too flashy debate and the "you shouldn't use AFX to typeset if you don't have a legitimate license debate". If you wanna have a debate about it, take it to another thread. This thread is purely a question and answer thread.

- No trolling of other peoples work, if you wanna do that take it to another thread. If people are posting AVI's its because they want constructive critcism of their work so comments like "your AFX work sucks" doesnt help anyone.

- No asking where to get AFX. AFX is an expensive piece of software to which Adobe holds the intellectual copyright. So keep discussions of whether or not you have a legitimate license for AFX and the hows / why's of obtaining illegal copies off this forum.

(Note to Moderators : Feel free to ammend these guidelines as you feel appropriate)

To kick off this thread I have 2 questions

1) What guidance do people have about doing kara in AFX after you've used the import script.

2) How do you produce the glow effect that moves across the top of the text as seen in Initial D 4th Stage?

-gumbaloom

Guidance...
1 ) Find a good font, colors that match with the video/song...
2 ) Create a template for the sentences with the same effect
3 ) Don't put 15 effects on a layer for the sake of it...

Put a screenshot or a short movie clip when you say that...

if you mean the "blueish/redish horizontal stroke", it's a lensflare, a typical one: an anamorphic blue/red. Originally it was a consequence of anamorphic lenses but it has become a very common special effect to give a FILM look. ^^
Any decent lensflare plugin(i think even the integrated one might have it) has it.

As for karas:
(this is personal but here's my advice)
-Dont fill in the screen with crap, try to be as "well-merged" as you can.
-Dont use flashy effects such as sudden size changes.
-Try to add transitions.
-If possible try to match the bg colors, else find neutral tones.
-Be readable, a karaoke is meant to be read, not "watched", that means no funky "appearing kara"
-Continuing the previous line: use readable fonts, that means no ultra thin serifs, and no symbollic/runic fonts, these are horrible
-Very important: animated bitmap looks ugly 99% of the time, avoid it unless you really have something good.
-As shinji said, dont cascade effects too much, more than 2 effects will probably already be overkill for a single syllab
-Moving kara can be hard to read so try to keep it in a relatively fixed location
-Try to avoid overlapping bluntly with the original credits


Now as for technical tricks:
You can mix both ssa and afx for nice effects, although with a good import script(like shinji's), it might make less sense.

@shinji:
with your script there's a way not to have to remove spaces all the time, just edit the font, make space's width 0,
and in the ssa/ass replace all real spaces by unicode spaces of another kind, it works pretty well(I usually use the japanese fullwidth space)

deathwolf : in fact, I've gotten rid of this annoyance in my 0.72 version of my script, i just didn't update my website for now.

I use a new text animator and a null in order to change the spaces.

Better than changing the font ;).

http://www.shinjipierre.be/script/Sh...SA%20v0.72.jsx

In fact, this feature was already in v.0.7 ... It's just that I made my tutorial with the v0.65 one ^^.

hehe, nice.
Btw, your script is pretty well made^^
Puts my old to shame.(i barely had 1 timing style)

I have a problem with AFX...
I installed the program yesterday and I wanted to use shinjipierre's script but I have a problem, when I put my mouse on "File" I can't find the "Script" tab...Is there any way to fix it?

check which version you have, i dont think it was present before 6.5.
Also it might only be present in afx pro.

I have the new 7.0 AFX

i think in non-pro version of afx, the script function is disabled.

o.k thanks...i'll exchange it for the pro version tomorrow.

exchange?:)
joking, n/m

awesome, thanks zalas

This is something basic that most video editing people would/should know. Go look in the manual under 'Masks.' Other things you can do would be to create an alpha channel using some of the Channel filters or even just messing around with the Transfer settings.

Simple question to all of ye Adobe After Effects users out there. Do any of you use the CCCP with Adobe AFX or have had issues when the CCCP was installed with Adobe AFX? At the CCCP forums we have had a few strange posts about AFX simply not initializing if the CCCP was installed. However I myself even installed AFX and found no issues at all, which sort of lead the search for the problem to an end. Just looking to see how many, if anyone at all, can also use the CCCP and Adobe AFX without issues. Though I am guessing few if any Adobe AFX artists may use the CCCP.

For anyone that may have had these strange issues in the past there was a point when we believed the problem to be the absence of FFDShow VfW, though Adobe uses no VfW decoding whatsoever, there was one instance where adding the ffvfw allowed Adobe AFX to open. However since we could never truly reproduce the problem it is hard to say whether anything was truly broken at all, and more likely it was something else on that person's machine. Now however the latest CCCP includes ffvfw, so if you ever did want to use the CCCP and AFX it may work now. If you would like to try again please do and post on the CCCP forums (since I don't think we need to muddle up this nice thread n_n), or if you've had no issues whatsoever before please post.

So......I don't have to remove the spaces anymore?

Thats weird, I have used both 6.5 pro and 7.0 pro with CCCP with no issues...

no, you dont anymore, use the space control to change the space widths

This......this brings tears to me eyes. ;___;

ok, I made a music vide with windows movie maker, and it is pretty good. The length of the music video is about 4 minutes and 51 seconds. I want to put some cool fading effects on the music video with adobe after effects. Now help me, the only thing I know to do is that, I import the video, and make a new compostion. The drag the video to the composition, from there how would i make some cool fading effects, or transitions with adobe after effects on my music video? Please help me, I want to know how to use this software.

Give me a step by step guide, with pictures, thanks.

no one is gonna waste they time to do a pic , step by step on teaching u how to do that effect...

Try playing around with the opacity in the transform section of press "t" on ur text or layer

The thing is that, I don't even know how to use the software. I tried turturiols, but they seem to be kind of complicated to understand.

By the way are the compostion the layers.

If anyone can help me they can earn some reputation points.

Mr. Hawg, transitions can really explain itself as going to EFFECT->TRANSITONS-
and then picking a transition...thereafter configuring that transition.
And as of fades -like in fade in out and then you really dont need afx to do something like that--even to make it cool. I could do something like that within a speedy manner in aegisub.

--also not to be mean but afx is a complicated program and in my opinion you'd have to be crazy to make a guide on transitions with pictures just for rep points
which is basically free



-also on a sidenote go to:
EFFECTS
-transitions
---pick one of the transitions
-----and look through the settings it has and what it does to the text

its almost self explanitory except for some of the words maybe.

The thing is that I have one music video, and then I add it to the compositon one layer. When I play the video the frame rate is extremly slow, i think about 3.0/29.97, when playing. If I were to make a transition between to clips, how would I split the video, because putting the transition on the music video is going to make the whole music video fade. Can you split the video? This may help me a lttile, and I can make some progress, if so, how?

Also is there any way of speeding up the framerate to it's origional, when preview playing it.

It aint picture transition, it is video transition. I have this one video, where I want to split it into clips, them make some transitions between the clips, or some blending, like overlaying and stuff.

Pictures seem self explanatory, for simplicity, but video is kind of different for me.

First of all adobe after effects usually doesnt play in REALTIME but with preview feature u can make it play in real time.
I dont quite undertand what you mean by "split" the video. Could you tell me what
you mean by that please? be more specific as in cutting video into 2?

EDIT: if u want to split video into 2 i suggest using vdub or avisynth - Also using a transition like the "radial wipe" would be good to transist from one scene to the next via frame to frame --making it a video transition. Though i havent used a transition in quite a while since 6.0-.5 but i think if i remember right...put the transition effect on the video and make effect a expression and keyframe it into motion(not sure if that'd be completely right but somewhere close to it)

In windows movie maker, I am able to split the video, to make some transitions. Yes windows movie maker does have transitions, but it is limited on the effects and transitions. Can't Adobe after effects split or cut the video into clips, or atleast detect scenes?

nope it can't i dun think. It's not ment to cut and split video into clips-and cant' detect scenes. And for these reason's is why adobe after effects is very good because you have to choose to the extent of where, when something will happen.
-Adobe After effects is not a video editing. all it does is Add and subtract and move things around on video -- it cant manipulate it as a program like premiere or maybe even vdub.

yeah, after effects can't cut a video

and photoshop can't open a JPG

and winamp can't play mp3s...

Go read the manual. That's what it's there for... If you cannot understand the tutorials, then either 1) you aren't familiar enough with the program (just play around with it or consult the manual) or 2) you aren't ready to learn how to use AfterFX (try using some other, easier video editing tools first).

Adobe After Effects is a compositing/effects program used for video editing. Its purpose is more with filtering and advanced processing of video and excels at compositions across layers, whereas Adobe Premiere works better for compositions across time.

And as a side note, could we put some guidelines into this thread? The AnimeSuki forum community is not the best source for learning how to use After Effects, but if there's a specific question that someone has which does not have a straightforward answer, then one of the fansubbers who use AfterFX could help out. Turning this thread into a AfterFX free-for-all ends up with a lot of people asking questions for which answers could be found within a minute or two in the manual or on Google. I think this thread would be less noisy and more beneficial if the topic mostly centered around how to achieve a certain goal in the process of working on a fansub, because answers for those tend to be harder to find on Google, etc. and you can draw upon the knowledge pool of actual experts in that regard.

JPG CAN BE OPENED WITH PHOTOSHOPPN EVAUSE I SAID SO KKK NOO GG NO RE 1VS1 KK WAITING FOR YOU MY LOVER; TOMORROW!

Could someone translate what that person said ? O_o

Well, I think that (s)he couldn't see I was sarcastic earlier....

Probably not he said "JPG opens in photoshop cause i said so. KKK. something about you, shinji being his/her lover" - All i know is that yeah he said the first part.

Seriously? I thought he was being sarcastic in response to ShinjiPierre's sarcasm... I mean, how else could you take something like that? It can't possibly be serious... right?

Anyway, as for splitting the video, I think you could do edit -> Split Layer, which splits the video at that point into two layers. It still doesn't help for transitions much, though, since you'd have to then move the video on the new layer back a bit to be over top the first layer, and then apply the transition. It's basically just more work than it's worth. I can post a tutorial for doing it like this, if you want, but it would be so much easier to just get Adobe Premiere and use that.

Hi.


I had download shinjipierre's script for "After Effects 7" and i liked it!


and i saw his tutorial to do that and how to make some effects for karoake texts.


I want to ask one question!

Many subtitler groubs saying they used " After Effect + SSA + Virtual Dub " when they makes EP.

How they use After Effects, Virtual Dub and SSA in the same time?


I mean when i import SSA file and do some effects for it ( Texts ) and finishing all the works !!

What should i do now? should i save the file?

or doing some code to Avisynth file?



All what i want to say is :

what do subtitler do in the three programes?







I'm sorry for may bad English :heh:


Help me please.


Plue :)

I can't say that there's a universal process for it (and I'm sure someone could come on and say "why the heck would you do it that way?!"), but here's one very simplistic process that can work:

Filter (AviSynth, etc.) --> AE (render karaoke/signage) --> VitualDub/AviSynth (add .ssa/.ass script) --> Done! (encode)

Each --> represents a render; you'd use a lossless codec (like Huffyuv, etc.) until you get to the final step (when you'd convert to XViD/H.264/whatever). There are lots of tricks and shortcuts in this process, but I'd suggest that you should get comfortable with the full process first, as taking shortcuts can be risky. (For example, one efficiency can be rendering only the relevant AE segments (instead of the whole video) and then re-combining them at render-time (in AviSynth, etc.). Some encoders even pre-render and re-use OP sequences from episode to episode as they don't tend to change. But, both of these are a bit risky, so I wouldn't recommend it.)

Anyway, like I said, this is not the way, but it's at least one way to do it.

actually typically:
-the encoder does his own filter and gives clips of the part that need afx to the afx-person
-then that person either makes an overlay or a fully rendered clip(depending on the situation
-then the encoder merges in the rendered overlays/clips using avisynth
-finally in his avisynth script, the encoder adds the ass/ssa

You can of course do full renders but the colorspace conversions and time loss are too big.

Note: if you dont know how to render at all... then maybe you should try learning some afx before

In a title/credits case, one shouldn't use the filtered raw.

'cause adding the filters aftermaths will make them blend with the video even more.

I know people who do this. I also know groups who do what relentlessflame mentioned. Someone has to pay the CPU time price for the render. It's up to the encoder's own knowledge of AFX, the AFXer's preferences, etc. My own preference is to render things out myself. That way I can see if anything is off more easily and ensure that any splice work I do is solidly on the money.

I wish I could provide a good guide to using afx, but my own abilities are limited to simple typesetting/timing in signs/rendering out finished work.

Ok, how to merges it?

Create a RGBA clip with AE and use the overlay function in avisynth. If it's a full clip, the trim command is used.

CU,
lamer_de