Some more cutout stuff

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:23 pm

http://www.enigmation.de/saints.html
As I already wrote here http://www.enigmation.de/, stuff like this tends to look like Terry Gilliam's work.

You will not notice in this small resolution, but I found some glitch in PNG handling again. I separated some eyes as rectangular PNGs as fodder for a switch layer (blinks). They all show a clearly visible bright border around the image.

All other images are OK, I assume it's because I cut them all out in Photoshop with a 1px soft border. The original resolution is HDTV 1080p.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:49 pm

Very nice!

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:06 am

I am an enormous Terry Gilliam fan, so I just loved it to bits, let me know when more is posted.

Using a soft border might be exacerbating the problem, however AS has some issues with anti-aliasing which has been documented on many threads here, and I have encountered issues with my own files. Everyone keeps suggesting rendering twice the intended resolution and then rezing down...well when your final output is 1080 HD (US), the problem doesn't smear away with pixellation as the workaround intends.

Working on a short right now at 1080 HD, I quickly discovered the drawback to this new TV standard (US). EVERYTHING SHOWS. You can't hide anything or shrug off little imperfections in your backgrounds because these ultra high resolution TV's show EVERYTHING. (of course that's IF my stuff ever makes it to TV)

The other thing that kills me is you have no idea how to manage color or luminosity because from LCD, to Plasma, Projection...they have different luma/contrast levels. I have no idea how my work will look playing on someone else's TV.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:00 am

The other thing that kills me is you have no idea how to manage color or luminosity because from LCD, to Plasma, Projection...they have different luma/contrast levels. I have no idea how my work will look playing on someone else's TV.

Only testing helps. I don't even know if well-known restrictions like "use NTSC-safe colours only" still apply in this age of digital formats and LCD screens. From my experience you are pretty safe as long as you avoid totally saturated RGB colours (pure red, blue, or green at 100%). If you deliver your finished film to a postpro facility it is an easy task for them to convert your video track to appropriate colours, if necessary.

spoooze! · Post by **spoooze!** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 3:37 pm

I like it! It's a little fast for me though. Any way you can slow it down a bit?

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 3:43 pm

It's just a showreel scene, not a real project, I want it to get me a certain job. Normally this would heavily rely on dialogue, think Jib-Jab and the like.

BTW, I noticed that setting the default interpolation to linear helps to get a more jerkier look of the movements.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:24 pm

Strange about the PNG issue. I just did a pretty extensive cutout character animation to HD. I used PNG for everything. Had a head with layered transparent PNG for the mouths, hands arms etc and didn't notice[/] any "fringes"... although... I should go look at it more closely now to be sure.

-vern

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:41 pm

Here's a 1:1 example of that glitch:

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:25 pm

I just tried it and it rendered correctly in ASP6. Must be how you set up your transparency and file saving settings. Here's some stuff:

PNG with 1px border at 49%:
http://www.joelcardinal.com/ASP/1pxSoftBorder.png

Here is a screen capture of my Photoshop layers:

Below applies to Photoshop CS:

To save correctly you have to go to File/Save for Web...select PNG 24 and check transparency.

If you just try to save as a PNG file with File/Save as..., it will not use your alpha channel.

Also, in looking at my screen capture you'll notice I'm not using Alpha Channels. Your image must be on a layer, not the background, don't use the flattened background at all, delete that layer. Set up two copies of your image, each its own layer. Delete 1px all the way around the top layer. Take down the transparency of the bottom layer. Now you'll see the checker pattern meaning transparent. Then go Save for Web.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:48 am

Uhm, I think you got mw wrong somewhere.

The "eyes" PNGs are solid rectangles without any transparency, which I expect to show no border of any kind in AS.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:18 pm

Could you explain, "1px soft border."

rogermate · Post by **rogermate** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 4:51 pm

slowtiger wrote:Uhm, I think you got mw wrong somewhere.

The "eyes" PNGs are solid rectangles without any transparency, which I expect to show no border of any kind in AS.

Just a thought...

Was you're selection feathered in any way? If it is a hard cut out of an image and replaced exactly, then there should be no seam.

But, if the cutout was feathered it could leave a highlight, especially if a white background is showing through. I don't know about Photoshop, but Gimp has a checkbox which for "feather edges" which is in some circumstances set by default, such as when you define certain selections.
I think, at least with the Gimp, that even though nothing about Transparency or Alpha Channel is selected by the user, that Gimp sometimes does it anyway when certain types of Selections are made.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:23 am

just did a test and was able to produce those "edges". They were so very very subtle I could barely see them unless I zoomed way in or scaled the layer to a huge amount. They are there. It's a thin "dark" hairline "edge" though... not a "white" border.

A soft fuzzy transparency around the edges would hide the borders completely. Just don't use completely "hard" edges if you need to composite the image layers would be my suggestion.

Even a very very subtle tiny soft edge blur on the edge transparency works.

OOPS!

I take this back. The "edge" is where the image transparency overlaps slightly. It gets "darker" or "lighter" depending on the overall value of the image I think. So a soft edge transparency just creates a soft edge "edge" that is harder to see.

Usually this might not be visible depending on the type of image and the size of the blurred transparency. It IS happening in other images even on the project I just did... but since I had a "busy" image with soft edges it wasn't as noticeable.

-vern

dm · Post by dm » Sun Jul 26, 2009 5:54 am

Blue wrote:Could you explain, "1px soft border."

In Photoshop: draw a marquee, choose "select>modify>feather" (or select>refine edge...)

What Photoshop does is to make a gradient edge on either side of the selection mask. It goes from black to white to black (white being the marquee area). Because of this, if you cut and paste the selected area, even in Photoshop, you get an 'outline' around the selected area.

This happens because Photoshop calculates transparency by masking each color layer. If you think about it, the math of computer color makes each color channel be something between black and white. "clear" doesn't fall into that realm, mathematically. 0=black 1=white, 0=black 255=white, etc. So, even without an official alpha channel, you still end up with a 'virtual' alpha channel built in to every color channel. This 'clear alpha' is only supported in certain file formats (like png). Otherwise, it's discarded, and becomes white in your final image.

A way around this outline is to leave some overlap on the images. If you have to have a cut out space at all, it's probably best to select the area you need, copy it, and make it a new file. Next, contract the selection in the original image by [at least] 3x your 'feathered' value, then delete that area and save. Does that make sense?

If you can deal with math, you might look up the math of different types of compositing (overlay, screen, etc.). It makes it a lot easier to understand what's going on and why.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 6:11 am

That's a great verbal description of feathering and alphas! Sometimes I have a hard time verbalizing visuals. However, I'm quite familiar with PS and alpha channels, I was asking Slowtiger what HE meant by 1px soft edge. I just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing. Rock on!