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tornadofeet
Participant
December 25, 2013
Answered

After Effects: Why does my background revert to black when I export?

  • December 25, 2013
  • 14 replies
  • 158940 views

For a recent project, I chose a deep red background, but when I exported it, it was black!

Thanks for any help.

    Correct answer Todd_Kopriva

    If you want a background of a specific color, create a solid-color layer of that color and make it your bottom-most layer.

    14 replies

    V
    Voyasart
    Participant
    December 3, 2022

    Hi everyone!

     

    I have a solution that may help you. If you precompose and then add a solid layer with the background colour of your choice as the bottom layer, it should work.

    Its explained in this short vid here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew2alobDsNs

     

    I hope this helps someone out.

    S
    seank47951705
    Participating Frequently
    May 10, 2022

     Just chiming in here to say that THIS STILL ISN'T FIXED!  God, I HATE adobe products!

      T
      Tyrosine25
      Participant
      December 15, 2021

      If you want solid background color, export as png sequence, and set like this. The most important to do "Channels: RGB; Color: Matted" to keep comp background color and don't need any solids to create. After exported just render sequence as video in AME 

      christinaa1343794
      christinaa1343794
      Participant
      September 2, 2021

      Update: Sept 2021:

      Adding a rectangle (not a solid) at the bottom of the layer stack set to whatever color, then Export>Add to Adobe Media Encoder -- solves the problem. Adobe should fix this. 

      S
      styn1587
      Participant
      November 7, 2021

      Same problem, i had a clip where i used a Simple choker and fast box blur so couldn't just put a background rectangle or something like that. Rendered out the clip with Alpha Channel and then imported that into new poroject with same BG color i wanted for the project, it worked.

       

      Please fix the problem Adobe...

      I
      inaha72208859
      Participant
      June 8, 2021

      Just going to update everyone that it hasn't been fixed (: 

      Been rendering to AME and 25 renders later, it's still black, the BG. Welp

        D
        design@getboldmarketing
        Participant
        June 8, 2021

        Same...what's weird is that it rendered my background yesterday, but won't do it today. Is it my render settings? I just want a draft...This is so frustrating. I could be done with this project except for the fact that it take a bajillion hours to render one time...and then when it's finished you find out it's wrong. Waste of my life.

          YannisWS
          YannisWS
          Known Participant
          March 25, 2021

          Almost 10 years later and it seems like nothing has changed ... Situations like this really makes me wonder how this program is industry standard. And this is just one of the 10+ problems I ran into for 1 simple project. Such terrible UX and so many backwards unexplained little surprises for me to discover. Wonderful

           

          Also, why am I unable to post this reply? When trying to post I get this ridiculous message about spam??? Haven't said a word on here in ages and you want me to wait 10h before I can post something? What?

            A
            Anonymous
            September 6, 2020

            thanksss omg

            J
            jeffTheValveGuy
            Participant
            April 6, 2020

            Make sure you increase the opacity to 100.... I was going crazy with a white background then I added a white layer with no change... then I changed my background color to expose the fact that the new shape layer was set to 0% opacity. I guess that's the default... changed that to 100% and it worked fine. still curious as to why it doesn't just honor what you have set in Ae... just make transparent an OPTION for those who want it.

            J
            judyl50412176
            Participating Frequently
            November 19, 2019

            I ran into the same problem, and this is what I found - 

            If exported via the 'Add to Render Que' command (which usually outputs in .AVI format in the 2019 or later versions), the output will show the preset background color.

            If exported via Media Encoder (i.e., using 'Add to Adobe Media Encoder Que'),  which gives us more render setting options, the output will not include the background color. In this case, we will unfortunately need to create a separate solid color as the bottom layer in order to show the color. 

              PGH4LYF
              PGH4LYF
              Participating Frequently
              August 29, 2018

              It's ridiculous. I'm sick of having to work with a solid at the bottom of every comp. You can't just select all of the layers in your comp and perform operations on them, you always have to select all, then scroll down, and deselect this extra layer. Either they should commit to the stupidity and remove the background color selection in AE, or have AME honor AE's background color, or allow AE to render with AME presets.

                B
                BrentBillock
                Participant
                January 18, 2020

                Even worse, I kept using a white solid in the bottom layer, and for some reason it wouldn't show up with full opacity. I selected FFFFFF in the menubar, where there is no alpha selector, made sure the layer itself was 100% opaque, and still my export would go to AME and render grey instead of white. 

                Finally had to (and I'm almost getting an aneurysm just typing this) create a white PNG file and import it into the bottom layer. 🙎 

                  B
                  bearfly
                  Known Participant
                  October 8, 2021

                  Sooooo Weird !!!

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