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DoomStein
Participant
March 2, 2017
Answered

Need help exporting scene from Character Animator CC with transparent background

  • March 2, 2017
  • 4 replies
  • 17334 views

So I am trying to export an animation of a lip synced puppet from Character Animator for use in a Premiere Pro CC project and cannot for the life of me get the video to render with transparency so I can overlay it onto a background in my PP project. Every time I try to export it it comes out with a black background even though I have the background color set to transparent. I have been trying to export it in other formats such as quicktime or avi but i do not see options in Adobe Media Encoder to change to 32 bit (which I read somewhere in the forum will enable alpha layers and transparency). Now whenever I try and export to any of these formats I get "Could not read from the source. Please check if it has moved or been deleted." after I start my encoding queue even though I JUST hit export from inside of Character Animator. I also have had issues with trying to import the project directly into PP and After Effects with it either not being able to find the .chproj file I just dragged in or it not showing up in the media browser at all. It worked once but gave me the a black background as well instead of transparent. I have tried to use the Color Key effect to remove the background but it ends up eating up the edges of my puppet up or removing all the black from it entirely by the time I get all the black off of the edges. I have tried to insert various other colored backgrounds such as green and blue but then it leaves blue and green around the edges of the puppet and essentially does the same thing as removing the black that I mentioned before.

If it helps any, here are the specs of what I am running this on:

     Windows 10 64bit

     i-7 Processor (i72620M @2.7GHz)

     8GB of ram

     320GB SSD

     AMD Radeon HD 6470M

My goal is to make the video at 1280p x 720p and most of the project is using video in the H.264 format. So far I haven't had any issues with performance yet using Premiere Pro CC, Photoshop CC and Character Animator CC at the same time.

Please help or show me to a tutorial that might explain this better. I have already watched all the CA tutorials and quite a few Premiere videos and can't find anything on rendering videos with transparency. I might just not be looking in the right places though. Any and all help is appreciated!

Dustin

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer oksamurai

Jason is correct. You best best is not to export a video, but rather a png sequence and wav and import the resulting xml file into Premiere.

We do recommend dynamic link as the easiest method (in Premiere, File > Import > your .chproj file)...if it's not working for you, please file a bug report: Character Animator Bug Reports

4 replies

Participant
October 27, 2021

In Character Animator, File - > Export there is a choice of 'Video with Alpha via Media Encoder'.  It exports to a Quicktime .mov file rather than an .mp4 H.264 file.  And it works, the .mov file has a transparent background.

alank99101739
Legend
March 20, 2018

Yes, I also found the QuickTime GoproCine with Alpha channels worked well.

oksamurai
Community Manager
oksamuraiCommunity ManagerCorrect answer
Community Manager
March 2, 2017

Jason is correct. You best best is not to export a video, but rather a png sequence and wav and import the resulting xml file into Premiere.

We do recommend dynamic link as the easiest method (in Premiere, File > Import > your .chproj file)...if it's not working for you, please file a bug report: Character Animator Bug Reports

DoomStein
DoomSteinAuthor
Participant
March 3, 2017

I Just tried to import the .chproj file into my Premiere project and it showed a progress bar after choosing the scene but would not show up in the library under media browser. I browsed to it in media browser and tried to drag it over and it had the NO symbol when I tried to drop it on a track. I was just about to call it quits for the day when I realized there is another library tab at the top of the screen above the preview. I scrolled down to the bottom and it was there three of them in there. Now I feel dumb because I was just looking in the wrong library section the entire time. Thanks for the help.

Participant
July 31, 2017

I actually did the same thing and felt like a complete moron. Haha! I'm so glad you wrote that comment or else I'd be searching the forums for help, still.

Participating Frequently
March 2, 2017

h.264 does not support transparent backgrounds (alpha channel)...try exporting as a png sequence or another codec that can contain an alpha channel.

DoomStein
DoomSteinAuthor
Participant
March 3, 2017

jasonm70767807 Can you refer me to anything that gives a decent overview on the different types of video codecs and what their best uses are? I'm not really sure where to begin with that.

Participating Frequently
June 17, 2017