VR Chromatic Aberrations Rendering Problem

[Marc Trzepla]

We get green flashes when rendering VR Chromatic Aberrations with interlacing.  Below is a side-by-side comparison.

The problem does NOT occur when rendering progressive (29.97p) OR when rendering at 59.94.   (our workaround to date has been to render full frames at 59.94 and then bring that render back in and re-export in a 29.97 comp with interlacing.)

It doesn't matter if the effect is applied directly or as an adjustment layer, we get the same green flashes.

Anyone else experience this and have a solution that doesn't require pre-rendering comps that use this plugin?  The problem happens on both Windows and Mac computers and it's been around for many versions of After Effects, up to and including v22.6.0.

Thanks,

Marc

[JohnColombo]

Hi @Marc Trzepla,

Thank you for reporting this issue. What Render Settings and Output Module are you using when you see the green flashes in the render? Do the green flash only occur when certain footage sources, or can they be experienced when rendering a comp without any footage?

Thanks for reporting this issue and for any further information you can provide, 

- John, After Effects Engineering Team  

[Marc Trzepla]

Hi @JohnColombo 

First, I’ll be cheeky and ask if perhaps you and your team would consider tackling this issue first..?

https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-bugs/interface-is-slow-and-laggy/idc-p/13383173/page/4

😉

Back to the regularly scheduled broadcast, I’ve narrowed down the source of the Chromatic Aberrations issue. Any layer scaled larger than 100% will cause Chromatic Aberrations to render green artifacts when a 29.97fps comp is rendered at 59.94i interlaced. Here is a link to example movies of 3 assets - 1 still and 2 movies. Each asset is rendered twice - once progressive, the other interlaced.

Sample Renders 

The first 2 are scaled larger than 100% to fit the Comp and you can see the difference between when the comp is rendered at 29.97 (progressive) and 59.94i (interlaced). Since the last asset is already 100% it renders fine both progressive and interlaced.

Amazingly enough, even if a larger-than-100% layer is precomposed, Chromatic Aberrations, applied either directly to that pre-comp or as an adjustment layer, will know that the pre-comp contains the larger-than-100% layer and still output artifacts, so precomposing scaled layers is actually not even an option. This applies regardless of whether Collapse Transformations is on or off.

My only solution has been to place an adjustment layer with the Transform effect directly below the Chromatic Aberrations adjustment layer. Left at the default settings, Transform - I’m guessing - does what a pre-comp doesn’t and “bakes” the scales of layers and comps below it to 100% so that when Chromatic Aberrations is applied it thinks it’s being applied to 100% layers and comps.

Thank you for following up,

Marc