Opacity for the pre-comp problems

Report · Oct 07, 2022

I was hoping I could figure this out on my own...but here I am!

This is a screen shot of the final video. I wanted to make the begining and the end 'slightly' lighter. It looks like it is working in the compostion window. When I export to media encoder the lightness does not appear. I uploaded the video anyhow (link below). It is not light in the begining or the end. I thought maybe I was on the wrong pre-comp in the project window...no. I cannot figure this out....not a big deal, but what is it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bJEV5rIoEk

Report · Oct 07, 2022

Hi Doodledum1,

Thanks for writing in.

What do you mean by "light"? You have a black background. Lowering the opacity in this case, will darken the scene instead of making it light. Also, your minimum opacity value is 75% which could be tough to notice when you have a moon-rising shot in the beginning. You can try lowering the opacity value further if that's what you're going for.

Let us know if this is not what you're looking for.

Thanks,

Nishu

Report · Oct 07, 2022

Actually it looks as you designed it. Based on your screenshot you are lowering the layer's opacity to around 75 percent and against a black background this will look like a darker purple. If you want full black you have to dial it down to zero, if you want it lighter you have to change the composition background in the comp settings to white or put a white solid underneath your other layer.

Mylenium

Report · Oct 07, 2022

I think you are thinking the opposite...here is the opacity down to 50% in the begining and then 100% in the middle.

I just put the opacity to 50% on the front and back of this precomp, meaning lighter ad then back to the normal 100! I looks a bit 'grayer' in the begining and end. Not darker.

Report · Oct 07, 2022

It looks like there is only one layer in the main comp. If that is true, and you have changed the composition background color and are animating opacity, the Comps background color has nothing to do with the rendered color of the layer. You are, in effect, working with a black background because there are no pixels, and only a couple of codecs will interpret transparently with a forced background color. Did you follow that?

In other words, set a composition background color to white, have transparency in the comp and render, and you will not get a white background because transparency in most codecs that do not support RGBA (Alpha Channels) is black. If you want to have the opacity effect, the rendered color of a layer, you must add a colored solid below the layer. That explains why there is no lightness change in your render.

Report · Oct 08, 2022

Rick you are right right right!! I understand what you are saying and I fixed it. Perfect. I just wasn't thinking it through. Thank you again for your advice. It's my second year at this and it is a lot to take in, but I love it!