Trim Path Blocking a Solid Color Background Layer

[Dia Electra]

My project: an animated logo. Despite my solid white background in Layers, I keep getting a black bg after rendering. Tho I have identified the problem layer, I can't seem to correct the problem it's causing. Hoping someone can offer some ideas.

Here is the structure (as shown in screen shot): I have 2 layers directly above the bottom-level solid white BG layer: (1) Trim Paths layer with a stroked spiral path /this layer has only 3 properties: Trim Path, with only 2 keyframes, Wiggle Path and Stroke Path @ 100% opacity & Blend Mode on "Normal" (2) a photo layer /below the trim path layer/ that provides a texture in the stroked spiral path. 

My animated graphics appear correctly – except for failing to render the white background layer. The layer causing the problem seems to be the Trim Paths layer, which somehow seems to be preventing the white background from showing. Is there an antidote for this? 

/NOTE/ The background appears correctly in the Vimeo link... but today after making some timing corrections, the white background layer will simply not show up, and keeps rendering as black. This is a mystery to me, so I am posting in this forum for the first time.

https://vimeo.com/385593416 

[Mylenium]

As per your screenshot, the visibility of the white solid is turned off. The rest could simply depend on the order in which your modifiers are applied. You might consider reordering them. The order of application does matter and soem modifiers can mess up others.

Mylenium

[Dia Electra]

Yikes, that white bg was supposed to be ON when I did the screen shot – but I'd been testing the file to troubleshoot this problem and thus had it turned off temporarily. Even with it turned on, my background turns out black. The order of the layers currently is necessary as is, because the "Trees" photo (on layer beneath the problem layer "Spiral1") has to be made to show up in the stroked/trimmed path... so the photo has to be under the path layer. I appreciate your outreach, Mylenium, but need help to untangle this problem. I'm trying fiercely to find a fix. Weirdly, even placing a solid white JPG as my bottom layer doesn't help... the background still turns out black. 

[Dia Electra]

In Photoshop, I could solve the problem by using a Clipping Mask. Is there an equivalent function in After Effects?

[Rick Gerard]

I'm not completely clear on your comp setup. If it were mine:

That is everything that I did to the layers*. If your background layer is not rendering and you have it turned on then it was set to a guide layer. The equivalent of a clipping mask is the track matte. The example video is easily recreated with just these few steps. 

* pressing uu reveals all modified properties of a layer. It's the fastest way to troubleshoot problems.

[Dia Electra]

Wow… THANK YOU, Rick, for your recreation of my animated spiral graphic in a cleaner form. The Alpha Track Matte on the JPG looks like it's probably the best AE equivalent to Photoshop's Clipping Mask effect. I also didn't know about NOT using 100% white or black for h.264 output. What percentage of those colors do you suggest?

I saw your contribution, Rick, when I signed on to update my troubleshooting thread here, to say that I came up with a solution (*before* seeing your post). My solution was to PreComp the 2 layers that were creating the problem with the white background. With the JPG layer ("Trees") and the stroked layer ("Spiral1/StrokedPath") grouped into a PreComp, the white background layer showed up perfectly.

I'm grateful to know that there is support from professional-level users here on the Adobe forum! Thanks again!

[Rick Gerard]

The minimum and maximum RGB values when checking the info panel depend on the use of the video. Broadcast typically has a 7.5 IRE standard for black but that gets fudged a lot and it doesn't really translate into RGB values easily. 

When you are talking compression you have to make a guess. If the max is 255 and the minimum block of pixels is 2 X 2, but more commonly 4 X 4 and you have a black (0, 0, 0) pixel next to a white (255, 255, 255) pixel then the average color sample for those two blocks isn't going to be as easy to calculate as it would be if the black was 5, 5, 5 and the white was 255, 255, 255. I'm tired and I'm not sure I explained the concept very well, but that's the basic idea.  With the standard color picker in AE, it's easiest to just use the brightness. That lets you just change one value and instantly see the change in the RGB values. For example, this is my usual white when the adjacent color is going to be dark:

This is my usual black when the adjacent color is going to be white: 

Hue and Saturation to zero and a 2% reduction for White and a 2% increase for black will give you room for some the compression, the image will still look white or black, and you will be well within almost all broadcast standards. If you really want to push it you can go to 1% so that would be 99% for white and 1% for black. That will still give you some room and nobody without a scope will be able to tell the difference in the final product unless the media player has no border or frame and the background is pure white or pure black.  Keeping Hue and Saturation to zero assures there is no built-in color cast and it's a lot easier to get exactly what you want than punching a bunch of numbers into the R, G, B values.

Most of the time I go less than 98% if I am going to have really dark text or graphics against a white background because it is just easier on the eyes. I think your background with the trees would do just fine with anything from 99% to about 96%. It's up to you. The only thing I know for sure is that the edges will look better if you drop the brightness to at least 99%.

I hope this helps. 

[Dia Electra]

Thank you, Rick, for the clear and insightful explanation. Most of the motion graphics I create are used on websites and social media (sometimes too for big screen presentations). So usually I render for h.264, like here: https://vimeo.com/385593416 (this represents my corrected animation – but the background white isn't yet dropped in percentage as you explained above).

Even at this size <width="640" height="479"> the result at the link appears too soft to my eye. Could you recommend a basic tactic (some numbers?) to improve this result, to make it more crisp? Is this possibly a symptom of what you're talking about when you caution against color compression artifacts on hard edges?

I also see a problem on the Vimeo settings for display of the animation, settings that cannot apparently be changed by the user and which could be the obvious reason why the edges are soft: my animation was created at 4:3 (564 x 423 pixels) and Vimeo is displaying it (as far as I can tell) at 640 x 480.

[Rick Gerard]

You have a couple of very basic problems with your videos. Here's the first, and it's a big one. Video has standards, compression has standards. ALL video compression requires the frame size to be an even number of pixels. You choose 564 x 423 and apparently 640 X 479. Both of those frame sizes are always going to be reinterpreted to an even number of pixels high and wide. Even if you could somehow force compression software to maintain the odd number of pixels, the color compression can't deal with the odd number of pixels. Vimeo recompressed your video to 640 X 480 because that is a standard size for video.  You must adhere to video standards. Any video you render specifically for the web will be scaled to fit the dimensions set by the style sheet for the website. If the CSS dimensions do not match a standard video frame size or the actual rendered size of your video it will be scaled and the quality will suffer. If you specify an odd number of pixels in the style sheet you will get an odd number of pixels in the frame, but the image will be resampled by the player and the quality will suffer.

I see some widescreen projects on your Vimeo feed. Vimeo is pretty forgiving in their frame sizes but you still have to adhere to some standards. You should check the guidelines out here: https://vimeo.com/help/compression. Unless your frame size and frame rate fit in one of the standard containers the video will be resized. You cannot have color compression work in any other way. You can also find frame size and frame rate requirements in white papers describing the H.264 video standards. You will only get the best results if you follow the guidelines.

You can get away with a few frame sizes that are not listed on Vimeo better than you can on YouTube, but you have to be very careful. If a client is embedding your video on their website, then they need to make sure that the player they use is going to be compatible with the frame size. Most media players are limited to only a few different frame ratios. Any video that does not match the acceptable frame ratios will be presented with black bars on the top and bottom or on the sides. You can't just go making up frame sizes or frame rates. The standards have to be followed to make your projects look their best.

Vimeo and YouTube will always recompress your videos. That is what is happening when you are waiting for the videos to be ready to play. The closer your original video is to their standards, the less damage their automatic compression will do to the original file and the sooner it will be ready to view. Send any streaming service a nonstandard or out of spec video and it will be recompressed using a sledgehammer. Who knows how it will turn out.

I hope these suggestions help. Take some time to learn the video standards and learn how compression works and your work will look better and your clients will be happier. The animations look good, but you can get a lot better quality if you follow the rules.

[Dia Electra]

Thank you so much, Rick. As a graphic designer, I am not accustomed to being so closely bound to standard sizes as video seems to force one to be. Resolution, yes. Standard sizes, no. So I cannot deny that I haven't been as attentive to this requirement as possible. Honestly, I'm not even sure how I ended up with those oddly sized formats, as I always choose one of the basic sizes when creating an After Effects doc. I guess I should always check the box in the Composition Settings that says "Lock Aspect Ratio" – because obviously, somewhere along the way during the thrill ride of creativity, those dimensions changed. 

I promise to take your words to heart and hone up on video standards as well as Vimeo standards, and to place more importance on understanding the numbers and principles behind compression. Putting all the emphasis on creativity, those efforts are clearly wasted if the wrong numbers prevent that creativity from shining its brightest.

Your careful and informative advice is much appreciated, and will carry me further than I would be able to go on my own.