White background to transparent?

[moonfoxy196]

i tried EVERYTHING! Im new to After Effects and I have an animation with a solid white background. I need it to get transparent. How do I do this? Please help!

[Roei Tzoref]

In the output module make sure you choose a format that supports alpha. It should have the option on channels: "RGB+Alpha". For example: Quicktime Animation supports Alpha.

now, it should be obvious you won't "see" the transparency of your video playing on a regular player (it will show you the background color instead). If you want to make sure you exported your video with transparency, then import it to Ae, click on it twice and toggle the transparency grid.

[Andrew Yoole]

You've provided very little information or specifics about what you have or what you need.

What are you trying to make?  What is your end result going to be?

If there are transparent areas in your composition, you can see them in the preview pane by switching on transparency grid view.

If you are trying to render video that retains transparency information, you need to understand what an Alpha Channel is.  Start here:

Use alpha channels, masks, and mattes in After Effects

[moonfoxy196]

I am making an simple animation of a walk cycle of a dog, and a simple background. The only thing that I need is to turn the white background to the animation, transparent so I can put it over the other background. It's all set up, but I just need the animation to overlay the background. Also thank you!

[Andrew Yoole]

How is the walk cycle created?  In Photoshop?  Illustrator?  Within AE itself?

If your content has a fixed white background and there is very little other white in the images, it may be as easy as keying the background out with a  Linear Color Key.

It would really help if you could post a screen grab of your composition with all layers visible in the timeline.

[moonfoxy196]

Being on an iOS device I don't know how to send a photo. But there are two layers. One being the original animation, and two, being the background. There original frames were created in FireAlpaca and it was put together in WMM and then exported to AE.

[Dave_LaRonde]

Oh, for heaven's sake.

Make a white com-sized solid; AE does this automatically for you.  Make kit the background of your subject.  Animate the opacity of the white solid from 100% to 0%. Done.

[Andrew Yoole]

Dave, I think the animated content is pre-composited on a white background.  (I'm guessing.)  moonfoxy196 wants to remove that white background to composite it onto a different background.

The best option would be to return to your FireAlpaca software and see if you can re-output the walk cycle with an alpha channel.

If that's not possible, try this:

Select the layer that has the walk cycle animation.

Apply Effect/Keying/Linear Colour Key.

Use the colour picker in that effect to select the white background colour from the preview window.

Play with the Tolerance and Softness sliders until you get the cleanest result you can.

The issue here is that if any of your character has white content (like eyeballs, for example) then they will also be transparent.

You might then have to use masks to replace those elements.

[Kyle Hamrick]

If this is the case - you have an export with a baked-in white background - the Paint Bucket effect might also be a good option. It's similar to the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop - you can choose an area of color, and remove that without killing ALL of that color in the entire image.

That said, I agree that trying to export from your original software with a transparent background is the ideal solution here.

[Dotaronomy1]

I've been impressed with how aggrevated all the knowledge experts' responses are on Adobe forums.  This response is outstanding, I figured out my credentials and logged in just to say THANK YOU.  This response has probably just saved me hours, and with your quick steps I was able to key out a black background on my AE project and get it live on my twitch alert for a stream tonight.  You are a champion.

[Gordon CC]

Thank you, Andrew! I've never used the Linear Color Key effect. What a lifesaver it and you are. 

[megano27335218]

Thank you for this! I have been trying for an hour to get transparent background and it was as simple as this tiny button. Insert huge sigh of relief here.