Why transparent background is shown as black ?

[omer47]

Hi !

I've created a clip on character animator in which my character is speaking solely, with no background on other puppet.

My plan was to take it to After effects and add any background behind it.

but, for some reason, it seems like my puppet has a black background that block any other background layer I wish to put under it on Ae.

Is there something to do here ?

[Mohammad.Harb]

How did you render it from character animator?

you need to export it with a file format that supports alpha channel, I would suggest export it as PNG sequence

then reimport the sequence into after effects

[omer47]

So I did it and got many many many PNG files.

How do I turn them into a clip whom I can take to Ae ?

[Dave Merchant]

You exported to H.264/MP4, which cannot have an alpha channel.

[omer47]

So what should I do ? how to export this differently ?

[Mohammad.Harb]

just import one image onto after effects, you will notice that AE will turn on image sequence by default

then all PNG sequence will be imported as one video footage.

[omer47]

So I did that and it uploaded a single png photo to Ae. 😕

[Andrew Yoole]

Did you check the "PNG Sequence" checkbox when you imported?

Also, use the checkerboard transparency view to determine if you have transparent elements in your composition.

[A.I.1]

In File->Import File, when you select the first file in the sequence, make sure the checkbox to import a sequence is checked.

[Mohammad.Harb]

Please post a screenshot

[Rick Gerard]

You need to spend some time studying video formats and standards. I would suggest spending some time with the User Guide. Rendering to suitable production formats is a basic production skill you should have. Your only problem is that you did not spend any time learning how transparency works in a video so you picked the wrong format.

[Dhibly]

Super humble dude.

[SLDMBL]

Boomers, please take your arrogance in another platform, this a community for helping. It was built especially for people who are trying to learn from those who knows better. 

[Drew324732139ymx]

What was the point of commenting this? To be mean? You provided nothing of value to anyone. 

[rubenmontecinos]

There are not an alpha channel for AE.

Solution in Photoshop Export/Quick Export as PNG

It works.

If the batch command in Automate doesn´t work and you got a lot of images, then use a batch exporter for PNG with alpha channel. You can use Preview in Mac, open all the images, select all the Images in the sider bar, and an output folder. EDIT/Export (16bytes, alpha channel).

Don´t forget check "alpha channel"

[Rick Gerard]

rubenmontecinos  wrote

There are not an alpha channel for AE.

Sorry, you don't know what you are talking about. You just have to pick the right settings. Using Photoshop will work for some things but it's a huge waste of time.

Please study the User Guide and take a little time to learn something about video formats and compression.

[rubenmontecinos]

But it works, Mr.

[Andrew Yoole · Accepted solution]

Pushing your car instead of driving it gets you to the same destination, but it's a lot slower.  🙂

Take Rick's advice and read some of the support material on which video formats to use that contain alpha channels.

exporting video with an alpha channel (transparency) | Adobe Blog

[rubenmontecinos]

Thank you, Andrew!

[didntaskforanyaiever]

So, the correct answer is "Go somewhere and learn stuff?" 

[Rick Gerard]

The correct answer is clearly given. The admonishment to go and learn stuff so you understand the process and can solve your own problems in the future is just friendly advice is given by folks that donate their time to help solve problems. Two minutes with the user guide or just taking the default lossless with alpha preset when rendering the animation would have solved the problem. 

[Rafer5CC0]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKAtgsXG0_4

Here's the answer for if you are exporting your character from Photoshop.

In a nutshell: it needs to be Quicktime (.mov), not H.264, and you need to select "Straight - Unmatted" in the Alpha Channel selection box. I believe this is because H.264 does not support Alpha Channels (aka transparencies).

[Warren Heaton]

If you import the Character Animator project into your After Effects project, as long as the background is empty in CA then it should be transparent in AE.

[Todd_Morgan]

Why are you not using it as a dynamic layer import into AE?