Solid edge for shape layer

[theblankbeard]

I am not sure why but the shape layer has a single pixel edge that is lighter that I cannot remove. This causes a problem when I am bumping 2 up against each other; I either get a dark line or light line with the overlap or lack of. I need it to look like a solid layer.

I am using expressions to auto size the bottom box based on the length of the movie title. I have tried to extend the bottom shape layer up and use clamp() to set the minimum width of the bottom shape layer to the size of the above text then mask the extra in premiere, but then for some reason it affects the anchor point of my "movie title" text so it no longer stays pegged in the corner.

This is with separate shape layers and a one letter movie title, this is how I need it to be aligned.

and this is with the single shape layer and one letter movie title, needs to be left aligned. Once I get up to 5 or 6 letters it then behaves correctly but not for potential shorter movie titles.

Here are my expressions for the different versions.

This is the single shape layer.

This is the separate shape layers.

Ideally, I'd like to find a solution to the single pixel edge of the shape layer rather than wrestle with expressions further. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

[Dave Merchant]

Your position values are all weird fractions - unless the layer bounds calculate to an integer pixel value there has to be some interpolation at the edges.

[theblankbeard]

That makes sense. Being that my shape layer size is set by sourceRectAtTime() then I don't really have a way to fix that. So I guess my only fix would be with more expressions?

[Dave Merchant]

You can use the Math.round() function to push a calculated value to an integer, but whether that looks OK will depend on how the animations are designed - it could end up being noticeably jerky. Of course the bounds of a layer depend on both the size and the anchor point, so if the anchor isn't an integer pixel value then the size expression needs to adjust itself accordingly.

[Rick Gerard]

Pixel peeping at 400% (just a guess) is more a way to go nuts than figure out how your video will look when it is done.

The higher the contrast the more likely it is that you'll get flickering edges when things move and don't line up with the pixel grid perfectly. It is going to happen with type but in almost all cases your audience will never see it. The leading distance (distance between lines, and the height of the font, including descenders, is controlling the height of the text box. I'm not sure that sourceRecAtTime() will fix that problem if you throw in some rounding because frankly, I never worry about that kind of aliasing when large blocks of color are involved. The only time I care about precisely lining up edges with the pixel grid is when I have thin horizontal or vertical lines that are moving. The only way you can avoid thin line flicker is to make sure that the motion is exactly an even number of pixels per frame. If it is a large block, like the black background in your sample, nobody is going to see it when the video is playing at 100% and if the media player has been resized, the edge aliasing is going to return anyway.

[theblankbeard]

I do agree, if this was for anything else I wouldn't worry but this will be going through an external QC and will be placed over video with varying contrasts so it will most definitely be flagged. I attempting to save time but if it gets it flagged in QC I need to abandon it.