Expert: Andre Hickman - 2/10/2009

Question
QUESTION: What is the best resolution (for possible enlargement to a 35mm print) to render a clip in After Effects?

So far I've been rendering as MPEG2.

ANSWER: Hey Jim,

That is not really a direct answer that I can give.  4096x2987 is what some would consider close to what would be considered 35mm Academy Aperature.  The "2K" level is half of that, at 2048x1493, and is where the visual fx industry has been working for years.

Really there is no answer, because film doesn't have to deal with pixels.  Also, because of projector brightness, loss of film quality in duplication, etc.  1920x1080 (HD) is almost indistinguishable from "2K".

If it is just one frame, shoot for the stars and go with Academy full resolution.  If it is motion, and involves rendering, I would probably work with the 2K resolution, or HD.  For DVDs use the H.264 compression in your rendering.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
Andre

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: When I set the composition settings to HDTV 1080 24 and when rendering at the "Output Module Settings" with the format H.264, when I try rendering a sign says "There is a mismatch between Output Module Settings and Transcode Settings...." Any way to fix that?

Answer
I'm really not sure what that means.  Thinking about it, I would say that it has to do with your frames per second.  DVD is television, so you need to be rendering at 30fps-dropframe (i.e. at 29.97fps...you get that number because it drops one frame every 1000 frames, or something like that.)

24 fps is the speed of film, but the H.264 codec can probably only render at 29.97 fps, so you have to do some type of conversion either before or after...I would go ahead and render at 29.97 fps, unless you are totally certain that you are going to film. If you are certain of that, then don't use that codec.  Render out at 24 fps using Quicktime with the Animation compression, or something like that.  Quicktime compression also has an option for H.264 under it, but I'm not sure whether it can render out at anything other than 29.97 fps either.

So in a nutshell, I think the frame rate is the problem, when it comes to using that codec. I'm about 98% sure (as if I can guage that...lol)

Cheers,
Andre