Adobe After Effects is undoubtedly the most powerful software for creating and editing motion graphics or other audiovisual productions, and its rich features and intuitive intelligence prove it.
One of the various options the platform offers is the interpretation and export of alpha channels in compositions.Something that will definitely be useful in various projects, learn how to implement it below
What is the process of rendering a file with an alpha channel in After Effects?
In previous cases, you’ve tried to create animated halos in After Effects, with some practice you can do it in a very short time, but what happens when you want to make a transparent background?can later Identify the alpha channel of a file Encode in different formats, including EPS, FLV, TGA, PDF, etc., with RGBA characteristics.
To do this, define different layers with different opacities in each composition. Once you’ve finished your animation composition, you’ll ask yourself how to export it without the background so you can use it in different applications. Well, you have to make sure you follow these steps:
- If you have a solid composition in the background, make sure to make it invisible by disabling the eye icon in the timeline panel.
- You will see black activated as the new background, to neutralize it you have to click the Toggle Transparency Grid button from the composition panel in the lower ribbon.
- Next, click Composition and select Add to Render Queue.
- Click «Lossless» in the lower tab, in the new window adjust the format to «QuickTime» and set «RGB+Alpha» in the channel.
- Assign it a location and press «Render», at the end of the process you will see the animation without any background.
From what effectively changes the transparency «h264» to «h265»?
By now it’s clear that using After Effects’ «chroma keyed» photos and videos means tinkering with the transparency of layers, but the difference in rendering files without a background is huge. Maybe the previous option is not the best for you, you may prefer to render via Media Encoder.
So far, the H264 codec is considered the best in terms of size, quality ratio, but recently H265 has been implemented, which is an improved version of the first one. However, in this case neither works for us to render without a background, where the parameters must be as follows:
- After adding the alpha channel to the video, click Composition > Add to Adobe Media Encoder Queue.
- In the Encoder’s Queue panel, change the project’s format from H264 (or other) to «QuickTime».
- You must also click the preset link to modify the Video Codec in Export Settings, making sure to select Apple ProRes 4444.
- In the «Basic Video Settings», press the «Match Source» button to adjust the video resolution
- Then under Depth select «8-bpc + alpha», click OK and start rendering.
What is the command to include an alpha channel in a render?
If you just want to learn how to create different effects in this program, but you haven’t decided to download the after effects, we must encourage you to do it now, using this software you will get the best quality impressive animations. Although, this will definitely take some time to complete, but these commands make the process much easier.
For example, if you press the letter «Q» you can select the Modify Mask tool, if you press «T» Modify the transparency or opacity of a layeruse «Ctrl+M» to send the composition to the render queue, and if you press «Ctrl+Alt+M», open the Adobe Media Encoder panel for rendering.
Why can’t I render or modify the transparency of the file and what can I do?
Whether you want to create a «looping video» for TikTok in After Effects, or make some presentations for a professional project, the alpha channel option is very useful as long as you have a clear idea of what you want in the final video. If you follow The above process, then there shouldn’t be any problems implementing the animation without the background.
Now, what you should keep in mind is that After Effects is a software that is very demanding on your computer resources, especially during rendering or exporting. E.g, You may experience low quality issues in the final videoshowing slow camera, audio or video lag, and if that’s the case, we’ll tell you why it happened.
computer with slow processor
Adobe After Effects, you have to encode your compositing information in the video instruction pack, for which it has some Minimum resource requirements For example, at least 4 GB of RAM memory and a powerful graphics card, preferably «Tesla» or «Quadro». If these conditions are met and even rendering is a pain, choose to implement a solid state drive or two hard drives.
restart rendering
If your rendering does hang, you can try a full restart of your device, and you can do so with confidence if you saved all changes before starting the export, so you can resume rendering from the previous point without any issues.
On the other hand, if you manage to export the video and it shows an error, try holding down the «SHIFT» key while going to Edit > Preferences and turning on any option.In the new panel, go to The last tab is named «secret», And assign a value between 30 and 60 for «Debug every_frame during movie production», with this simple trick you can fix many render failures.