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The preferred method of exporting from SynthEyes to After Effects is via the After Effects Javascript exporter. This is a very sophisticated 3D exporter that produces excellent fidelity and flexibility into After Effects, including the ability to transfer 360VR scenes, meshes, cards, moving object rigs, and distortion. There is also a special 2-D exporter that creates four-corner pins for planar tracker, and a 2-D copy/paste exporter.
Important—before you track! When opening a shot in SynthEyes that you will transfer to After Effects, be sure to open the first frame in the sequence, even if you will track only a portion. After Effects will always go back to the first frame, putting SynthEyes and After Effects out of sync if you start in the middle. Open the first frame, then use the Start/End controls on the Shot setup panel or the time bar to adjust the section you will use. If you mess this up, you will have to copy the sequence to another folder without the earlier images, so After Effects doesn't see them, or use Shot/Change Shot Images to the beginning of the shot, then extend the trackers and solve into the newly-added section.
The exporter asks about your After Effects version and customizes its export to match. Entries are added to this list only when Adobe adds new features or makes incompatible changes, so the most recent setting is generally good. If you’re using an older version of After Effects, select that version or the most recent AE version preceding that one.
Using the Export Action control, you can have SynthEyes start After Effects automatically, as soon as you run the export. Or, you can save the file to run later, or on a different machine. If you save the file to run it in After Effects later, do so by selecting File/Scripts/Run Script File... in After Effects, then select the file you exported from SynthEyes. The exporter controls are described below.
Important : If the Run now options aren't starting After Effects, you probably don't have the right AE version selected on the exporter. If it is installed to a different location, see the controls listing below.
Demo version : Sorry, the demo version is not able to start external applications, including After Effects. The file will be written and can be run using After Effects' File/Scripts/Run Script.
Tip : The exporter will configure exported non-planar trackers as “shy,” so that you can hide all the tracker layers in the timeline view by clicking the timeline’s hamburger to bring up the menu, then selecting “Hide Shy Layers.”
Tip : You can reduce the number of trackers exported using the Max Exported Trackers control; it will make some trackers not-exported to reach that limit.
Tip : In the two-pass Lens Workflow (#2), the background image in the Camera01 comp will be set as a guide layer, so that an undistorted then redistorted version won’t be used instead of the correct original image as the background for the redistortion comp ReCamera01.
Tip : Notes are now exported from SynthEyes to After Effects as guide (non- rendering) text layers.
The Add Cards operation within SynthEyes's perspective view is very powerful; you may find it easiest to set up your 3D layers within SynthEyes's more powerful 3D environment, then export the cards to After Effects, where they become layers with any texture already applied.
©2024 Boris FX, Inc. — UNOFFICIAL — Converted from original PDF.