Motion Export Inconsistencies

I have two questions related to Motion end product in fcp.

1) Why does a rendered clip from Motion of an "animation with alpha" look better than just placing the .motn file on the timeline?

2) Why does there seem to be a gamma shift (more chroma) when exporting a render out of Motion unless I use the "Lossless + Alpha Movie" setting? And, of course, this setting if using a video background softens that video slightly.

The current project where this is vexing me is a DV project. But, I see this pretty much across the board with HD and SD.

Thanks for anyone's help on this.


System Info:

Apple
10.4.11
2 X 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
8GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-Dimm

Final Cut Pro 6.0.5

AJA Kona LHe

Cheers!

George P

that depends on where and how you are looking at it. does it look this way on an external monitor?

also the Lossless and Animation codecs are way better than DV. so when you get to fcp's TL and that TL is DV there is a shift in the color space.

i.e.

DV is 8 bit compressed i believe. so there are only 256 shades of gray.
uncompressed 10 has 1024 shades of gray.

animation i think is the same as 10bit in grays

you are putting that in a TL with less shades of gray so there will be a change. in chroma and luma.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

I am viewing it on an external monitor - plasma. And more times than not I am working in DVCProHD 720p not DV. Same thing there. The lossless is the only render setting that I've found so far that enables me to match in and out of it from the original clip - not that that is what I'm usually doing. But, I'd rather not be in the business of randomly altering the gamma of footage just because I want to composite something with it.

Thanks for chiming in . . .

Geo.

not to sound elementary as i do not know your edit level but....

part of compositing is color correction. other than most text you will always have to spend some time in Shake or COLOR to get is just so. Even the 3way in fcp can help that.

I hardly ever get a file from another program for light compositing in fcp that doesn't need cc to fit texturally.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

I color correct footage all the time as part of the over process, of course. But I would never expect to have to color correct something only because it has now changed in Motion to some new gamma. Maybe I misunderstand what you're saying. I'm saying that I should be able to send a clip to Motion, render it in it's native codec and not see any difference . . . I would think. Then again, maybe it's another generation of compression, the same codec albeit, but compression again . . . ? The lossless, for my eyes, keeps it the same. I would have already done color correction before sending the footage to Motion. But, again, maybe I misunderstand your thought.

Geo

You shouldn't be seeing a gamma shift, period.

mark i was thinking it could be BG interaction.

or the fact that in fcp unless you are at 100% you are seeing 1 field. I don't see it happen much but i have seen it. i prefer the raw .motn or animation.

gee, do you have screen shots of this?

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"