• | Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec
on Jun 6, 2012 at 6:02:46 pm |
I have a project i've been doing in 32bit, because i need nice glows and blurs. it looks great but when i render it to an 8bit codec it clips all the values from 0 to 1.
is there anyway to preserve the look of the overbrights. i know i can't get the actual values, but surely i can keep the look, like the red glow i have turns from a yellowish red dot surrounded by red, to just a flat red.
any ideas?
thanks
m
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 6, 2012 at 6:58:39 pm |
Rendering to an 8-bit codec should not affect the appearance of your 32-bpc composition. It will clip the color values but it should preserve the look.
Are you using a working color profile in your project? Is your exposure preview set to '0' in the composition?
Darby Edelen
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 7, 2012 at 10:26:39 am |
Yep, i'm using 32bit linear, srgb workflow.
this is what it looks like in AE:

and this is what an 8 bit render looks like:
any ideas?
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 7, 2012 at 2:52:02 pm |
I can't reproduce this problem so there must be something else going on that we haven't covered yet. Can you provide more information on your output module? A screenshot of your comp/timeline panel?
Darby Edelen
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 7, 2012 at 2:55:18 pm |
do you have cs5.5? i could upload the project?
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 7, 2012 at 3:06:37 pm |
Sure, upload a sample, but I won't be able to look at it until I get into work in an hour or so :)
Darby Edelen
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 7, 2012 at 3:09:08 pm |
here's the 32 bit comp
4260_32bit.aep.zip
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 7, 2012 at 5:35:11 pm |
I stand corrected. I do get the same results as you with this project. This appears to be the result of very high values in only the red color channel. If you want your rendered results to be closer to what you see in the comp viewer then you're going to need to add some green and blue to the solid, either by increasing the green and blue black outputs in your levels effect or by changing the actual solid color.
To preview your 8bpc render I'd recommend creating an adjustment layer at the top of the composition, apply the levels effect and turn both Clip Output to Black and Clip output to White 'On.' You can set this layer to a Guide Layer so that it doesn't have any additional affect on the rendered output.
Darby Edelen
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 7, 2012 at 5:46:17 pm |
yeah seems weird. it does happen with the other channels too.
yeah that's what i've started doing. but then i might as well comp 8 bit. not sure the 32bit is giving me much more if i can't output it!
cheers thou
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 8, 2012 at 1:39:47 pm |
May I suggest filing a bug?
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at
Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 8, 2012 at 1:43:41 pm |
do you think it is a bug then? i started to think it was a limitation with 32 bit.
if you open up the 32bit render in photoshop it shows that flat red too. strange.
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 8, 2012 at 1:57:49 pm |
[Martin Stacey] "do you think it is a bug then? i started to think it was a limitation with 32 bit. if you open up the 32bit render in photoshop it shows that flat red too. strange."
I'd argue that any time the render doesn't match the preview, it's a bug.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at
Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Jun 10, 2012 at 10:12:29 am |
Yeah but i think it's more of a limitation of 32bit comping.
in maya or vary you'd you an exposure filter to bring the 32bit image back down to an 8bit image. i just assumed AE was doing that automatically. but i was wrong! haha.
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Dec 9, 2014 at 11:15:44 pm |
still 2 years later it frustrates the hell out of me that i can create colours in 32bit mode in AE that i cannot render to an 8 bit codec. it's just mental.
surely by now someone has figured this out!
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Dec 10, 2014 at 2:20:15 pm |
I was messing with this issue a couple of years ago. As I recall, I rendered to a higher bit QuickTime file and then used QuickTime Pro to compress it to a deliverable file. The colors looked right then.
- The Great Szalam
(The 'Great' stands for 'Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble')
No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.
• | Re: Rendering a 32bit project to an 8Bit codec on Dec 10, 2014 at 2:32:21 pm |
yeah, i posted another message just cause it was annoying me so much and a guy responded to turn on simulate output too. i did and it does give you the same render as you see. still dont really understand why you can make a colour in AE that wont render, but at least i have a solution of sorts.