Can use Cheetah 3D renders for Flash MX and Video?

M

monarch

0
Can use Cheetah 3D renders for Flash MX and Video?

Sorry but I'm a beginner at 3D...

1. I would like to incorporate 3D into my flash web sites. Can I use Cheetah to create 3D animated objects that can later be imported to Flash Mx? For example, I can import a .png that is transparent and layer a background under the .png (or 3D file).

2. Can I also export Cheetah files with ALPHA chanels for use in Video? I would like to create animated Titles for video.

Are these two things possible?
Thanks!!!!
 
Hi,
sorry but I can't really answer that question since I've never worked with Flash.

I'm also not sure which video file format actually supports the alpha channel. I just can say that I send alpha channel data to Quicktime.
I would be also interested if the alpha channel data is available in apps like Flash.

Maybe someone else can answere that question what video file format actually supports a alpha channel.

By,
Martin
 
Alpha Channels

You can use Alpha channels in Final Cut pro. I don't know about express, maybe with a 3rd party plugin?

David
 
Hi David,
do you know which Quicktime file formats support the alpha channel? Which codec do you use the when you want to make a movie with alpha channel?

Many thanks in advance.

By,
Martin
 
No

I don't know, but I will try to find out.

When you export a Final Cut Pro file to QuickTime you get a .mov file if I remember correctly. I have seen some info on codecs, I think I used the Apple NTSC???? Are there different types of QuickTime files?

David
 
Martin said:
Hi David,
do you know which Quicktime file formats support the alpha channel? Which codec do you use the when you want to make a movie with alpha channel?

Many thanks in advance.

By,
Martin
Click to expand...

The Animation codec supports alpha channels, but you get huge files (with no quality loss). In fact all codecs that have the option of setting millions+ colors (the "+" being the alpha).
The DV codec might support it too, since FCP uses that codec, but I'm not sure. More logic is that FCP uses the alpha channel of the source material, like Animation-, psd- and tiff-files, and renders it to a DV file (without alpha).

Hope this helps.
Alexander.
 
The popular formats of .mov and .avi support alpha channels. I will further research this. It would be helpful have this option. It would be nice to create logos in C3D and import the animations in editing software...

Transparent .png is the best option for Flash. That way, you could layer objects in Flash without color backgrounds. If there could be a way to export the animation as a sequence of .pngs. If the files are named in a sequence (i.e. a1.png, a2.png, a3.png), FLash asks if you would like to import all the images in the sequence.

Thanks for the help
 

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You can render an animation manually, but it will take a while longer.

Select the first frame of animation in the timeline, and then click Render (not Render Animation.) Do that to every frame of the animation, and save each individual image in the "sequence" naming format.
 
shadowkhas said:
You can render an animation manually, but it will take a while longer.

Select the first frame of animation in the timeline, and then click Render (not Render Animation.) Do that to every frame of the animation, and save each individual image in the "sequence" naming format.
Click to expand...


You don’t want to do that! :cry:
C3D can save a rendering as quicktime movie. Quicktime offers the possibility to save your animation as image-sequence (numbered picts, jpgs, pngs etc. - uncompressed picts and pngs support alpha channel), so isn’t that possible from within C3D? I didn’t try yet, sorry.
edit: strike that! I just checked: you can save as image sequence. :D

By the way, when mentioning the Animation-codec, I was talking about a .mov file with animation-codec. Quicktime offers you a lot of different codecs, which almost all result in a .mov file (mpeg4 gives you .mp4).

Cheers,
Alexander.
 
The problem is when you import your .mov or whatever into Flash, Flash will start up de Video Wizard and will convert your movie to .flv with Sorenzen Spark (or Squeeze if you bought it) and you will loose transparency. My suggestion is: wait for Flash 8 to be released next month, the new video codes support transparency.


Sora.
 
Hi,
if I compress a movie with .h264 does it offer a alpha channel? Do you know a little app with which I can test that?
I send the alpha channel to quicktime. But I don't have a app with which I can test if quicktime actually saved the alpha channel to the movie..

By,
Martin
 
If I'm not mistaking, yes QuickTime saves the alpha channel. But it doesn't matter anyway. Like I explained above, you can't use such movies in Flash.


Sora.
 
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