Upscaling an After Effects composition from SD to HD
 

Hey Folks,

i've did an intro for a show a long time ago - obviously in PAL DV 720x576 for 16:9 output.

Now the Show moved to HD and i'd like to output a full-hd 1920x1080 tif sequence. I figured as the animation consists of 90% text animation it would be an easy thing to do as the fonts can be scaled to any size.

The problem is: ive created a new 1920x1080 sequence in the project, pasted everything in and tried to scale it by grabbing the edges but this totally destroys the entire composition.

Am i missing something?

Thanks for your help!
-Daniel

Hard to say. Just upscaling it may cause it to pixelate.

The best way to do this would be to upscale everything manually. It doesn't sound like an extremely complex project, so you could just base a new composition on those settings without too much trouble, as well.

are you making each file larger in the project, or an output file larger?

Well the project consists only of text layers with a few backdrops so there aren't any files to update for me. If i render the output in a larger resolution than the composition it only seems to upscale the 720x576 output instead of rerendering the vector (text) layers in it.

Well i have about 50+ text layers with complex alignement so this seems like the worst option :(

Well, it might be the most work, but it will give the best result.

Your options are to recreate it or to manually upscale every layer.

Start by changing the composition settings to full rez. Then see if any of the layers/settings match this. (I'm not sure exactly how everything would behave. Some things might change, such as percentage based values.)

Then just change each layer to match. If you're lucky, most of the FX/motion settings will change with the scaling. It's highly unlikely that it will be flawless, so you'll need to update some of these.

Good news is that you have it working and that's a great reference for what you need. Bad news is that you probably will have to change most of the settings by hand.


One option would be placing this layer in another composition and resizing it to the higher resolution. But in that case, it might pixelize it. There is a chance, though, that it would interpret things well. (Much better than just scaling the output, at least.)

I have embedded one composition in another and slowed it down and the keyframes were interpolated, so I got smooth motion throughout. This might apply in some cases with your project being scaled, too.

thanks for your advice - seems like the only option. gonna try :)

I just did a quick test.

100x100 composition.

Typed "TEST".

That was, obviously, completely crisp/clear.

I made a new composition, 500x500 and put that in there. Upsized to 500%. Very distorted. Didn't interpret it well. Just took the result of the last composition.

Then I tried upscaling the text in the first composition, and it did just fine. No artifacting.

So, that appears to be the answer. You must do it within the composition.


I think the time change I mentioned is probably an exception. If you slow the footage to 50% in another composition, then it probably just calls for the first comp to render twice as many frames, so this wouldn't apply to scale, unfortunately.

the problems seems to be the 3D part of the composition. when i try to scale it it totally runs out of alignement and changes its entire form :(

ok i've found a perfect solution:

#1 create an adjustmentlayer in your composition
#2 move your newly created layer to the top of your composition
#3 select all other layers
#4 align them to the adjustmentlayer
#4 resize the adjustmentlayer to 187,5% (if your source is PAL DV to 1920x1080 HD)

this keeps ALL alignements in place AND re-renders the vector based elements in the full resolution instead fo interpolating them

:)

Ah, very nice. That's cool.

I don't know if you've tried this but add a null object to layers panel then parent all of the layers to be upscaled to the null. Then scale the null up to whatever size you want and all the other layers will do the same.

did you try nesting the comp? Make a new comp with the size you want, drag your small comp into the larger comp. Adjust the scale of the small comp so it fills the larger screen.
If your animation was made in after effects it will not loose qaulity!

In response to the last two posts....
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=24882

Martin, he did exactly that.
Aric, that was discussed earlier and it didn't work-- just pixelated the other comp.

Ahh I see he used that adjustment layer as the parent. cool