Bright text and graphics "shimmer"

dornier wrote on 10/24/2005, 4:22 PM

After rendering a final product, I'm noticing a "shimmering" (for lack of a better term) quality to text and graphics that are at or near the value of white.

Is there a way around this? Perhaps in in the properties?

Comments

rmack350 wrote on 10/24/2005, 4:58 PM

Yep. Shimmer is a normal artifact on TVs. It's because the TV is interlaced so any sharp edges will have that "now you see it, now you don't" effect.

Usually, the solution is to blur or otherwise soften the edges of your graphics. Also, you want to make sure you aren't using fine lines as graphic elements. Thick ones with soft edges will work better.

Rob Mack

Spot|DSE wrote on 10/24/2005, 5:44 PM

It also is potentially due to illegal colors, if you're only seeing it in bright colors or whites. Are you working in NTSC or PAL

dornier wrote on 10/24/2005, 6:20 PM

Ok, I'm using NTSC.

And, it's mostly on a white text credit roll in addition to some static photos with brighter regions within.

johnmeyer wrote on 10/24/2005, 6:39 PM

The blur idea will help (use only vertical, not horizontal).

Also, while most people -- including me -- don't care much for the credit roll feature, I do find that it produces fewer artifacts than using the normal text plugin and then using keyframes to scroll the text. Which method are you using? The credit roll, or the normal text feature with keyframing?

dornier wrote on 10/24/2005, 7:45 PM

I've used keyframes so far; it just seemed extra work at the moment to make the plug-in appear as I wanted.

I'll try the plug in, but I'm not sure if I want to blur any of my stills. I might have to if it means sacrificing the sharp image for the sake of a "shimmer".

farss wrote on 10/24/2005, 10:21 PM

Using Gaussian Blur with 0.001 vertical and 0.000 horizontal will usually fix the problem without knocking the image around too much.
With text oftenly adding a small outline thats 50% between the text and background will help.
Just finished off a DVD where this is a real problem. They've poped the colors so they're way outside legal and the level change on the edges is as big as it gets. I've had to turn this into a NTSC DVD and it looks great on our broadcast monitor and on my TV going in component but on a typically TV fed composte, oh dear, it looks horrible.

johnmeyer wrote on 10/25/2005, 7:52 AM

Let me urge you to try the credit roll rather than the text with keyframe approach. Just do it on a sample, if you want to see the result, but don't want to take a lot of time. I think you'll find it much better than keyframing text. I know a lot of people have touted the advantages of keyframing text, but my experience has always been the same as yours, namely that the text has lots of artifacts when moved in this way.