Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 5.5 Help Manual page 38

Adobe After Effects Help
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Transitions and titles included in your Adobe Premiere project appear in the After Effects
composition as solid layers, maintaining their original location and duration. After Effects
discards all transparency and motion settings. See "Importing files into a project" on
page 28 for the procedure for importing.
Import Adobe Premiere projects in the same way you import footage files: choosing File >
Import > File, and locating the Adobe Premiere project file that you want to import.
Importing 3D-image files
After Effects can import 3D-image files saved in Softimage PIC, RLA, and Electric Image EI
format. These 3D-image files contain red, green, blue, and alpha (RGBA) channels, as well
as auxiliary channels with optional information, such as z depth, object IDs, texture coordi-
nates, and more. The Standard Version of After Effects reads and displays the RGBA infor-
mation.
With RLA files, all of the auxiliary channels are included in a single file. Softimage PIC files
have a corresponding ZPIC file that contains the z-depth channel information. Although
you can't import a ZPIC file, you can access the additional channel information as long as
the ZPIC file is stored in the same folder as the imported PIC file.
Similarly, Electric Image (EI) files can now have associated EIZ files with z-depth channel
data. Just as with ZPIC files, you cannot import EIZ files into After Effects; instead, you store
them in the same folder as the EI files. For information about creating EIZ files, see your
Electric Image documentation.
Importing an audio file
You can import a variety of audio file formats directly into After Effects. When you add
audio-only files to a composition, they appear as layers in the Timeline window. You can
adjust the audio preview settings, such as sample rate, in the General Preferences dialog
box. These settings change the quality of audio playback when you preview the compo-
sition, not when you render it. For more information, see "Using audio layers" on page 91.
Importing Cineon files
You can import Cineon 4.5 or Digital Picture Exchange (DPX) files directly into an After
Effects project as individual frames or as a sequence of numbered stills. Once you have
imported a Cineon file, you can use it in a composition and then render the composition
as a Cineon sequence. See "Importing a sequence of still-image files" on page 29.
Cineon files are commonly used to transfer motion-picture film to a digital format. To
preserve the full dynamic range of motion-picture film, Cineon files are stored using
logarithmic 10 bits per channel (bpc). However, After Effects internally uses linear 8-bpc
color, (or 16-bpc, for the Production Bundle only). By default, After Effects stretches the
attendant logarithmic values to the full range of values available. You can then use the
Cineon Import Options dialog box or the Cineon Converter effect to control the
conversion. (If you are working with a film sequence in which exposure conditions vary
over time, you can vary the conversion over time by setting keyframes.) For information on
using the Cineon converter, see "Cineon Converter" on page 190.
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Preparing and Importing Footage
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