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FEBRUARY 28, 2003 Here Comes the Sun
Select all of the layers in the Timeline (unless they are already highlighted) by first clicking on the top most layer, and then holding the Shift key and clicking on the bottom most layer. This ensures that the layer order is placed in After Effects memory, and will help us in the next couple of steps. Press the Option+] key on the Mac or the Alt+] key on the PC to set the Outpoint for all of the layers simultaneously. Now all of the layers are exactly one frame long.[an error occurred while processing this directive]  From the Animation menu, select Keyframe Assistant>Sequence Layers.  This will bring up a window asking how you would like to overlap the layers or if you would like them to crossfade. Turn both of these options OFF and click Okay. Without either of these items selected, the layers will be stacked sequentially one after the other from top to bottom.   You can Pre-Compose all of the layers into one composition.  The end result is an animated Sun that spins on screen. There are several problems with these images. Because of how often the EIT 304 images are taken, there could be days of missing data, which would cause the Sun to appear to jump. There could also be areas of the image with missing data.
The second issue has to deal with the GIF compression, or maybe in the way the sensors of the SOHO telescope capture the sun images. Using a Transfer Mode or Knoll’s Unmult or the free Xmult plug-ins to key out the black background yield less than desirable results. In addition, the corona of the sun extends out of frame, which means we will always end up with a square box around the Sun should we decide to resize it later.
Have no fear dear readers, next time we will address these problems and show you a way to create your own rotating Sun without having to download a bunch of images from a government site. When not working deep in the labs of the DMN Central Division testing the latest and greatest software/hardware products Stephen Schleicher can be found at the local university teaching a few courses on video and web production. He can be reached at schleicher@mindspring.com. You can also visit him on the web at www.mindspring.com/~schleicher Related sites: • Animation Artist • Animation Supplement • AV Video • Creative Mac • Digital Animators • Digital Post Production • Digital Producer • Digital Video Editing • DV Format • Siggraph News • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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