I need to render a huge peace but need the background transparent so all I have is the animated object. I also NEED the file to be a mov as I need to composite onto a video file. Blender 2.49b does this automatically but I have to use 2.63 and can't get the black (any color) background to not be there. Please help!

I haven't rendered a Quicktime directly from Blender, but I have had this issue. If you're in Cycles and you go into the Output it should be set to RGBA. Then, (the not so obvious part) go into the Film pull-down and check Transparent. Hopefully that's all it is. I tend to render out a PNG sequence and render the animation using After Effects since Blender for PC apparently doesn't allow me to render out QuickTime files. However, if you open Quicktime Player and open the image sequence then you can render out a Quicktime file from there and many options are available. However, I don't know if Alpha Gain in the works or not without pulling it into another program. I'm trying to do this without using After Effects which does this easily. If you're using a Mac this may be readily available.

Hope this helps.
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Zack Miller
www.sumofilms.com

In Quicktime pro, if You export the sequence to PNG codec, it preserves transparency!

Also, rendering directly to video is a bad idea, if the system hangs, or anything happens while rendering, You end up starting from scratch!

Juste render to PNG, the way ZackatSumoFilms suggested, then import to Quicktime Pro as a sequence, then set PNG as the video codec.

Gilles

Gcharb wrote:

In Quicktime pro, if You export the sequence to PNG codec, it preserves transparency! Also, rendering directly to video is a bad idea, if the system hangs, or anything happens while rendering, You end up starting from scratch! Juste render to PNG, the way ZackatSumoFilms suggested, then import to Quicktime Pro as a sequence, then set PNG as the video codec. Gilles

Thanks for the tip on Quicktime! I never use it this way and I thought it would just render out another PNG sequence when I saw that option.
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Zack Miller
www.sumofilms.com

Thanks for the tip, but my render time for a video sequence is pretty fast. It takes a lot longer to piece together the PNG sequences than rendering the video. I think they should bring back the ability to render quicktime with transparency like in 2.49b.

MDFI wrote:

Thanks for the tip, but my render time for a video sequence is pretty fast. It takes a lot longer to piece together the PNG sequences than rendering the video. I think they should bring back the ability to render quicktime with transparency like in 2.49b.

No offence, but importing a series of PNGs is pretty fast, and I still stand by what I said, also, You get much better control with sequences of images!

I just checked, and 2.63a does not allow the render of Quicktime movies at all it seems, maybe a problem with 64 bits systems?

Gilles

Gcharb wrote:

MDFI wrote: Thanks for the tip, but my render time for a video sequence is pretty fast. It takes a lot longer to piece together the PNG sequences than rendering the video. I think they should bring back the ability to render quicktime with transparency like in 2.49b. No offence, but importing a series of PNGs is pretty fast, and I still stand by what I said, also, You get much better control with sequences of images! I just checked, and 2.63a does not allow the render of Quicktime movies at all it seems, maybe a problem with 64 bits systems? Gilles

I confirmed that. Apparently Windows 64 bit isn't happy with it and considering it is developed before the Mac version, it probably won't be added back into it. There may be a Mac render script coming out in the future, but considering that the 64 bit processors are Intel based in Macs and usually PCs, my guess would be probably not.
It definitely Sounds like an issue that should be handled for the people who don't want to deal with image sequence rendering. But, after having my having complex renders crash I was glad to have an image sequence that doesn't have to be completely re-rendered from scratch. Nothing's more fun than a corrupted (incomplete) video file.
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Zack Miller
www.sumofilms.com

Yeah I guess the PNG sequencing gives me something more to do in my free time :L My mac is a 64 bit, the only problem with the image sequencing is that I've found that some particle effects don't show up with it so I have to render both image and video so particles are visible.