Appendices - The Focal Easy Guide to After Effects - page 253

friend - especially when it comes to typography builds. Fields exist for a reason
(though that original reason is obsolete today) and should not be dismissed as
passé. Fields (Interlaced Mode) offer more temporal information to the viewer
than an equivalent frame rate Frame (Progressive Scan) Mode does. That is, if
both modes are running at 30 fps, the Frames Mode system will show 30
full-resolution frames per second, whereas the Fields Mode system will actually
show 60 half-resolution images per second. Our brains automatically
compensate for the corresponding loss of resolution interlaced footage displays
but benefit more from the doubled rate of motion smoothness. We are more
sensitive to motion smoothness than image clarity.

Opinion: If you're going to be playing your project's output on a field-scanning
environment (NTSC, PAL, SECAM), then render your projects in fields! I know, I
know - I hear the hate mail already, 'But I can save 20% of my work if I render with
3:2 Pulldown added' or 'I really prefer the cinematic look rendering frames offers'.
All I have to say is this: if your client doesn't care or see the difference and likes
what you do - then, by all means, do what you prefer. But if you prefer smooth-
flowing, easy-to-read text, logos and transitions, use fields - especially with text
treatments. Text is far more readable on a field playback medium when rendered in
fields, not frames.

Fact: If you don't properly interpret your movie clips' field order, wherever your
project uses these clips, this footage will look bad when rendered. Knowing what
field order to use just isn't that hard to figure out. What can be difficult is figuring
out what field order to use when rendering your finished project to an unknown
output format.

Project Settings and Preferences

Once you have a grasp of how to navigate and build projects, you should
become familiar to some critical tweaks to key After Effects functions. By doing
so, you will help prevent much aggravation as you progress in your quest to
learn the right way to make your projects. There are two places you can adjust
or customize how After Effects works for you.

Project Settings

The first area is Project Settings. Click on File Project Settings , then the

following dialog opens.