OK, I’m trying to use the Export XFL feature from AE CS4 to Flash CS4. My AE Comp is about 8 layers, no effects just simple motion via position and scale changes – no audio. I’m working at 900x600 which is what the final .swf needs to be. When I try to export, I get the now famous…

After Effects: AEGP Plugin Media IO Plugin
There is a mismatch between Output Module settings and Transcode Settings. Please verify your settings and try again. Property Data Invalid!
Error 5027:12

By switching the setting in the XLF Export dialogue box from .FLV to .PNG I can export and open my AE project in Flash but, the final file size is huge due to my vector art being raster-ized in the .png conversion.

Is my file size presenting the problem here? If I have to change it, is there a scale ( ratio) I need to go by?

Thanks.

Have you tried hitting the Reset to Defaults button to see if you still get the error? This error normally occurs when there is a size mismatch, but I can't cause it to happen. Please post a stripped down version of you project and we can see what is going on.

Hey Christopher. Thanks for taking a look at this for me. I tried the reset - no luck there.
I've strip this down to almost nothing and still get the error.
Forgot to mention before, I'm on on PC using Master CS4.

<http://www.oobamedia.com/Test_Animation_File.zip>
( if there is a better way to attached a file in the forums or for whatever reason you cannot open it let me know and I'll try it again )
Thanks,
Shawn

OK. I don't like the answer, but I have a workaround for you.

The way XFL export works, is that it wants to preserve as much fidelity as possible. Since you only have basic animation on your layers, they will stay around in flash with the animation. But since Flash does PSD layer separation on import, not when they open XFL files, we need to convert PSD files to something that can be embedded in an xfl file.

The error you are seeing is when we are attempting to convert any of the layers from small.psd to flv. The flv exporter has a limit of 1080 by 1080. Since your layer size is 1200 by 1136 it is failing. This error should have been reported earlier, I'm sorry it wasn't and this was so difficult to diagnose.

By making your PSD smaller than 1080 in any dimension it will work.

Thanks for posting the comp. The problem is the dimensions of the PSD layers in the comp. (In your original post you dropped the last line or the error, which specifies the problem: "Frame dimensions out of bounds".)

I'm not sure why this is. I suspect that the 1200x1136 dimensions exceed an internal limit in the Flash Video format.

One way you could work around this would be to force After Effects to render the layers at the comp dimensions. An easy way to do this is apply any effect to the layer. (To prevent the effect from changing the pixels, choose an effect that you can zero out, like Fast Blur.) This, however, will limit your ability to manipulate the layers in Flash, as their visible pixels will be limited to what appears inside the comp bounds in After Effects.

Given the structure of your comp, however, I'd recommend sticking with the PNG format. The FLV layers won't necessarily be better, they'll just be more compressed. Your vector art is still going to be rasterized to pixels before After Effects converts it to FLV. You can keep the overall PNG file size down if you can combine layers by pre-composing. (Note that this will also have the effect of rasterizing them at the comp dimensions.) Whether or not this will be effective depends on how you intend to animate the layers in Flash.

All I can say is WOW. Thanks for the effort you guys. I did a quick run through ( starting back in Photoshop – File > Scripts > Export Layers As .PNG's and making sure everything was sized correctly this time ), quickly re-did the animation in After Effects, then did the XFL export and it worked great. With the extra time you guys bought me I’m going to go back now and experiment a little with pre-composing those png's to see if I can get the file size down. But really, as it stands now, it's good to go - just need to add my Flash interactivity.
Christopher, Tim - thanks a ton, you guys rock!