AE vs Smoke
updated 8 years, 8 months ago 9 Members · 18
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Can someone list the features in smoke that are not in AE?
Richard C
You heard the word of the wise from Dave, here’s my 2 cents:
If you want a nodal compositing/fx software go with Nuke (unless you plan to train on Flame later on… even then I would think twice).
Otherwise stick with AE – look at Adobe’s track record: not the fastest developer, but steady growth, plus you can’t beat the third party developers of plugins, scripts and custom projects. No fx software out there has that at the scale AE has it.
Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX ArtistTell me about it, I had edit and combustion and less than a year the prices went down (plus paint & Effects)and then eol, combustion sometime latter. So I am very weary of Autodesk much more using an Imac (how long will any of these be around)
But since A/E now haw a great 3d traker and 3d extrusion I percive that they are going after smoke. And would want to know how far they got to go to at least match it.
Richard C
No I don’t like nodes they confuse me. Just hope that AE is on track to overtake smoke.
Richard C
There is one, and only one, feature of Smoke that After Effects does not handle well:
SMOKE has a unique daemon that reaches deep into your pocket and takes *all your money*, then injects you with Serum 114 and makes you think you actually got something “special”.
As someone who transitioned (poorly) to AE from Shake, I think node-based compositing has a serious place in any workflow requiring compositing once you begin to grasp the power of nodes and connections as opposed to layers.
It comes down to how you like working really. Some reason there seems to be a cost-premium if you like working with Nodes.
Irrespective of the “Autodesk will, one day, stick it to you” reality – there will be a trial of smoke 2013 in early summer (actually an open beta I believe) and anyone can try it for themselves. I plan on doing so and I am hopefully it really will be the holy grail for integrating a node-based compositor and a timeline.
While Nuke remains a remarkable compositor, it’s $5k to start for a single-eye pipeline (2D) and $8K for a stereoscopic pipeline.
It doesn’t mean we should all just buy into the Smoke hype and it would be nice to see some kind of long-term committment from Autodesk, but I fear we won’t get one.
—
There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It’s all learned. – Bruce Ediger
The big Smoke features not present in AE are a non-linear editor and a 3D nodal compositor.
In my mind, Smoke and AE are more complementary than they are competitive. I have been training on the prior version of Smoke, and I do plan on purchasing Smoke 2013, but I see them being used in different stages of my workflow, and I don’t necessarily see myself using both on every project.
AE plus Premiere Pro with Dynamic Link, especially with the upcoming improvements in 3D and the global performance cache in CS6, will cover quite a bit of wha Smoke can do, albeit with a different workflow.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Eventsso basicaly A/e can do most of what Smoke does except the node thing.
(editing through PPro)RC
Smoke is not special because it has unique features that aren’t available in any other application. It’s special because it has all those features within one app, and all within the context of your edit. This eliminates the render-export-import-process-render-export-import process inherent in multi-application workflows. Smoke is especially targeted at client-supervised sessions and tight turnarounds.
Adobe takes a different approach. Rather than offering a single application, they offer a tightly integrated suite of applications, each with their own speciality. You can cut with Premiere Pro, add effects and compositing with After Effects, sweeten with Audition, and color with SpeedGrade.
They are two different philosophies toward production, and they are both valid for different circumstances.
If you’re trying to figure out if Smoke is the right choice for you, I’d turn the question around — what is your current workflow like, and what are your specific production needs?
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage EventsI know a lot of folks are questioning Autodesk’s commitment to Smoke and are comparing it with the Edit* EOL, but I don’t think that’s a direct comparison. Autodesk has been committed to Smoke since they acquired Discreet, and have been delivering consistent, strong updates on the Mac since its launch — to say nothing of all the work put into the 2013 release. I know there’s a lot of distrust for Autodesk after the Edit* fiasco, but that was 10 years ago, and if Autodesk were to EOL Smoke out of the blue, they would be giving up their only NLE and that could actually threaten their Flame and Lustre franchises.
Of course, there’s no way of knowing what a company will do in the future, but there are no perfect records among any of the major NLE vendors, so you have to trust someone. Companies like Adobe and Autodesk at least seem interested in earning my business.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
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