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Alternative Application for Media Production
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “… Adobe CS sales and upgrades are down?”
No.
Also, a quick note on the Creative Cloud subscription model. I think of it as a good choice or alternative for some users. Adobe believes in open workflows and to take that idea further – open choices on how to purchase the software.
If you want a traditional license of software, great! Upgrade as before. As Craig noted, we have changed how far back we look for a qualified upgrade but a) we let people know this was changing well before the CS6 launch and b) subsequently offered specials to get people from CS3 to move up before time ran out. You might say Adobe is getting greedy, but if you look around the industry, most major software companies weren’t going back three versions to allow for an upgrade.
If you want to have more flexibility in your software license and get updates and additional programs, and cloud stuff, etc. the Creative Cloud subscription model might work for you. You pay less and when CS-next comes out, you automatically have access to it. You get Master Collection which is nice for those of you that need InDesign or Dreamweaver once in a while. you get the cloud storage. However, if you stop your subscription, you only have what you started with, which may be nothing…
Both sides have merit and in the end, it’s a choice. It’s a choice that’s up to YOU, not Adobe!
Here’s an FAQ for ya. https://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/faq.html
Hope this helps,
Dennis – Adobe guy -
I just read this and a few other blog entries, and I disagree with Mr. Balser on many, many points. I’d dispute several of his technical assertions, but that aside, I think his analyses are tremendously subjective.
Maybe it’s to be expected from a web site named “FCPX University,” but there’s no attempt at balance in this article. I am 100% supportive of giving FCPX its due, applauding Apple’s innovations, and recognizing how Apple has shaped the industry — but from a creative professional’s perspective, this is not a zero-sum game, and I think that minimizing the contributions of other developers like Adobe, Autodesk, and Avid is foolish, short-sighted, and risky. He seems particularly negative toward Adobe, and I’m not really sure why. They make great tools, they are industry standards, and their pricing is well within reach for working professionals.
Another element missing here is a sense of perspective: an explanation of the sort of work that can best be done with these tools, and where their limits lie.
To make the dreaded tool analogy, Mr. Balser has suggested that a handsaw is the best tool because it’s small, cheap, and cuts through wood. I took down a few branches and trees on my property this weekend, but if I had only a handsaw instead of a pole saw and a chainsaw, I’d still be out in the woods.
I am sure it’s possible to do good work with the alternative tool set Mr. Balser is espousing in his blog. However, I think it’s key to remember that this is an alternative tool set, not a replacement tool set. Some of the apps in here simply can’t compete with their more fully-featured alternatives for more complex or collaborative work.
My opinion on getting work done is fundamentally unchanged: figure out what the goal for the job at hand is, then select the best tool for getting it done.
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 -
Well put Walter – you don’t need a chainsaw to cut down a sapling, but you sure don’t want to use a hatchet to cut down a 40 foot tall oak tree. The right tool for the job, and don’t mock someone else’s tools, especially if you don’t understand them.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
[Joseph W. Bourke] “I can’t think of a faster way to be considered bush league by my clients than when they send me a Photoshop or Illustrator file and I tell them I can’t open it.
And this guy thinks Motion is better than After Effects – it’s a toy! Presets for the talentless!
“Frankly Joseph, I don’t think you’ve spent enough time with Motion to so blithely disregard it. I’ve used it to great effect (pun intended) since its inception. Certainly, it has presets if you care to use them, but I’ve gotten a lot of millage out of the program without them. You didn’t have to look any further than its strength as a masking tool which sat inside the FCP timeline to know its worth. The use of “behaviors” as an animating tool (not only x,y,z direction, but very granular behaviors like gravity, repulsion, attraction) and its unique (at the time of introduction, and for several years after) use of GPU accelerated preview made it a very interesting environment to experiment in. It’s later implementation of 2.5D lighting and camera tools made what was already an extremely useful titling tool into something very fast and quite remarkable. I think that if you were actually aware of its facile but deep granularity, you would find it very difficult if not impossible to call it a toy.
“Better” than AE, certainly not. But, also, not a toy.
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My feeling on Motion vs. AE is that Motion’s ceiling is lower, but its floor is higher.
I grossly generalize that by saying that it’s easier to get from 0% to 80% in Motion than it is in AE, but it’s easier to get from 0% to 100% in AE.
As a power AE user, I get hung up on all the things I can’t do with Motion: scripting, expressions, resolution independence, and most especially third-party support.
That said, Motion’s mostly real time performance is fun while it lasts, replicators are neat, and rigging/publishing is very cool.
There’s a lot to like in Motion, but it’s also pretty easy to bang your head on the low ceiling as you step outside of titling.
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 -
[Walter Soyka] “There’s a lot to like in Motion, but it’s also pretty easy to bang your head on the low ceiling as you step outside of titling.
“Absolutely. Back when round-tripping actually worked, the best thing about Motion–from my POV–was the way it worked with FCP. I tended to think of it as an extension of FCP, and used it that way. I’ve removed whole actors from scenes where they’ve intruded with the masking tool, created effects and transitions that wouldn’t be possible with normal plugins, and have quickly created dynamite titles that no NLE titler has ever been capable of. But, I have always thought of it as a module of FCP, and not something that competes at any serious level with AE. It was much more comparable to Boris modules with Avid [I’d say “is” but since round-tripping is gone from X, I think it deserves a past tense.]
I should also add that, since I come from the television world (as opposed to film), I tend to see modules like Motion as some sort of incredible mutant descendant of Chyron, and not as an animation package.
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[Chris Harlan] “I should also add that, since I come from the television world (as opposed to film), I tend to see modules like Motion as some sort of incredible mutant descendant of Chyron, and not as an animation package.”
Apple’s current tagline for Motion is “Make every effect special” — but I think “Incredible Mutant Descendant of Chyron” is way more descriptive.
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 -
[Joseph W. Bourke] “you don’t need a chainsaw to cut down a sapling, but you sure don’t want to use a hatchet to cut down a 40 foot tall oak tree.”
Lets run with that for a moment.
You actually can cut down saplings no problem with a chainsaw. I do it all the time.
However, if all you have are a few saplings to cut down, and nothing else, then dragging out the chainsaw is more work than just cutting them by hand.
It is much more difficult to take down bigger trees with a hatchet, then it is to cut saplings with a chainsaw.
This is much like FCS vs FCP X. FCS is the chainsaw, and X is the hatchet.[Joseph W. Bourke] “And this guy thinks Motion is better than After Effects – it’s a toy! Presets for the talentless!”
Motion is, what it is. There are some things that Motion is good for, and other things not so much. While it does have a bunch of presets, it is not a toy. If you know how to use it, you can do a lot without ever even using a preset. So I wouldn’t hold that against anyone. I could make the same comparison of Shake vs AE.
[Walter Soyka] “However, I think it’s key to remember that this is an alternative tool set, not a replacement tool set.”
We have a winner!
As usual, leave it to Walter to be smart and succinct.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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Hi Scott –
I think we’re pretty much in agreement. I cut down saplings with my hatchet (or bowsaw) pretty regularly, but I try to spare the planet the fumes and oil drippings of my chainsaw. But I do use both, depending on the project at hand.
I may have given Motion short shrift, and I have used it a bit at a client’s office, since I was creating Photoshop templates for an on-air broadcast look that had to go to Motion/FCP7. I just didn’t like the superficial friendly feel of the interface. Don’t ask me to explain that – it was just a gut reaction.
I agree with both you and Walter. The alternative tools can
get the job done, but for a day-to-day workflow, I like the mainstream tools. That said, I just purchased Element 3D, and I have owned, and been using 3D Studio Max for years.Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
[Scott Sheriff] ” I could make the same comparison of Shake vs AE.”
Can you clarify, Scott? I don’t see the comparison.
Thanks,
Shawn
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