Am I the only one who thinks compositing/FX in Media Composer is just insanely stupid?

[Michael Hancock]

You may already know this, but you don’t have to step into a clip to nest an effect. Just hold Alt when you drop your new effect on. It will automatically nest it. Now, if you want to put an effect on beneathe an effect already in place you have to step in, or just enter effects mode and double click your clip. It will open the tracks and you can add your other effect there. Pretty quick and simple. But, I agree with you. I think Avid needs to seriously consider updating their GUI and effects handling. It would be nice to get rid of “modes” altogether, but I’m sure it would call for an enormous and extensive rewrite of the code. Still, changing a little bit here and there would be a nice start.

Mike.

[Geraint Pari huws]

I find word processing insanely difficult within photoshop, that’s why I use Word!

Sure, it’s frustrating, to a point, though historicaly I believe avid entered the market as a non-linear off line system to replace tape based off line suites, and succeeded in revolutionising the way editors and post production works.

The industry has however changed, there is less specialisation, and people expect their nle and operator to replace the whole spectrum of post.

Strangely I read far more complaints about Avids lack of compositing/fx features than I do about its rather basic audio toolset, (I don’t think the concept of stereo has actually been addressed yet),
Sure transfer modes would be cool, though they are available in plug in form (you may find they exist to a point already within media composers/symphony if you look hard enough so the code mst be there somewhere)

Although it has its weaknesses it remains a solid professional nle, I only hope the hal/smoke/combustion/ds/ae etc forums are continualy recieving posts saying how insanely clumsy these machines are to edit on!

[Joseph Mehr]

yes, Avid isn’t a compositing tool, however things have changed since 10/15 years and the editng needs avolve ! So why not the FX palette and even the timeline !

[Paul Harb]

true an Avid isnt a compositer….however as we all know and you stated things have changed…..editors now a days need to do FX and compositing…..period……and Avid seems to just want to add to what they already have as opposed to changing some really illogical ways of doing things…..that said….YES it is a great basic editor…..and YES YES YES your right about the audio tools….very cumbersome….guess they want you to buy a Pro Tools….

Paul

[Oliver Peters]

Paul,

Should Avid revamp this? Certainly, but…. I’ve done tons of compositing on Avid systems of all types and you can do it. 50-100 layers. Yes. And that’s will the standard MC interface. Have you tried Boris with Avid for more advanced compositing? Plus, I can guarantee you that the finished results will be far superior in quality to something like FCP, which has the style of interface that you like.

[paul] “To “step into” a clip just to be able to add more than one filter…..”

Or double click the effect icon on the clip and it opens vertically on the timeline and shows you the filter stack.

[paul] “having to use this “special thing” called “advanced keyframes” just to get to animate different parimeters of effects”

This is only required if you want Bezier curves. I agree that it should be better integrated, but isn’t necessary for most effects.

[paul] “no transfer modes”

This can be achieved with plug-ins and will be more of a factor with AVX2. If you use BCC plug-ins, they have transfer modes. I do a lot with FCP, which has transfer modes. They generally don’t give me the results I like (not as well as PSD or AE), so more often than not I don’t use them

[paul] “and he was showing me how cool it was cause he could just laso a bunch of clips in the timeline and move them”

Segment mode and lasso does the same thing in MC.

[paul] “or grab an end of a clip and trim it without having to go into segment mode…”

Lasso an edit point and you automatically go into a trim mode. Dragging the rollers on the timeline does the trimming. No interaction with the trim mode necessary unless you want to work that way.

Sincerely,
Oliver

Oliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Oakmozart]

No, you’re not alone. There are some things about Avid’s interface that are absolutely STUPID.

Happily, Avid’s working on its next-generation interface, so hopefully some of these problems will go away, without ruining the interface.

Stay tuned…