Aaron Strader
Forum Replies Created
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Yeah, it’s not a money/gig-maker for sure.
Rather, it’s a sign that you’re a trusted go-to kinda guy for help with Premiere. If you’re into the whole training thing, or are looking for more accreditation with your current job, it’s a good step. I find that people take my advice a lot more seriously and practically when I give it as a result.
Also, it looks snappy on your business cards, too.
I fear the Adobe After Effects Cert Exam. If that’s any trickier than the Premiere Pro Cert Exam, then that bad boy is most likely hewn from fresh evil… If you seriously want to take the Premiere test, STUDY. A LOT.
Good luck.
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It’s technically, what you’d call 2 1/2 D. It doesn’t operate in AE in a true 3D space, so it’s up to you to make it look that way. The easiest way is to know when your stroke is roaming in it’s own 3D space. Incorporate it’s percieved Z depth in using multiple layers of the 3D stroke in with single layer you need masked.
Or, you can also wrap multiple layers of your object around the 3D stroke.
I had to demo this to a client who purchased it, and we took a pair of handcuffs, took a swirly 3D stroke that had some Z depth dips in it, and masked off the portions of the ‘cuffs where the stroke was “dipping” behind the object, while not masking where we wanted to make the curves arc over the front of the cuffs.
It was a really simple trick, and took 4 layers.
2 mask layers of the cuffs.
3D stroke
1 solid layer of the cuffs.It was fairly simple from there.
-Aaron
https://www.stopfcc.com/
Knock it off! I like my radio and television the way it is… -
It’s technically, what you’d call 2 1/2 D. It doesn’t operate in AE in a true 3D space, so it’s up to you to make it look that way. The easiest way is to know when your stroke is roaming in it’s own 3D space. Incorporate it’s percieved Z depth in using multiple layers of the 3D stroke in with single layer you need masked.
Or, you can also wrap multiple layers of your object around the 3D stroke.
I had to demo this to a client who purchased it, and we took a pair of handcuffs, took a swirly 3D stroke that had some Z depth dips in it, and masked off the portions of the ‘cuffs where the stroke was “dipping” behind the object, while not masking where we wanted to make the curves arc over the front of the cuffs.
It was a really simple trick, and took 4 layers.
2 mask layers of the cuffs.
3D stroke
1 solid layer of the cuffs.It was fairly simple from there.
-Aaron
https://www.stopfcc.com/
Knock it off! I like my radio and television the way it is… -
From what I’ve seen, and done, a demo reel is edited for content. Most people hiring aren’t looking for your taste in music, unfortunately.
If this is just to show to friends and such, go nuts.
A well edited demo reel should encapsulate what you are capable of doing with the tools you have available to you. It should also showcase what you’ve been able to do for your clients in terms bringing them something original to the table for that particular client.
Check out the CC Demo Reel forum. Those guys are some of the most honest critics out there for content and flow of a demo reel.
-Aaron
https://www.stopfcc.com/
Knock it off! I like my radio and television the way it is… -
We actually have a lot of success with Ghost 2003 from Norton. Good luck trying to find it on retail, since they totally revamped the Ghost application in the last year.
I cannot recommend any newer versions of ghost, since they operate in a much different manner than what suits our needs as a business.
If you can locate an old copy of ghost 2003 (ebay), buy it and it should provide you with what you need.
And yes, we do use it with RTX100’s. Provided we check the ghost out afterwards, we have a 100% recovery rate with this application.
One other thing to note is that the ’03 edition of ghost doesn’t really like SATA drives, so you may need to unplug ’em to get it to work right.
-Aaron
https://www.stopfcc.com/
Knock it off! I like my radio and television the way it is… -
You really need to be working in AE. The vector based animation will really help out, providing a smooth scaling look to the footage.
I recently did a Star Wars style title in the same look, with the STAR WARS opening logo look.
I achieved the opening roll with a pinched 3D perspective mask, from another comp, again in AE.
-Aaron
https://www.stopfcc.com/
Knock it off! I like my radio and television the way it is… -
Seeing as it’s one’s own perogative to pull a card or not…
I’d keep an x100. With the realtime preview, it’s one thing, but you don’t have to render out any of your effects, you get a realtime file format from your other apps (AE and Combustion can render to matrox), and you also get realtime output to tape, MPEG2, MPEG1, and others.
You also get analog input, output, and WYSIWYG on a whole slew of applications.
If you’ve got it, it’s worth hanging onto. You do have the option of working outside of matrox mode, if that’s your thing, and you still get the benefit of working with it’s features whenever you want to…
Heck it’d be worth hanging onto anyway. If and when Matrox builds up a new HDV version of the x100, you betcha you’ll want to have something to use as a potential trade-in.
-Aaron
https://www.stopfcc.com/
Knock it off! I like my radio and television the way it is… -
This was the matrox tools on the RT2500 that allowed the files to import properly. Since you’ve switched to running on Software only, your machine no longer recognizes what the RT2500 did to your footage. When the RT2500 captures it tags the WAV file it co-captures with the Video. This way, so long as they’re on the drive they were captured on, the RT2500 will recognize the footage as having a matching audio file to go with the AVI that you import. This was an issue they fixed with the RTX100 card. Until you either are finished with your legacy footage or you rerender it out under your new format, you WILL have to use the footage as seperated Audio and Video files. It’s just the way it is with older Matrox footage.
Good luck!
-Aaron
https://www.stopfcc.com/
Knock it off! I like my radio and television the way it is… -
I agree with redgum. We ship EVERY system out of our doors with NO antivirus protection, and we DO NOT allow customers to install one. Instead we take the time to educate them on where viruses come from (*cough* Internet Explorer *cough* Outlook *cough*), how to avoid getting them, and how they can live without “protection”
We’ve even had arguements with some client’s IT department over this very issue. Most IT heads opinion is to just block rather than educate. This is BAD and lazy.
Our efforts have resulted in only 3 machines in over 5 years ever getting infected with viruses. 2 of these machines were users who ignored our warnings and used AOL as their ISP. And this is with 75% of our machines going online.
Honestly, your best bets for security and stability:
A good defragger
external Firewall (router)
Ad-aware
Spybot
Mozilla Firefox (or Opera) to replace IE
Mozilla Thunderbird or Forte Agent to replace MS Outlook
NO instant messaging clientsOur best “virus-proof” machines are the ones that rely on using alternative software. Meaning that there’s no BIG applications on there. We use Firefox instead of IE, we use Open Office instead of MS Office 2004, etc.
The less popular a piece of software is, the less likely it is to be targeted against hacks and viruses. Most Windows users fit right into the 90th percentile of attacks. they use Internet Explorer, Outlook, most have some form of software from Claria (formerly GATOR), and use AOL. That’s a lot of holes.
-Aaron
https://www.stopfcc.com/
Knock it off! I like my radio and television the way it is… -
It’s worth mentioning that the Matrox RTX100 has a timecode generator plugin as well, for future reference…
-Aaron
https://www.stopfcc.com/
Knock it off! I like my radio and television the way it is…