Adolfo Rozenfeld
Forum Replies Created
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[Sandman] “Thanks so much for your response”
No problem.
[Sandman] “So basically a node based application is just being able to have control over the render order?”
It’s my understanding that this control of rendering order has much more to it. You could, for example, route effects independentlly of the footage elements they are linked to. So you could in theory crop a gaussian blur, instead of cropping a layer which had a gaussian blur applied before. Same thing for many other scenarios.
[Sandman] “What exactly do you mean when you refer to AE having a layer based interface? Are you referring to the layers in the timeline…or layers in terms of things being rendered in a specific order? If you’re referring to layers in the timeline, how do these node based applications interact? Wouldn’t they need some sort of “timeline” with multiple layers and things of that nature…or do they do things completely differently?”
Yes, I meant the layer based timeline. If you think about it, you already know applications that are based on timelines and still are not layer based. Editing applications, for instance, are track based, not layer based. Tracks exist independently of the clips you use in them. This is not related to node based apps, but shows that not all timelines are layer based.
My experience with that kind of interface tells me that timelines are not so so much about the visual stacking order of elements. They are more like AE 7’s graph editor, a place where you see keyframes displayed, etc. They usuallly have a separate Object window, where you see how objects are stacked. These applications are usually very context sensitive. You select certain object, and the timeline switches to animating properties for that object (again, like AE 7 graph editor). And you get spatial properties for that object in an Inspector window, etc. The one thing I would love to have in AE is what they call “Heads Up Display” (like war plane cockpits!), the ability to have parameters superimposed on the composition window for you to manipulate
Many of the things I am mentioning are more frequent in 3D applications, for example.
[Sandman] “And lastly, why do people refer to masks in these other programs as being node based and being able to feather specific points? What does feathering specific points have to do with nodes?”
You know what? Do those applications allow that control over masks because they are node based? Or because they are specialized compositing applications and then it makes sense for them to be node based 🙂
I don’t know if AE needs a node tree scheme to allow that. Probably it just needs an updated masking technology. I have no idea how or where they could display the feather values for each node, but hey, thank god I am just a user.
Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
That happens to me all the time 🙂
That’s the bad thing about AE. The forum are so crowded! Maybe we should start using a less popular application!
All the bestAdolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
That happens to me all the time 🙂
That’s the bad thing about AE. The forum are so crowded! Maybe we should start using a less popular application!
All the bestAdolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
I think you guys have no clue about how they did it.
Exporting a circle from Photoshop and animating blur? You seem to like the easy way.
No, they draw all the circles and place them wherever they want in the first frame. They export that as a file. Then they manually change the position for the hundreds of circle layers and export a second file, etc 🙂Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
Hello, Sandman.
Node based applications are based on a tree-like metaphor, where the different footage elements, effects and transformations are connected by lines. Its’ main advantage is that it allows you to define the precise order in which elements are applied how exactly they are linked. In AE, rendering order is usually changed by pre-composing (because that way you force items in the nested comp to be rendered before items in the “main” composition).There’s no denying that for heavy effects and compositing workflows node editing is a potent metaphor inedeed! But it’s also true that there’s a bit of snobbery from a few users who try to put AE in the place of some sort of “toy” application. BTW, you can recognize these people by their frequent mention of 3D trackers and the use of the word “Comp” as if it was a verb (just kidding!!!).
AE on the other hand uses a layer based approach which a lot of creative professionals find very powerful for its’ purpose. Now (before AE 7 actually!) it became fashionable to dislike AE’s layer based interface, which is kind of silly if you consider it is such a succesful paradigm for all the things is does so well.
I think the tree metaphor can be great for example for the needs of Shake users, a very specialized application that excels at its’ task (and where few footage elements with very sophisticated processing is the most likely thing to happen). But I wouldn’t necesarilly see it the same way in Combustion, which just like AE tries to be a very wide application.
Finally, you know what? There’s a small bit of node based editing in AE in its’ Workflow window. It’s only a small bit, because it’s not really a manipulation tool, but just a visual reperesentation.
Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
Hello, Sandman.
Node based applications are based on a tree-like metaphor, where the different footage elements, effects and transformations are connected by lines. Its’ main advantage is that it allows you to define the precise order in which elements are applied how exactly they are linked. In AE, rendering order is usually changed by pre-composing (because that way you force items in the nested comp to be rendered before items in the “main” composition).There’s no denying that for heavy effects and compositing workflows node editing is a potent metaphor inedeed! But it’s also true that there’s a bit of snobbery from a few users who try to put AE in the place of some sort of “toy” application. BTW, you can recognize these people by their frequent mention of 3D trackers and the use of the word “Comp” as if it was a verb (just kidding!!!).
AE on the other hand uses a layer based approach which a lot of creative professionals find very powerful for its’ purpose. Now (before AE 7 actually!) it became fashionable to dislike AE’s layer based interface, which is kind of silly if you consider it is such a succesful paradigm for all the things is does so well.
I think the tree metaphor can be great for example for the needs of Shake users, a very specialized application that excels at its’ task (and where few footage elements with very sophisticated processing is the most likely thing to happen). But I wouldn’t necesarilly see it the same way in Combustion, which just like AE tries to be a very wide application.
Finally, you know what? There’s a small bit of node based editing in AE in its’ Workflow window. It’s only a small bit, because it’s not really a manipulation tool, but just a visual reperesentation.
Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
Choose the Animation codec in the Quicktime format options. Only then you’ll be able to select “RGB+Alpha” as the channel mode (the bit depth will in turn automatically change to “Millions of colors+”).
Animation encoded Quicktime files won’t play in real time in Final Cut (because there isn’t a sequence preset optizimed for such files) but it’s common practice to import those and perform the (very quick) renders needed to composite them on top of any base element you may have in your FCP timeline.Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
There’s also the Depth of Field effect, which can read camera distance embeded into a RPF/RLA image sequence and apply the blur directly with some interesting options.
Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
0-255 is the range for 8 bit per channel projects,
0-32768 is the range for 16 bits per channel projects
And if I understood correctly, 0 to 1 is the “normal” range for HDR, with darker than black values under 0 and brigher than white values greater than 1….
It coud help watching one of the After Effects 7 HDR video tutorials (like Brian Maffit’s) now available on the web. I think there’s another one here in the Cow, right?Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com -
For even more control, the latest version of 3D invigorator creates basic 3D primitives (spheres, for instance). You could then apply your type layer as a texture.
Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo@adolforozenfeld.com