Aharon Rabinowitz
Forum Replies Created
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Thanks. I appreciate your listening 😉
So as I understand it when you try an import AVI’s into After Effects, they don’t import. Nothing happens, right? Or is it that it’s imported, but you can’t see anything?
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
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Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com -
Or you could just import the video into AE, and render the entire thing as Quicktime…
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com -
[eric rosner] “make it the shake or nuke program that it should be”
…And then raise the price dramatically! Eric, as I know you are a Mac-fanatic, you’re glossing over the price issue. They aren’t even comperable:
After Effects costs $1000 ($199 to upgrade)
Shake costs $3000 ($1000 to upgrade)
Nuke costs $5000 with a $1000 yearly support contract.
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com -
Having used AE 7 for a bit now, I have to say that the chnages in the interface are sooooo much better. I’m working on a tutorial now, and in running through the example project which I will be vid-capping, I am finding it so much easier to get to what I need to. My paletes dont disappear on me, and if I want to bring up a whole new workspace, with other palletes, it’s instant gratification.
The More I use trhe UI, the more I’m relying on it, and as I went back to AE 6.5 to try something, I was completely annoyed with how painful it is to use the older UI compared to the new one.
The new grpah editor, makes working with multiple layers and their keyframes much easier. Again, it’s gotten to the point where I hate going back to the old UI.
It saves time. And for me, where my turn around time on many projects is too fast for comfort, that’s a huge thing.
Ands people keep talking about how AE isn’t a high-end tool. I don’t even know what that means anymore… I don’t know a single animation house or advertising group that doesn’t use it her in NY. Granted they have other solutions there as well, and even mix and match software in the production process (who doesn’t), but many of them are using AE to produce high-quality material (MoGrpah, FX, Compositing) that is unmatched in the industry.
Is this release perfect? No. I would have killed for a better motion tracker and roto tools. But what has been added is still a pretty big advancement. And like many tools that have been created, users will find ways to use them the creator never intended – which means, many people will adapt the new, seemingly less useful, tools into something very useful, given a chance to play.
Mostly, I just wish people would try and work with the software before blasting it. Most of the people here haven’t even installed it yet, and are already passing judgement. Give it a shot, and then talk about it.
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com -
you might consider using a compressed video in the BG for preview purposes and then swapping it out for final render – if you are compositing in pIllusion.
You could also render an image sequence (Like Tiff TGA, PNG) from your 3D app. pIllusion can read those.
Also, you could composite your 3D and 2D in a compositing program like After Effects.
Again, in answer to your question, most pros wouldn’t do their compositing directly in pIllusion because it’s not a great program for that – it does a good job on a basic composite, but for anything more complicated then dropping particles on a BG layer, you start to get diminishing returns – it can do it, but it get’s more difficult and isn’t as flexible as programs designed to do compositing, or even an NLE that can use particle rendered as, say for example, TIFF with Alpha.
If so it will be a big file
I’ll tell you what I tell all of my students when they ask why they need to buy a big harddrive: Video and Animation requires a lot of space if it’s to be done right. I have 750 Gigs of external space, and I always want to buy more… That said, You can always erase the big renderes once you do your final render. So you can do OK with even a single 250 GB drive. they aren’t that expensive.
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com -
There are pluses and minuses to every release, but a lot of what;s happened here is under the hood and at the very top of it. While the UI may take some getting used to, I’m already annoyed when I go back to 6.5. A lot of issues have been solved with the new UI – you just have to start using it to get a feel for it.
The other aspect that’s really been improved is the open GL acceleration. if you’ve got the right card, life becomes a lot easier. And then there’s the 32 bit stuff i don’t work with but that will open doors for many people.
There are a lot of other features I like, such as slow motion, and a few features I wish they had updated – such as a better/faster motion tracker. Still overall as a tool that helps me work faster, it’s definately doing things for me.
Plus I use the entire suite, and the integration is a blessing, at least for me. Overall I’m pretty happy.
But as it was mentioned, adobe has been known to make major improvements in a .5 upgrade so we’ll see what happens.
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com -
whenever I get wierd stuff like that (though this is a new one) I try to delete my AE preferences – not sure where they are on a mac. Try this first.
Although, if that doesn’t work, that folder may have been corrupted. Try doing a repair using the AE installation disc. When you run installation, it will ask if you want to repair it. Try this last.
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com -
I use a free program called CamStudio, which is hard to find on line these days, but if you search enough, you probably will be able to find it.
It’s a windows-based shareware program from a company that no longer exists.
If not you can always check out CamTasia Studio which is based off the above program, with amany improvements, or you could try Macromedia Captivate (or whatever they call it now – the name has changed 3 times) which captures flash, which AE can read, I think. These both cost money though…
Hope that helps.
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com -
we don’t work with compressed video at all. The only point at which we compress is the final render – meaning of we are putting the video on the web or CD. If it’s going to broadcast, generlaly speaking, there is no compression done.
There is one exception – certain video cards or programs have proprietary video codecs that are lossless but very tight. In those cases, you can compress with no real loss – however, only poeple with those programs or hardware can see the videos. That’s why, in the final render, you depart from using that codec, and render uncompressed (or in a compression format people can see on the web, if that’s your target).
That said, I’ll ask people here to sound off about their favorite codecs for keeping the quality up. I’ve heard that Huffy is apretty good one for nearly lossless quality, plus DivX is pretty good. Not totally pro, but for good quality, it’s a decent solution for your interim renders.
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com -
“Drag scale value back to original (scrub, using command or alt to fine-tune).”
Did you try this? It falls apart at this step. You would think that you could alter many keyframes for the scale on the same layer at once but you can’t.
I think you can only do it for multiple layers, and only on that frame.
Please prove me wrong. This would be a better if more involved way to do it.
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com