Chris Heuer
Forum Replies Created
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I just bought an 8 core Mac Pro at the beginning of the year and put all 16 gigs of RAM in it (put it in yourself, I saved $3,000). I’m running After Effects CS3 and let me say… IT IS WORTH THE MONEY!
I also bought Gridiron Nucleo Pro which only speeds up the really fast performance. I can finally work on complex projects without wasting hours and hours of time waiting on previews and renders! It’s nuts!
I can’t seem to keep a PC running for long before it slows down or gets some bug so I’m a Mac guy all the way. Been running on a Dual core Intel iMac for 2 years (until I got the Pro!) and have had no problems. Even when you do overtax the system (which hasn’t happened very often) and a program locks up, Mac’s Unix platform makes for a quick quiet restart of that application without effecting anything else that’s running. This has yet to happen to me on the Mac Pro.Sorry for the Mac commercial, I’m just really happy with mine!
Chris
Chris Heuer
Freefall FX, LLC -
After the mask is applied to a layer, hit MM on your keyboard to open the mask properties and change the drop down menu from “Add” to “None”. Now you have a path!
You can also skip Photoshop and use the pen tool (or the Rectangle/Circle tool) and create open or closed masks right in AE, (you will still have to change closed shapes to “None”) that’s how I create paths for 3D stroke.
P.S. If you create paths in AE, create a New Solid and apply the paths to it, that way your footage won’t be effected.
Hope this helps (and that I wasn’t telling you a bunch of junk you already know!)
C
Chris Heuer
Freefall FX, LLC -
Perfect, Thank you very much. I’d like to ask for a little explanation of how this works (I’m trying to learn, not just mooch) when you have the time. Or you could point me toward a lesson from your site if there’s something there that pertains to this.
Thanks again! Chris
Chris Heuer
Freefall FX, LLC -
I just did what you’re doing. Got my Pro about 2 weeks ago. Everyone here is dead on. 8 cores and ALL the RAM. I bought from Crucial and saved $3,000 dollars compared to what Apple was charging. I have the ATI Radeon 1900 (which is no longer an option)and everything FLIES!
I highly recommend Gridiron’s Nucleo Pro. You hit “shift+space bar” (instead of the 0 key) and the green ram preview bar starts appearing in chunks! Only down side… no break time while you preview. My bladder is getting used to being full though. 16gigs sounds a bit crazy at first but sooooooooooo worth it!
Chris
Chris Heuer
Freefall FX, LLC -
This doesn’t sound likely, but if you select all of your keyframes and hold down Alt/Option, then slide them left or right in the timeline, they scale relatively. This often results in keyframes sitting between actual frames.
I doubt you “accidently” did that but… I haven’t posted in a while and I wanted to write something!
Good luck! Chris
Chris Heuer
Freefall FX, LLC -
I am running AE CS3 on a new Mac Pro and I am currently using my old Wacom Intuos2 tablet. It works great all the time. I even take it to work and plug it into the PC I have there.
In my opinion (from someone who’s only used Wacom tablets) Wacom’s products are great. You can download the drivers you need (Mac or PC) from their website (but you’ll get them on disk when you buy the tablet too) and plug them into anything. Mine is a 6×8 inch tablet but it automaticly scales it’s performance to my widescreen monitor at home. In other words, no matter what dimension screen you have, the top right corner of the tablet IS the top right corner of your monitor (and so on for the other 4 corners).
Wacom has several levels of tablet that range from affordable to CRAZY EXPENSIVE! For any professional application, the Wacom guy I spoke with at SIGGRAPH recommended the Intuos line of tablets as the base. Below it is the Graphire tablets and for home users, they recently released Bamboo.
Anyway, check them out for yourself:
https://www.wacom.com/index2.cfm
I’ll soon be ordering an Intuos 3!
Good luck, Chris
Chris Heuer
Freefall FX, LLC -
That’s sort of what I thought but I put the minus in the wrong place and disabled the expression! I’m such a math wiz!
Thanks, Chris
Chris Heuer
Freefall FX, LLC -
OK, now I’m impressed! Nice to meet a fellow Gilligan fan… or simply a genius with one hell of a memory. Either way, I’m impressed!
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Mark,
Thanks for this response (from so long ago). I just read your article in the Cow magazine and something about it seemed farmiliar so I checked this post.I especially thank you for your “It’s not just about getting paid” column at the end. I had a summer of work that wouldn’t let up and I was BURNED OUT! Just reading that article made me feel better. I play with crayons and sketching but you have some great ideas in that column. Thanks! Chris
Chris Heuer
Freefall FX, LLC -
Cool! Thanks for the breakdown. If I read it several times slowly, I can follow it! That’s a start. One last question.
I’m in 3D space and I know I need to add a third position, the number 2 for the z axis! Do I put it in the same brackets as [0]?
I’m still not sure what each bracket does/protects.
Otherwise, thanks for the education! Chris
Chris Heuer
Freefall FX, LLC