[David Lawrence]

Great thread, Simon. Thank you.

[Tim Wilson] “1) How/why do you feel After Effects is different from NLEs? Extensibility in general gets at some of it, but it feels bigger than that to me.”

One of the most painful jobs I ever had to deal with was a recut of a video for a client who wanted what seemed like minor changes, but for some reason was getting pushback from their editor. They said goodbye to their editor and hired me for what I thought was a no-brainer, hour long fix.

When I got the project files, I could see the problem.

Turns out, their previous editor (who was also their motion graphics guy) did everything in AE. He was pushing back because he had followed their script to the letter and the minor tweaks would be a huge amount of work.

After jumping the some hoops to get the AE project into whatever NLE I was using, I was able to do the job, but it was a huge PITA.

AE is not an NLE. I wouldn’t dream of doing editorial cutting in it. And I can’t imagine changing it to make editorial cutting viable.

[Tim Wilson] “BTW, the title for this thread immediately made me think of the fantastic 1971 single by The Persuaders, “There’s A Thin Line Between Love And Hate.” “

Funny, it made me think of this: 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa-oUPTr9LI

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence]

[Bill Davis] “Oh well. You can always do it the traditional way – hire it out to a 3D shop! “

Or do it with something like this:

https://www.borisfx.com/videos/bcc-10-quick-look-title-studio/

😉

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research

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[David Lawrence]

[Andrew Kimery] “Or just pragmatism. Best tool for the job and all that.”

I’m all for pragmatism. But I’m not happy about having less choice as a customer.

[Andrew Kimery] “Putting aside business considerations means putting aside major factors in the decision making process I mean, aside from the business argument that I’ll very quickly go out of business, there’s no technical reason why I can’t edit for free.”

No one’s asking Adobe to give away software for free. Just the opposite. I want to give them my money. There are many possible scenarios that would work. We’ve discussed this for years. The key is a fair exit strategy instead of “Like it or leave.” I don’t think this is asking too much.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research

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facebook: /dlawrence
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[David Lawrence]

[Michael Gissing] “If I had needed to go to CC and paid a full fee to own it, I might have ended up with an expensive suite that I didn’t really need.”

Absolutely. For the type of usage case you and many others have, a subscription makes perfect sense. Subscription is especially ideal for situations where seats need to be temporarily ramped up on project basis. The argument has never been against subscription. It’s about removing a perpetual option choice for customers who don’t want to change their business model just because Adobe wants them to.

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence]

[Michael Gissing] “What I don’t understand is most people are happy with subscription services in many areas like telephony, Internet ISPs etc but baulk on creative software. “

Michael, I’m sure you already know this but it bears repeating – the reason so many of us baulk is because unlike all the services you mention, software is not a consumable. Personal computer software has historically been an integral component of a personal computer system. Without software, your computer is an expensive brick. The only technical difference between Adobe Creative Cloud applications and Adobe Creative Suite applications is internet enabled DRM and optional online features. That’s it. SOX and business arguments aside, there’s no technical reason whatsoever why Adobe couldn’t offer perpetual copies of their creative applications if they wanted to. This is completely different than consumable subscriptions that only have a single possible use.

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence]

[Robin S. Kurz] “And if you think it’s somehow a matter of “being able to afford”… oh well.”

Yep, I guess some people are fine with letting a multinational corporation control access to their native project files because for them it’s all about business. They forget this is not true for everyone who uses creative software tools.

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence]

[Walter Soyka] “David, here’s another option I’m now considering for our workstations: using the on-board RAID controller with a stack of SSDs, stored in an Icy Dock ToughArmour backplane cage [link].”

Awesome Walter, thank you!

BTW, what are doing for backup? Are you using tape or swappable HDs?

_______________________
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[David Lawrence]

[Ian Mapleson] “Not with modern models like the 850 EVO/Pro), and besides, it’s this sort of task for which SSDs are ideally suited (the performance made possible by SSDs is a natural match for how AE processes data). Otherwise it’d be a bit like saying don’t use a knife to cut meat because it’ll blunt the blade. S’what knives are for. :)”

Ian, since we’re on the topic of performance storage (which I was going to bring up!) I was wondering if we could get a bit deeper into the topic.

Walter mentions PCIe-attached SSD stoarge above:

[Walter Soyka] “For storage, I’d recommend going solid-state and PCIe-attached, if your requirements allow for the lower capacity versus a spinning-rust RAID. You might consider transcoding those MP4 files to uncompressed image sequences, trading away disk space for lower CPU load.”

My understanding is that this is the fastest possible internal storage for a PC. In my monster system, I’m imagining three PCIe SSDs – 1) System and applications, 2) Adobe cache (AE and Premiere), 3) Rendered output

A fourth, larger fast SATA drive would be for storing final output. Backup would be some external solution TBD.

Does this seem like a reasonable plan?

Re: PCIe – when I go through PC configuration options (for example on HP’s Z840 customize page) I find I’m only allowed one or two PCIe storage choices. I assume this is a limitation of the motherboard? Are there motherboards out there I should be looking for that would allow for additional fast PCIe storage (three or more SSDs)?

Thanks again for sharing your expertise!

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence]

Fantastic post, Ian. Thank you!

At this point since we anticipate using both After Effects and Premiere Pro equally, we’re having discussions about building a monster – i.e. maxing out everything as much as possible: number of CPUs, clock speed, core count, RAM. We’ll also spec multiple GPUs and want to optimize for both Premiere and AE per the test links in Walter’s post above:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/1066563

I’m especially interested in what you’ve written re: CUDA GPU boards. I’m finding similar information from my research online – a lot of people say that depending on application, newer, relatively inexpensive gamer GPUs will outperform bigger, more expensive boards. We’re not doing ray-tracing or any CGI related rendering. Our GPU needs are mainly driven by what helps accelerate Premiere playback and output rendering. We also need to drive a couple 4K screens and a 1080p 3D display. I’m interested in getting the most bang for our buck with GPU selection and will do more research on the boards you mentioned. Any other advice appreciated.

As you can imagine, we’re now looking at a system that is a bit more expensive than $5-10K. The good news is that if we get the final go ahead, we’ll have more budget to build the monster.

There’s interest and discussion about possibly building a system in-house, but I also want to have custom build vendors as an option if we need to go outside. I’ve looked at configuring a HP Z840 and am investigating other vendors. Chris has mentioned ADK in Kentucky and I’ve read great things about Puget Systems.

I get the impression you build your own machines. Is this correct or do you work with a custom build vendor? Are there any builders you’d especially recommend?

That question goes out to anyone else reading this thread – any recommendations on high-end PC builders?

Thanks again!

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[David Lawrence]

[Walter Soyka] “You might consider using an offset duplicate of the masked layer as an alpha track matte.”

Thanks Walter, I was curious what you might recommend.

The problem with an offset duplicate of the masked layer as alpha is it would become unwieldy very quickly for a couple reasons –

1) Even though the duplicate mask is maybe 95-99% correct, I still need to make minor adjustments because of differences between the left and right view. Doing this interactively on a separate alpha layer would be a challenge.

2) I will potentially have dozens of masked layers in the comp so even with precomping, keeping layers to a minimum is helpful for organization purposes.

Working with masks directly on the layer is really the easiest, most interactive workflow I can think of.

Is a mask offset property really that unusual a need/request? I have a hard time believing that I’m the only one in the 20+ years of AE that would find it useful. I’m really surprised that this seems so hard to do. With everything AE does, it seems like it should be a no-brainer. Does it seem like it would be difficult feature to implement?

_______________________
David Lawrence
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