[Jimmy Brunger]

I agree – get all 8cores and 8>32GB ram if you can afford it. But with 4>8GB RAM and 4 cores you will fly in AE unless you’re doing tonnes of complex 1080 HD projects, in which case you’d defo notice difference with 8cores.

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

Algae,

It sounds like you need Mocha by Imagineer systems – it has all the roto features of Motor, but more indepth planar tracking and the ability to export data to AE, Flame, Quantel kit, Fusion, Shake, etc. Very powerful by the looks of it. I think there may be some awesome discount offers on it at the mo if you look around…

A 3D tracker (like Boujou, etc.) is what you’d need if you needed true 3D positional data for use in a 2D app. For tracking 2D objects in AE I reckon Mocha is your app.

Let me know how you get on with it if you get it – I’m hoping to purchase next week. There’s a beta on their site that might be worth a look..

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

I just did something very similar with a ‘furry animal’ (toy cat!) and after asking why the producer didn’t use a green screen, I shrugged my shoulders and began a 5hr roto job! Turns out they didn’t have a green screen big enough to hand (?!?)

Just put as many jagged points in as possible for fur to accentuate and feather & contract the mask/masks until you get close enough..more often than not it doesn’t have to be perfect, as long as it looks convincing on your new background. As Filip said, if it is to be put on the same background as shot, but just separated in someway for treament, then you have to be more accurate, depending on the treatment. If it’s just some colour correction usually a fairly tight feathered mask will do the job. Otherwise, if it’s locked off try doing what Filip suggested.

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

Mate, it’s 90% off at the mo!

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

This looks like an excellent deal. They’re selling Mokey and Monet with 90% off aswell!!?! That’s $16,000 software for $1,600. Madness. VERY tempted to go the whole hog and ask for Monet.

Has anyone used Motor/Mocha aswell as Sillouette Roto? Does anyone know which is the better roto app? I’m talking about integrating into an AE workflow really. I guess Sillouette doesn’t have the planar tracker, but does it have better roto tools than Mocho/Motor?

Cheers.

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

I don’t ever see “skewing” when rotating stuff in AE. As long as you’re in a 16:9 PAL comp (or whatever your local video system is) then you should be able to rotate any solid, layer or bit of footage without the ‘buckled wheel’ look. I just tried with SQ pix solids in a 16:9 comp and also 16:9 solid in 16:9 comp. Doesn’t skew on my broadcast monitor, or comp monitor whether I’ve got PAR correction on or not.

Now my old Paintbox Express….I had to rotate stuff in 4:3 then squish the layer 25% in the X everytime. TOTAL pain!

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3
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[Jimmy Brunger]

Hi Domani,

A RAID drive *is* several drives. For uncompressed HD it’s recommended you stripe together at least 8 x 10,000rpm drives..though people will use less or slower drives you’d need to test what works for you. There is a more detailed explanation of how striping works and what kind of RAID setup you should choose here: https://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/detail.asp?techID=62

To be honest for DVCPro HD you won’t have *truly* uncompressed HD data on the tapes anyway, but I guess capturing it through an uncompressed card will mean no additional compression will be added via Firewire (you’d need to double check that.) Even HDCAM tapes are compressed, though significantly less than DVCPro. You’d need HDCAM SR or D1 or even shoot straight to hard drive to get truly uncompressed HD, and even then you’d need a VERY expensive camera.

That all said, an AJA or BMD HD card should work well for you anyway – not least because you’ll be able to use it to monitor your output on a proper calibrated monitor, rather than a TV through firewire..But for web stuff I’m guessing you would even need that.

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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

Blackmagic are good in my experience, but some have said their Multibridges especially are very temperimental with HD. I believe the Eclipse has replaced it now though. For roughly double the cost of BMD cards you can go for AJA cards. Supposed to be very good. Bluefish cards are big money, but supposedly best for high-end dual link capture (HDCAM SR, etc) But Autodesk use AJA cards in their new Smoke and Flame systems, so they must be pretty darn good.

Sounds like you don’t really need to capture at HD resolution for this project – just uncompressed SD res. Though, if it’s going on the web (Flash video?) It’ll look pretty rough by comparison anyway, but uncompressed is still good for stuff like keying and colour correction. Buy a HD capture card is you can afford it anyway – the cost diff is very small these days anyway.

Make sure you have several striped fast drives if you are grabbing uncompressed HD, or you will get dropped frames galore. A fast quad system or more is recommended aswell and plenty of RAM. For uncompressed SD a system like mine below should be enough.

Good luck with your purchase!

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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

Isn’t that 16 and 235?

[Jimmy Brunger]

How does that 4GB RAM work out with an 8-core system btw? I heard that you really need 1-2GB per core to run AE/Nucleo optimally..I am wanting to upgrade soon, but a bit iffy about going 64bit right now, which would be the only option if I were to get 8-16GB RAM. So I wondered how 8-cores and 4GB would work until 64bit Windows is a bit more stable and then add more RAM later.

I just wondered how you were getting on?