[Joel Berry]

This is VERY disconcerting and disappointing news on behalf of Boris. In another post, we were told:

“There has been changes in the plug-in interface in the latest Avid releases on Mac that will require us to rebuild our products. Fortunately, the change for RED 3/FX8/GR4 product line appears to be rather small and we plan to post a free patch in a short period of time.”

(https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=15&postid=855667&pview=t#head)

That was back in July. Now we are told that we are going to have to pay $300 to upgrade just to be able to USE (and get around known issues and bugs in) software that WE already purchased because of changes that WE had no control over, even after we were told that a patch was going to quickly and easily be made available for free?

I am sorry, and my past impression of Boris, which was outstandingly favorable, has now been tarnished by this complete lack of respect for its customers. First, promising a FREE patch, then saying that patch has (conveniently) been implemented in a new product that we must now upgrade and purchase in order to make use of software that we already own. That is SAD.

What a terrible trend in the industry this is becoming: companies NOT supporting the software that they have sold their customers, but rather making their customers buy new software in order to get around “bugs” and “problems” that are acknowledged issues!

I am VERY, VERY, VERY disappointed in Boris… Combustion and After Effects are looking much, much more inviting… Autodesk recently even made a Universal version of Combustion 4 available for free. That’s customer service. Boris seems to be into customer-gouging, not to mention lying (“free patch in a short period of time.”)

This is a SAD reflection on your company.

jdb

[Joel Berry]

How much do you enjoy Rotoscoping by hand? 😉

jdb

[Joel Berry]

How do I get to your iDisk? My Mac is at home (no Internet), and I am at work on my Windows machine… Check out my .MOVs below and see if you recognize any techniques for faking the reflection!

Thanks,

jdb

[Joel Berry]

How do I get to your iDisk? My Mac is at home (no Internet), and I am at work on my Windows machine… Check out my .MOVs below and see if you recognize any techniques for faking the reflection!

Thanks,

jdb

[Joel Berry]

As stated earlier in this thread, I have used “fake” reflections and expressions to simulate items sitting on a very, very well-shined white floor with an infinite white background.

I am working on a promo video for our company, and created the following videos as an example of this technique, which allows the reflections to be see from any camera angle as they adjust themselves automatically to the position of their “non-reflective” or source layer, so really all you have to do is set up a bunch of fake-reflected objects, and animate the camera through them (a very popular technique nowadays):

HIGH-RES https://www.theretailcoach.net/downloads/reflections_camera.mov (9MB)
LOW-RES https://www.theretailcoach.net/downloads/reflections_cameraLg_Prog.mov (300KB)

Now, I am no Dan Ebberts, but I guess my question is: would anyone be interested in a tutorial on how I set this up? Or has this way of doing things been beaten to death, and would I be wasting my time and insulting the intelligence of all the AE users here?

Thanks,

jdb

[Joel Berry]

As stated earlier in this thread, I have used “fake” reflections and expressions to simulate items sitting on a very, very well-shined white floor with an infinite white background.

I am working on a promo video for our company, and created the following videos as an example of this technique, which allows the reflections to be see from any camera angle as they adjust themselves automatically to the position of their “non-reflective” or source layer, so really all you have to do is set up a bunch of fake-reflected objects, and animate the camera through them (a very popular technique nowadays):

HIGH-RES https://www.theretailcoach.net/downloads/reflections_camera.mov (9MB)
LOW-RES https://www.theretailcoach.net/downloads/reflections_cameraLg_Prog.mov (300KB)

Now, I am no Dan Ebberts, but I guess my question is: would anyone be interested in a tutorial on how I set this up? Or has this way of doing things been beaten to death, and would I be wasting my time and insulting the intelligence of all the AE users here?

Thanks,

jdb

[Joel Berry]

Got it to work. I guess I was just being stupid. Or just really used to working with the 6.5 Pro version. I am still getting used to version 7’s new interface…

Thanks!

jdb

[Joel Berry]

True. And believe me, that option is VERY useful. But in the case of the animation of the three revolving rectangles, that wouldn’t work.

It is important that they face only parallel to the camera, i.e., always face the infinite plane of the camera lens, not the actual camera, otherwise, when they revolve, they would be “looking” straight into the camera lens, not out behind the camera into infinity.

As far as I know, this can only be done with mathematical expressions (varying their angles based on the camera’s angles, or by hard-coded animation keyframes.

[Joel Berry]

True. And believe me, that option is VERY useful. But in the case of the animation of the three revolving rectangles, that wouldn’t work.

It is important that they face only parallel to the camera, i.e., always face the infinite plane of the camera lens, not the actual camera, otherwise, when they revolve, they would be “looking” straight into the camera lens, not out behind the camera into infinity.

As far as I know, this can only be done with mathematical expressions (varying their angles based on the camera’s angles, or by hard-coded animation keyframes.

[Joel Berry]

Good work! — you could also use nulls for each element, and using expressions (and some creative math), have the face always be facing parallel to the camera no matter where the objects moved…

How did you get the reflection? Did you fake that, too? As I understand it, After Effects doesn’t offer true reflection (like Combustion does), or have I been missing something all these years? I have had to fake it using expressions and duplicate layers with feathered masks… how did you do it? Would you mind sharing the comp?

Thanks,

jdb