Matt Silverman
Forum Replies Created
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They killed the dongle in 4. It now uses network licensing to prevent you from running one copy on multiple machines.
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Since we’re a mac shop, the only fix I ever give for Windows is the same… try going to your QT control panel and switch it to “GDI Safe Mode”. Seems to fix most issues on Windows.
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Hellboy?
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Scott sold all the rights to Pinnacle, so there is little he can do with Commotion. Commotion was based on an application Scott wrote called Flipbook, which may or may not have been included in the Pinnacle deal (flipbook had some cool stuff that Commotion never had, like a process tree compositing engine). I doubt that Scott would waste his time re-inventing the wheel though, and as I said there were a lot of other folks involved with Commotion who are now working elsewhere.
He recently left ILM and I heard through the grapevine that he was working on some independent projects. Scott’s a legend (and a great guy), so it’s about time that he gets to kick back and enjoy life instead of stressing about the next summer blockbuster. He’s probably lurking on this forum, so if you are here say hi. =).
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Your info is partially correct. Commotion was written by Scott Squires, who initially buit it for his own use. Scott is not a run-of-the-mill programmer. He is a traditional film-maker, who learned to code to help him make tools for his own work. So this did not produce the “cleanest” code, but it got the job done. I remember when we wanted multiple undos the “real” programmers said it was impossible due to the architecture. Over the weekend Scott sat down and wrote multiple undos. This is how it became so damn killer. The bit about freelancers is correct too. Puffin would bring in specialists to handle different parts of the code. When we needed AE plug-in support, we brought in Zalmon Stern, the same brain who did the PowerPC port of Photosohop. When they needed b-splines, they hired an expert int this type of mathematics. When we needed a motion tracker they brought in the same guy who wrote the tracker for “a major northern california effects facility”.
The reality is that Pinnacle was on a buying spree at the same time Puffin was trying to cash in before the bubble burst. Pinnacle thought they were getting an After Effects killer, and dropped their cash before checking out the code (or probably even getting a real demo). Commotion is a dead dog, so get used to Silhoette 😉
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Hi,
Thanks for the offer. Unfortunately it is difficult for me to keep up with different forums, which is why I stick to this one. We get very few posts here, and they get emailed directly to me. If you would be kind enough to refer people to this forum when a Commotion question comes up I will be more than happy to answer questions.Regards,
Matt Silverman -
Silhouette roto is the king roto tool these days. I would recommend working with this plug-in for roto along-side After Effects for compositing. Other good compositors include Digital Fusion, Nuke, or Combustion.
Curious gFx was a compelling competitor, but was gobbled up by Adobe. This could potentially be another big player.
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I use it on the Mac with Decklink HDPro.
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Programs like Commotion, After Effects, Combustion, Shake, ColorTheory 😉 etc. use the QT VOUT to send frames to an output card. The reason why they use QTVOUT is because they only have to write it once for their software and do not need to write specific code for each hardware vendor. It works the other way as well… the hardware vendors only have to write code for QTVOUT, and then it should work with any software supporting VOUT. Pinnacle does not waste any time on Commotion, much less write specific drivers for each new hardware card on the market. Instead they rely on the QTVOUT code to automatically work with hardware supporting QTVOUT.
However… now that I am thinking about it more, I think that maybe QTVOUT is a mac-only protocol, so maybe Commotion only supported this on a Mac. And this explains why After Effects on Windows needs a lot of custom plug-ins from the manufacturers to get output to work. You can learn more at:
https://developer.apple.com/quicktime/qttutorial/videoout.html
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I am guessing that most windows based firewire cards do not support it. Some write their own output drivers (ie. Matrox) for After Effects which “might” work in Commotion.