[Michael Munkittrick]

That’s the craziest thing. That option wasn’t there when I logged in the other day. I reset my account and low and behold, there it is.

Thanks so much…

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Michael Munkittrick]

Chris, I’d love to give them a try, but the page states that I am not permitted to download that file. I am a registered user now, but I can’t find a download link. How do I go about that?

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Michael Munkittrick]

There is no universally acceptable term for “permission” when speaking about intellectual property even with all of the laws that support the copyright holder. With all due respect for your certainty of the bands allowance for shooting the video, unless you posses a presentable document that has signatory and detailed usage clearly spelled out, you are going to have an infinitely difficult time proving what a guy in a band, or even the entire band stated verbally 16 years ago. Considering the hugely swayed system with respect to any type of artist, this is one of those cases where your band could claim that they were all stoned, drunk or hanging out with Keith Richards, any of which would make your claim a battle of words. That kind of war will only be in your favor if you have irrefutable proof of your claims.

Moreover, if the band signed with a record label that promotes them, there might be a clause in that contract about retroactively protecting the materials created by the band. While this type of law is challengeable by the band, a good point of reference would be to look back to the infamous N-Sync split with Lou Pearlman a few years back. Lou had claimed that his contract spelled out the fact that anything that the band made, even live versions of their original material was technically owned by Lou’s management company. Yes, Lou did actually form the band, but one of the reasons that this case existed was that N-Sync couldn’t sell their own recordings or claim royalties from them at any time in the future.

If this band is a “known” brand that tours and currently sells records under the banner of a record label, you would do yourself a favor to keep the video under your hat. Also, if this point should arise in the future, even after they are no longer a band the hammer would fall on you, not them and the burden of proof would sit squarely on your shoulders.

Now, there are a few ways to go about getting the rights to do what you mention without cutting your own throat. First, contact the band and have them sign an agreement stating that they gave you ALL rights to this video in exchange for the service of recording it. In almost every state in the union a “barter’s defense”, as it is called is pretty powerful, not bulletproof, but still potent. Next, you could contact the management company and offer the video to them at a price, or exchange the single-use rights in return for complete rights to the video other than your final product. This is less likely to happen, but there are precedents that clearly show this method as a potential method for keeping your butt cheeks closed. Finally, you can go directly to the label and state the facts about creating your edit and make clear the faith that you anticipate limited financial gain from the project. While this a highly unlikely option, Depeche Mode did exactly this years ago with people who had recorded them live in small venues 10 years before they owned a synthesizer. Reprise Records, a Time-Warner company is known to make this option available often, but in a publicity-like kind of way. The video is approved by the label and is then “smuggled into the underground” which creates publicity. The label “vigorously defends” its artist and the label’s rights publicly, but do little, if anything at all to subdue the creator or its distribution.

An original document with signatures and a notary seal or legal representative goes much farther in a court of law, but alternative methods are always making themselves known. I think that you will find that your “rights” are not actually rights at all. They are abstract conversation that can be discredited with more abstract conversation or one word from the ban stating that they don’t recall that agreement’s context or content.

I hope this has been of some help.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Michael Munkittrick]

[Adam Trachtenberg] “Another option is to use the cylinder itself as the light source.”

This was my initial idea, but the light does not seem to keep within the parameters that I set for it. I was trying to use a cylinder as the body of the bulb and a tube to contain the focus, but the tube seems to be of no use. Is there a way to use a mirror material on the inside of the tube and then map a flat, textured black shell with no transparency?

[Adam Trachtenberg] “This allows you to adjust brightness and even light color after the fact, and in real time.”

Now THIS is a tool that will come in handy. I was aware of the integration between C4D and AE, but layer mods in live time is just too sweet to not have comprehension of.

Thank you again for your help.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Michael Munkittrick]

I suspected GI right off the bat, but there was a glimmer of hope that I could fake it with another feature that I’m too dense to have found as of yet. I don’t mind going the long way ’round but if there were a shortcut, I’d like to try it.

As for the rigging of the light sources, I kept thinking that parenting with a script might do the trick, but there doesn’t seem to be a pre-existing script to make this fuction as I was hoping.

Considering that I’ve made up my mind to buy the advanced render, mocca and sketch/toon modules (and the mograph when the cash comes around) I should really learn some basics of scripting anyway I guess.

I sincerely thank you for your time and helpful information.

Cheers!!

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Michael Munkittrick]

Thanks for the advice Adam. I’ll look into the advanced render module.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Michael Munkittrick]

[Adam Trachtenberg] “the development process has been very rocky and Next Limit has been misleading at best in their statements to customers”

You needn’t say anything further. I can respect any company who strives for perfecton, but not at the cost of customer satisfaction or honesty about their products.

[Adam Trachtenberg] “Unfortunately, Cebas(maker of fR-2) hasn’t been the model of good customer relations either. Notably, they still haven’t released their Mac/OSX version and there’s no telling when that might happen.”

And then you kick me in the teeth…by way of the groin. Man, I was all but sold, but being that I’m a 1/2 Mac and 1/2 PC studio (at least this year), that would leave me somewhat lopsided. I’ve heard that Final Render 2 has a pretty loyal customer base, but that would prove pretty complicated if I should be in the rare, but still necessary position of doing a cross platform render if there isn’t a solid user base from which to build my understanding.

I’ve built a 12/12 (Pentium 4 HT) proc “blade” type render system, but it uses PC guts and a lot of special rigging…and I don’t mean that as a professional term. And to say “built” might actually be a bit misleading as well, as much of the materials came from machines that had all but died in their other useful abilities.

Here’s the thing Adam, I don’t anticipate being a 3D wizard. Hell, I’m truthfully going to feel blessed if I can get the stuff installed without tech support, but I do want to build something reliable and worthy of the time that I do foresee myself trying this out. If you’ve read any of the recent posts in the business & marketing forum, I am near the closing of the sale of my video production and post business and more or less want to use my free time to learn something that I had told myself wasn’t possible…in effect, proving that you can teach an old dog new tricks. I suppose I could overlook the need for cross platform-able software solutions as long as I can rest confidently on the stability of one or the other.

That being said, if you had to build a system for creating 3D product shots and speed was of importance but stability is paramount, what would you build? Should I consder something like 3ds Max instead of Cinema 4D? I was once a pretty good Lightwave user, but I don’t think like an artist as much as I do a money-crunching creative. What would you do and what would you use, no holds barred?

PS, thanks so-o-o-o much for your time.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Michael Munkittrick]

It should be able to open .3ds files, but .max files are proprietary and are only parsed via 3D Studio Max. There are trans-poly model exchangers, but they are not perfect. If you have a specific model with the .max extension, you could have a friend open it in Max and save it as a .dfx file which seems to be a pretty universal format. If you do this however, it is said that ALL of the texture and shader info is stripped from the file for compatibility sake.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Michael Munkittrick]

[debe] “…supported a team that did something or other with balls”

Priceless! Thanks for the smile. And I wholeheartedly disagree with you about your specific value in this instance. I LOVE Tim’s advice since he’s so close to my own heart when it comes to the logical side of how things SHOULD work that I often take his advice as gospel, give or take a phrase. But your fresh eyes are a vision, and the clarity is amazingly simple in your words.

I am motivated to do things that I’ve never considered as important in my life before this point, so much so that I am inclined to ask the tough questions about my life. My kids say that they are fine with either decision, but I seem to remember saying something similar to my mother as she made the decision to work “on the road” for IBM. I am a family man with a sincere love of being a husband and father, so that is where my loyalties lie. One of my responsibilities is providing for that family, which as of late has become more and more difficult due to numerous outside stresses. It seems that the moment I get one bill paid the next arrives and it’s bigger than it was last time. So, the incentive to keep doing more isn’t as much incentive as it is necessity

[Michael Munkittrick]

[Tim Kolb] “my wife has transitioned back into the “outside the home” workforce, my daughter is entering junior high and she and her brother will be in different schools for the first time…and on and on.”

Wow! I’m sitting here wondering where you placed the “bug” in this room. Aside from the fact that my wife has decided to spend more of her free-time working for local charities and in art galleries where her work is displayed, BOTH of my daughters are going through “that change” where I’m more of an alien than the daddy that they were playing jump-rope with a few months ago. If not for the fact that my time were somewhat occupied, you might see my face on the news in one of those Fox New Alerts…”Man spotted at Bok Tower Gardens picking people off with water-balloons”….Oh, the terror!!! I can’t tell you how appreciative I am of the fact that at least one other human being has some experience somewhat like my own. Business is business, but family is personal.

[Tim Kolb] “It sounds as if you want to change your priorities for your life.”

See, I actually thrive on the lack of a routine however this particular routine has been the glue for most of my other non-routine things. I can see you scratching your head already, but trust me when I tell you that if I thought that selling-out in order to straighten out an error in priorities…well, I’d not be here right now. Truly, I am actually very much afraid of not being my “boss” anymore. I love the idea that going to school on field trips with my kids is up to me. I love the fact that I’m a respected member of my community who offers something other than legal or medical services…and who refuses to wear a suit to work to “blend”. I love owning two work vans that have the term “professional video services” on the sides. I love being in a position a couple times a year to tinker with toys from different manufacturers for the purpose of reviews and promotional literature.

I guess that it all boils down to a momentous shift in all aspects of my life emanating from the thing that I’ve come to depend on as “normal” is the pressure point. It’s been such a long, long time that I haven’t been reasonably secure in other choices due to this otherwise solid anchor in my life. For the first time I think that I’m actually scared to make a decision. Almost 20 years of overzealous, wholehearted running blind into the driving rain without blinking, even after loosing Spiral Design to a crook of a partner just a few years ago, and I’m driven to my knees by this choice.

I will look at this with fresh eyes on Monday and take into consideration all of this information along with a huge reassessment of my life ASIDE form business. That might provide just the key I need to make the right choice. Thanks deeply Tim.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA