Mylenium
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I’d probably convert the document to a RTF or simple text file. This should reveal any potentially illegal characters, which are probably the problem. Word documents can contain a lot of garbage as well as some typographic trickery which “proper” tools such as Encore or other Adobe apps cannot handle.
Mylenium
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Have you checked your timecodes? If you only export parts of your timeline, TC will not start at zero, which is what it should be (within a PGC [or “timeline” as Encore calls them], timecode can only start at 00:00:00:00). Encore will read those TCs from QT and audio files.
Also check your project and export setting in XPress. Sometimes it will mess up its own settings and (seemingly) use odd sample rates e.g. things like 46264 Hz on a 48000 kHz project 8-O). It does not really use the wrong settings (files will be properly 48 kHz), but it goes out of sync and embeds this wrong info into exported files. This is a sporadic problem and can oftentimes be fixed by restarting the computer.
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[Michael Munkittrick] “Cinema 4D seems to be the most inspiring route due to all of the people who have mentioned it, but the one thing that I hear most is its integration with After Effects. Were that symbiosis removed, would CD4 still be as strong a contender in the line-up? Would its modeling tools stand up to those in Maya and Lightwave? Is there anything that I don’t see on their website that you could say to sell me on them?”
No, if there wasn’t support for AE (and Motion on the Mac version) it wouldn’t change much. The modeling tools hold up quite well. In the past modeling in C4D simply wasn’t as efficient because it lacked edge modeling, n-gons and fast interactive feedback, but all of this has been remedied. In addition to that you now get a pretty solid advanced boolean tool. I think C4D has still to go some way in terms of doing character animation, but a lot of the other stuff is pretty solid and even beats highend programs such as Maya.
The new Hair module is a beauty to behold and simple to use, Thinking Particles has been very powerful from the getgo, for fancy abstract background animation you could get XFrog (which in the C4D version is much more usable than as standalone or in Maya IMO), Sketch and Toon is very well implemented and beats many other Toon Shaders, the renderer is very fast and of good quality even in the basic version (though these days it will be hard to live without Advanced Render) and you can practically animate everything and anything as you could in Maya or XSI, but for half the price. One thing I always found most appealing is the way it behaves with imported vector logos for further treatment, something that is a major pain in many other programs. In some way I deeply regret not having stuck with it and forming a deeper relation, especially now that we have dropped out of Maya, but I’m sure we will come back to it at some point. Needless to say that it’s “Made in Germany” which in contrast to other programs also has the side effect of decent German manuals and customer support, but of course that’s not relevant for you ;o).
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[alon_a] “TrueSpace, as far as I know, is purely a modeling solution. If you’re looking for a dedicated modeling application, take a look at Luxology. Modo beats Lightwave in every way almost by definition – it’s largely the same team of people who made a fresh start with a much more modern architecure.”
No, Truespace also does rendering (including advanced stuff like Radiosity). I can second your opinion on modo, though it’s a mere polygonal/ SDS modeler, which makes it sometimes hard to solve certain dilemmas when animating later on in another program. Anyway, back on topic.
If I were in Michaels place, I’d forget about Houdini. Yes, it’s very powerful but also very complex and difficult to handle. It’s a very TD-friendly app (because you can really automate everything to the lowest level), but definitely not one for artists. The overall concept of using “operators” even for a simple extrusion for geometry manipulation for instance cna be good on long term projects for changing things later on, but makes it slow to get going if you are in a hurry (because you always need to figure out how to optimally combine operators first).
Maya is similarly complex and if you need to get going fast, it’s also not easy to get into things. I’ve used it for years and the main reason we let go off it is that it was so hard to finish a project in time (as I’m a one man show on the 3D end) on tight deadlines. A lot of the time in Maya is spent organising things like renaming nodes etc. I also have serious doubts about its future now that Autodesk has aquired Alias (logic dictates that some day a new combined product will come out and it might well be that it is more of a MAX-child, effectively eliminating Maya)
XSI is very powerful, but personally I never have gotten much into it when I was playing with the demo versions over the years. It just feels so redundant and inefficient in many places. It’s also quite possible you won’t be able to accomodate all your needs with foundation since it doesn’t even allow network rendering as far as I know, so you’d have to go Advanced or Extreme.
Almost inevitably this brings us to C4D and it really looks like the way to go. I’ve used it for years (though we are also not current on it) and it always got the job done. I mainly used it for animation/ rendering and did all the modeling in Lightwave but I guess with the new tools and improved interactivity speeds one could completely switch over to it without worrying. In addition to that you simply cannot beat AE integration.
Mylenium
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Yepp, just like Steve said – not upgrading probably doesn’t hurt your workflows, but upgrading can still improve them at least the tiniest bit (graph editor) even if you can’t make anything of the other features (just like me you might be one of those skeptical motion graphics artists who don’t buy into all that 32 bpc hype). Just analyze what you need or don’t need and then decide. A few things to consider: If you don’t upgrade now you might find yourself struggling even more getting into the new interface and other things even more should AE 7.5 or 8 arrive some day. In addition to that, developers might decide to bring out plugins that only work in AE 7 because they need some of the fancies (32 bpc or OpenGL acceleration). Lastly, you might just tomorrow have a client where you wished you had one of AE 7s features at your fingertips ;-). I’m not saying you should rush things, but I don’t see why one wouldn’t want to upgrade.
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a href=”https://www.creativecow.net/articles/mylenium/AfterEffects_7/index.html”>https://www.creativecow.net/articles/mylenium/AfterEffects_7/index.html
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That would be difficult. Just like the others said, CC Lightburst, Directional Blur and Radial Blur are your friends, but it’s still pretty difficult to get similar quality. If you are a student, you should consider the academic licensing. Currently they only offer the plugin packs, but I’m sure if you talk to Peder directly, you could get Shine alone for an even smaller price.
Mylenium
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No, not that I know of. AE will only clear the execution stack of scripts after they are done and there is no explicit release function. It does so because basically when running a script all other AE internal functions are “on hold” and only wait to be called by a script. If it’s an option, you may consider splitting up the data files and load them in in separate chunks. Depending on what type of data you handle, you may also want to consider Digital Anarchy’s Data Animator plugin – I’ve fired large data sets on it for testing purposes and it worked just fine. It’s no speed demon and has its limitations, but it might help you if you do this type of work quite often.
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Take a look at my website for some alternatives. I’m assuming you are using the technique involving the Physics Time factor and you’ll never get blinking stars this way. One of my presets uses Air Resistance and if you use custom particles instead of my standard sphere particles you should be able to get what you want.
Mylenium
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