Shawn Miller
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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[David Mathis] “The lack of Send To Motion is a major bummer, dude. I prefer expressions over behaviors, though. The only thing that keeps me from using After Effects is that darn rental only model. Keeping an eye on Fusion, no pun intended.”
David, I know you’re a Blackmagic camera user as well. Does Motion debayer raw formats? If so, how is the performance with CinemaDNG, if not, how does Motion fit into your raw workflow?
Shawn
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I can’t speak to Motion’s strengths or weaknesses. But here’s why I think AE rules the roost as a hybrid motion graphics/VFX/finishing tool.
- The AE community – Ae has a deep bench of smart, dedicated users who have built a knowledge base and a culture which makes it easy for new users to understand what AE is, and what it takes to get high end results out of the software.
- The Built in tools – Ae has some of the best and most unique tools for creating both motion graphics and VFX; warp stabilizer, puppet tool; Noise and Grain tools, Shatter, the Cycore plugins, etc. EDIT: Should have mentioned 3D tracking
- Bundled applications – the inclusion of Cinema 4D Lite and Mocha AE puts Ae in a class of its own. It’s just AMAZING what a talented person can do with these tools alone.
- Available plugins – Too many great ones to list. However, everything from Trapcode and RedGiant, Boris and Video Copilot should be at the top any serious AE user’s list
- Expressions and Scripting – Ae’s capabilities can be extended and enhanced through scripting; UI tweaks, unique tool creation, automation etc. Expressions are also SUPER useful for cutting down on repetitive tasks, linking parameters and creating parametric animations/behaviors
- Flexibility and stability – Ae is best of breed for motion graphics creation, but it also sits very comfortably in a VFX pipeline. It may not be the “best” all around compositor, but for quick-turnaround animation and “lite composites”, AE is still pretty tough to beat. I know of a few VFX heavy television shows that mostly use Ae and Maya/Lightwave… with very little Nuke in the mix.
I wish I had time to finish this out… but my render just finished. Back to work! 🙂
EDIT: I meant to add that I don’ think one is better than the other (Ae vs Motion), they’re just different.
Shawn
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[John Rofrano] ” [Shawn Miller] “Hopefully, Adobe is at least considering the possibility. ”
I don’t see any reason why they would. The whole idea of CC was to provide a continuous revenue stream from year to year. Allowing people to opt-out would upset that stream and decrease their earnings. On no… they have customer right where they want them and they’re not letting go. (sorry for getting off-topic)”
I don’t think a company like Adobe leaves many options off the table. To the public, it may be one vision, one direction one unified front. Behind the scenes… who can say. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Adobe was watching the field and taking notes on how others are doing subscriptions, with an eye to changing/improving it’s own programs. If it becomes clear that a subscription only model is less effective (profitable) than a buyout/membership model, then I don’t doubt that Adobe will change in a second. In short, they may be more flexible than you imagine… or less than I imagine… no one outside of Adobe’s management can say for sure.
Shawn
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Yes, I agree. I think a lot of us would welcome a buyout option for Creative Cloud software. Hopefully, Adobe is at least considering the possibility.
Shawn
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[John Rofrano] “I just got an email from Cakewalk that they are starting a subscription based service for their DAW as well.”
Yes, but after 12 months, you get to keep whichever version of the software you’ve subscribed to. You can pay full price upfront for a year long membership, or you can pay the monthly subscription fee… the only catch is that the software won’t be permanently activated if you subscribe for less than 12 consecutive months.
https://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Membership
Shawn
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[tony west] “Oh, I have seen plenty of people either write about their camera or they have it listed on their signature tag on this forum.
I just haven’t seen RED or Alexa tagged often.”
Fair enough, I think that may go to my point though. I’m guessing that most of us are more involved in post than camera operation, so maybe you won’t see a lot of folks who own 20k+ cinema cameras. Though most of us have probably worked with “high end” formats.
[tony west] “[Shawn Miller] “Red operators who will come out for less than $1,000.00 a day”
That doesn’t mean that’s a cheap camera. That just means people don’t want to pay the real rate.”
True enough.
Shawn
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[tony west] “RED a cheap camera now? I would be interested to know what kind of cameras people on here own.”
Not sure you’ll find a ton of Red owners on a forum mostly dedicated to post… but I’ve certainly seen and been asked to work on low to no budget projects shot on Red. I know one or two Red operators who will come out for less than $1,000.00 a day (it was twice that a few years ago). I know it’s not exactly a DSLR rate, but it’s not like hiring an Alexa operator either. Maybe some markets are just tighter right now?
Shawn
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[Steve Connor] “As powerful as it is, I really can’t see significant numbers of AE or Motion users converting to Fusion”
I don’t know if I completely agree with this. I’ve seen (and know) a lot of folks who use Ae in conjunction with a variety of 3D packages. Many of them use a combination of their 3D package of choice, Ae and Nuke… so I imagine Fusion might just become the default node based compositor for folks who can’t afford Nuke (like me). 🙂
The story might be different for Motion users, I haven’t really seen 3D artists (VFX or Mograph) use it… well, except for Simon maybe. 🙂
Shawn
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Hi Jeff,
Vegas has conventional tracks, and yes it does overlap video as well as audio when in auto cross fade mode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0CSYCqk3ZPk#t=210
When I came back to Premiere from Vegas years ago, I really missed auto fade and auto ripple. It’s nice not having to think about clip collisions. 🙂
Shawn
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[Jeff Markgraf] ”
I’m not aware of any NLE except X that overlaps the clips to avoid collisions.”Sony Vegas does… but you can also turn it off.
Shawn