[Shawn Miller]

[Jeff Markgraf] “how is it that DVD and blu-ray titles are so ubiquitous in retail?

The same way VHS tapes hung on for years after the majority of people switched to DVDs.
The same way networks insist on protecting the 4×3 frame years after it’s almost impossible to buy an SD television.

Inertia.

And there’s always a little more money to be made off the late adopters (like my friend who refuses to give up his dot matrix printer). I just smile and wish him well.”

I don’t think this is a good comparison. VHS and cassette tapes were both supplanted by superior formats. Blu-ray still offers many advantages over streaming video; higher quality, lower cost and portability. I’m also not convinced that inertia explains why you can pre-order first run titles for a supposedly dying formats. Personally, I don’t think disk based media will meet the “true death” until streaming media can reliably deliver an equal experience at a similar price point. Until then , I think things will pretty much continue as they are; people will watch both, some will favor streaming, some will favor watching disks… very few people will take an either or approach.

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

[John Davidson] “And yet their market, according to the article I linked, it declining.”

The article requires a subscription to read the full story. Please note that I didn’t dispute that the market was shrinking. The point that I’m making is that the market isn’t exactly dead, and IMO, it won’t be dead for a long time. Again, the fact that new titles and players are so accessible, doesn’t exactly support the notion that the format is going anywhere anytime soon. Remember, this talk has been going on for nearly eight years now. According to “analysts” and “industry insiders” (circa 2006-2008), Blu-ray was only marginally better than DVD, and Blu-ray would be dead by 2012… still waiting.

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

[John Davidson] “[Shawn Miller] “if the market for disk based media is shrinking so rapidly, how is it that DVD and blu-ray titles are so ubiquitous in retail?”

Retail hasn’t figured out a way to sell a downloadable file in the store?”

Retail includes online; Amazon, Target, WalMart, Costco, Barnes & Noble, Sears, etc. Not only are DVD and and Blu-ray titles still being produced in quantity, but DVD and Blu-ray players are still readily available from a wide variety of retailers, online and B&M.

EDIT: I also meant to add that many brick and mortar stores also sell iTunes, Amazon and Barnes & Nobel gift cards… so, there are your downladable file sales. 🙂

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

[tony west] “If there is such a huge market for it you shouldn’t be having such a hard time finding plenty of people to make what your looking for.

Right?”

Not necessarily, because software development isn’t a generic practice. My guess is that the skills needed to make deep, highly functional disk authoring applications aren’t that common… and probably expensive because of that. Even at the height of the DVD revolution, there weren’t very many applications (maybe less than 5) that could do more than rudimentary menu creation and image mastering… and maybe only two or three that you could consider high-end (scripting, specialized encoding engine, workgroup functionality, etc.). It’s sort of like the market for 3D rendering software… lot’s of potential customers, not very many developers.

Question back to you Tony, if the market for disk based media is shrinking so rapidly, how is it that DVD and blu-ray titles are so ubiquitous in retail?

Shawn

EDIT: That last bit may have come off a little snarky… didn’t mean it that way. Just posing an honest question. 🙂

[Shawn Miller]

[Mark Suszko] “Hollywood isn’t giving up on pressing discs just yet, either. While it may be fewer than before, it’s certainly still making them money. Some people want a physical piece of media, period. For whatever reason.”

Yeah… disk based media may be dying, but I agree with you Mark, it’s going to be a really long, drawn out death. Streaming media is great for casual viewing or training material, but when I want a better viewing experience, Blu-ray is better than anything I can watch online or even on cable.

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

It’s a big subject… but the short of it is that you’re probably a long way from finding the limits of C4D’s lighting, material system and render engine. After that, there’s a lot more to learn about compositing and finishing, and that’s not even delving into the process of learning about lighting for live action, cameras and video formats, assuming that you want to make your own background plates (which you should, just for practice), then there’s the process of making spherical panoramas, if you want to get into image based lighting (you should probably do that too). It’s a lot, I know… but well worth it if you want to understand how to give your work a better sense of realism and a bit of extra polish. I recommend the following resources to get started:

The HDRI Handbook
https://www.amazon.com/The-HDRI-Handbook-2-0-Photographers/dp/1937538168/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1404171002&sr=8-1

Compositing Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist
https://www.amazon.com/Compositing-Visual-Effects-Essentials-Aspiring/dp/0240817818/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404171107&sr=1-3&keywords=steve+wright

A good class for learning compositing in AE
https://www.fxphd.com/blog/godzilla-director-gareth-edwards-guide-to-after-effects/

BTW, renderman is about to get a hefty price drop. So that might be worth keeping an eye on:

https://renderman.pixar.com/view/renderman

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

[Marcus Moore] “And if I think back maybe Motion’s build-in particle generator was ahead for a while. But anyone who’s serious about that stuff is using Particular anyway.”

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Motion’s particle engine is very similar to Wonder Touch’s ParticleIllusion… which also predates Motion… in fact, WT was able to convert part of their emitter library to Motion emitters, because the engines were so similar.

EDIT: I think the cool kids are using Particular alongside X-Particles + (3D software package of choice) for serious particle effects these days. 🙂

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

[Oliver Peters] “”Yes, expressions in Ae predate Motion itself by 3 years. And expressions were by no means unique to Ae: pretty much every worthwhile animation package has them.”

You guys are right about expressions. But there was something Adobe introduced in response to Motion. Maybe more animation presets or something. This was at the same time the puppet tool was introduced. I recall there were additional animation and random variations you could invoke. I believe you had to access these through Bridge. Anyone recall this? At the time I got the distinct impressions that the AE engineers were saying, “Oh, if that’s what you want, we can do that,too!””

Huh, can’t think what feature that may have been. But I would be curious to know. Maybe this helps jog the memory?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_After_Effects

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

[Walter Soyka] “For more advanced designers, I’ve developed an Ae technique using invisible text layers and expressions which allows the editor to hijack text entry fields for more generalized rigging.

https://www.keenlive.com/renderbreak/2014/06/rigging-ae-comps-with-the-new-t...”

Clever, I’m definitely stealing this. 🙂

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

[Oliver Peters] “Just as expressions was originally a response to Apple’s behaviors in Motion.”

AE had expressions years before Motion was released… v4.1 or 5.0 if I’m not mistaken.

Shawn