Simon Ubsdell
6
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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Here for example is a very different method that uses Clones and a Replicator to create the array, a Sequence Replicator for the animation, and a Clone of the result that uses Variable Speed Time Remapping to create the slowdown.
This would probably the route to go if you were building a reusable template, but it’s quite a bit more complicated to explain and requires quite a few more steps to execute.
13273_slotmachinereplicator.motn.zip
Simon Ubsdell
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I gave you the instructions for the slowdown above, but here is a sample project which shows you the result:
13272_slotmachineslowdown.motn.zip
The steps are:
1) Set up your single animation adjusting the speed as required.
2) Use the Keyframe Editor to set up a loop after the last keyframe
3) Use Generate Keyframes to convert the loop into an editable animation choosing the number of cycles you require
4) Again set After Last Keyframe but this time select Constant (to create a hold)
5) Adjust the timing of the last keyframe to create a slowdown.
6) Adjust the animation curve of the last keyframe to ramp the animation to a gentle stop, using either Ease In, or Bezier for more precise control
If you want to land on a different image than the one you have used for the start/end, simply park on the last keyframe and drag it vertically upwards in the keyframe editor till you see the image you want. Holding down shift while dragging constrains the movement.
There are of course other ways of achieving this effect but I suspect this is the most efficient overall.
Simon Ubsdell
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Apologies. I thought this was something you’d already know.
You can loop any animation by going to the Keyframe Editor, choosing the animated parameter you want to loop and from the dropdown selecting After Last Keyframe/Repeat. (There are other options as well, as you will see.)
If you then want to convert that loop into an editable animation, you can select After Last Keyframe/Generate Keyframes – set the number of Cycles you want from the dialogue and hit OK.
So in your case if you want the rolling to come to a stop after a set number of loops you can do this and then adjust the last keyframe to bring it to a gentle stop.
Simon Ubsdell
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Why would you need to repeat the images? All you should need to do is set up your animation so it loops back to the start of the group of three surely?
Simon Ubsdell
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Great post. I think that’s exactly the right approach.
An ad agency head once told me: “There’s no such thing as a bad idea”. While it might not be literally true, it’s a very good mindset to have.
It’s always worth giving ideas the space they might need to come alive and prove their worth. We all think we know a bad idea when we see one, and often we are right in our snap judgment. But sometimes is pays to allow ourselves to be wrong – a “bad idea” might be a great idea that we didn’t instinctively recognise as such.
Ideas don’t necessarily come fully formed. It’s how you implement them that often determines whether they work or not. So it’s best to try and implement them in good faith.
I have to say that quite a few editors find it hard to implement in good faith notes that they instinctively disagree with. But we don’t always honestly interrogate the reasons for our instinctive rejection of them. For example, are we unconsciously rejecting the note because we know that it will be awkward or tricky to implement? The hardest thing for us to do is to “kill our babies” and if a note threatens to break something we have fallen in love with then it’s a lot harder to run with it.
And yes, there are good ways of suggesting an idea … and bad ways. The more experienced you are, the more you understand this. The less experienced you are, the more likely you are to be dictatorial, and that’s not a helpful way to collaborate. In fact, the person “dictatorially” giving a note can kill their own idea by not allowing the room for it to breathe – if you give the editor latitude to make it work, then it stands a much better chance than if you dictate the parameters too specifically.
Simon Ubsdell
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[Shawn Miller] ” I like what they’ve done to make Fusion more accessible to a wider audience, but I think they’re missing an opportunity to develop Fusion Studio into the kind of hero VFX application that can do everything that Nuke does, at a fraction of the price.”
I absolutely agree. It seems so unnecessary to adopt the strategy that it can only be one product and that must be the dumbed down version. Why not allow the two to exist in parallel?
You’d have thought that R&D work put into making a truly top end version of Fusion would filter back down the food chain and make the overall “Resolve” offering stronger. Not to do this seems to me very short-sighted.
They’re putting a huge amount of effort into ramping up what Fairlight can do – the latest version has some incredible new features. Why not a similar push to drive Fusion back up towards the top end of VFX?
I fear that Grant for all his many talents just isn’t remotely in tune with the VFX world – he’s not interested, so the development is never going to come.
[Shawn Miller] “What are your plans for compositing software going forward? I’ve heard good things about Natron.”
Yes, Natron looks very promising. But I have to admit that my VFX needs are sufficiently modest these days that Fusion 9 still just about covers them. The problem is that learning this stuff so you can work as fast as you need means a serious investment of time and you need to make that investment wisely. If I were doing a lot more VFX, it would be ridiculous to consider anything other than Nuke … and that’s a really big shame. The market really deserves better than the total dominance of just one very aggressive player.
Simon Ubsdell
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In a very real sense the use of Fusion as a titling engine very closely mimics the FCP X/Motion relationship. Would you agree?
Simon Ubsdell
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[Shawn Miller] “I’ll continue to use Fusion Studio for as long as it’s useful, but I don’t have a lot of faith that it won’t become BMD’s Shake. “
Oddly I think it’s pretty certain that BMD are not now going to drop Fusion because it’s now so tightly tied into the Resolve application – for example, rather than build a proper title engine for Resolve (which it has always needed) it looks as though they have decided to leverage Fusion title comps to offer ready-made presets.
However in a sense, they already have killed it off in its original essence – like the Borg, they’ve “assimilated” it 😉
Simon Ubsdell
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Yes, you’re absolutely right. There has been no move to enhance Fusion specifically for VFX users and all the work has gone into dumbing it down and making it a module within Resolve.
However, Fusion 16 – the new standalone version – really does mark the end of the road. Note that the latest standalone version was Fusion 9, so the jump to 16 is very telling- it’s all about alignment with Resolve.
And the key thing to notice is that Fusion 16 now doesn’t look like Fusion at all – instead it’s simply the Resolve Fusion Page offered as a standalone application. That’s a massive change and a very damaging one. The Resolve Fusion Page UI is very poorly suited to complex VFX projects and that is now clearly now the target – the aim has been to bring it as close as possible to the Resolve UI for better integration.
The whole point of the “old” Fusion UI model was to give you total flexibility:
The “Fusion Page” model replaces that with a locked down set of limited options:
But the real issue is that while Nuke continues to set new benchmarks, Fusion has long since given up on doing any of the catching up it needs to do, so it’s really now a tool from another older era. Of course you can still do great work with it but who at the cutting edge is going to forego the advanced functionality of Nuke? Everyone hates the Foundry business model, but that doesn’t stop it being the totally dominant player in this market sector.
Simon Ubsdell