Simon Ubsdell
6
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
-
[Aindreas Gallagher] “that’s the only thing I think is basically wrong – if the competitor comes out the gate focused solely on a key mograph toolset operating at near realtime all the time – then I could very easily imagine AE types putting it into their toolset if only as a rapid prototyping area for type work, design compositing, grading and masking. make it the best possible place to do those key tasks. and have it all be realtime at 1080P. “
If that’s all you’re asking for, then seriously, it already exists.
Motion does everything you’ve described there and in real-time, not just near real-time.
But I don’t believe that’s all you want … 😉
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Steve Connor] “So what are the main things that Motion is lacking that rules it out as being a viable AE alternative?”
As far as I’m concerned, it’s clearly the front-runner as an Ae alternative and it’s massively underestimated by those who don’t know it very well. The fundamental architecture seems to me to be at least as good as Ae if not better in some respects and as far as real-time performance is concerned, there is simply no contest.
Here’s my small contribution to trying to spread the word:
https://tokyo-uk.com/motiontutorials.html
However, one has to admit that there are large gaps that don’t look as though they will be filled any time soon.
Sexy new stuff like C4D and 3D camera tracking, Roto Brush, Warp Stabilizer, etc. are the obvious things, but there’s also the fact that Motion is only 2.5D not 3D capable; there are loads of Ae filters that put it way ahead of Motion (e.g. Liquify, Blend Warp, etc.); there is the lack of expressions in Motion (although Behaviors make up for this far, far more than most people realise); there’s the plug-in ecosystem with stand-out offerings like Element 3D and Trapcode Particular to name just the most popular …
And the list, unfortunately goes on and on – I’ve probably left out some really key things that Ae users couldn’t live without … there’s just so much in there, not all of it great by any means, but it does the job in ways that are often harder or simply impossible to achieve in Motion.
Then there’s the fact that Apple haven’t brought anything new to Motion since rigging and publishing with the launch of Motion 5, which is really not encouraging to those of us who’d like to see if develop.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[David Mathis] “Now if I can only find an alternative to Photoshop life would be great!”
Pixelmator.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
If you sat down to build the ideal mograph tool today, the one thing you wouldn’t do is make it look like After Effects. Tired, old, clunky, a grab-bag of random stuff that’s become glued together over the years. Who in their right minds would build such a thing today?
On the other hand, if you were sitting down to build a product that could take on After Effects, you’d be utterly out of your mind to make it anything other than the closest thing to After Effects you could possibly manage without getting sued,
No mograph professional is going to look at any wannabe Ae competitor if it doesn’t match After Effects in every particular.
The major problem for anyone starting out to rival Ae is that there is just so much aggregated crud (sorry, so many powerful, essential features) that every Ae user will deem essential, that it would take a very long time to get to the same place. C4D, 3D tracking – all that more recent stuff obviously, but there’s just so much more built up over the years that one can easily forget is there.
If HitFilm want to compete in the Ae market, and I’m not entirely sure that’s where they want to pitch themselves, they have a really long way to go still.
Apple are never, ever going to do anything serious with Motion – they don’t have the will, they don’t fancy the market, and they don’t have the quality developers to achieve it.
The Foundry could have a go – anybody who’s used Nuke and Modo can see how the coming together of The Foundry and Luxology has the potential to create amazing stuff across the board. Nuke Studio sounds as though it could be very interesting – but at that price it’s hardly in the budget realm of Ae. Imagine if they were to produce a product that could do everything that Ae could do and at the same price point – they would seriously eat into their existing product lines.
The same thing applies to Autodesk, who could make Smoke even more of an Ae competitor – but they’re already regretting the decision to price Smoke as a “cheap offering” so that’s not going to happen.
Mistika? Who knows … Maybe Grant Petty has something else up his sleeve.
What you’re buying with Ae is product maturity, just as you are with Photoshop. There’s just so much in there that you take for granted – until you don’t have it.
Ae is dirt cheap compared to everything except Motion, and it’s the product that every kid in his bedroom still wants to be seen to be using because, for what seems like an eternity now, there has been no meaningful competition of any kind. It’s not easy fighting against that kind of monopoly.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Aindreas Gallagher] “hello Walter – do you, as it were, logically, view what was outlined there as generally representing Motion?”
I don’t know what Walter thinks, but I know what I think …
😉
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
Thanks, Shawn.
I’ll go it another go and see how I get on.
Having used them very successfully for a while, I ran into an issue where creating any new watch folder would crash AME every time on launch until the prefs were rebuilt and the folder deleted. More than likely a system issue my end.
It’s a serious time-saver when it works.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Walter Soyka] “AME watch folder on a Mac on my network is easy and fast.”
AME watch folders are a truly useful concept but my experience has been that they can be really flaky and I keep having to delete them – a shame cos I’d love to use them more.
Have you not found this or am I just unlucky?
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Jeremy Garchow] ” Compressor and FCPX share a render pipeline, so you can encode right form FCPX using Compressor settings, and then set those up in the “Share” menu right out of FCPX.
It’s cool, did I say it was cool? “
It’s very cool indeed. And another great thing is being able to set up a bundle.
If I’m exporting a client review copy from FCP X, I also like usually having a master file as well, just to be on the safe side. Setting up a bundle means I can do both in one hit. Or more …
Great concept.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[John Davidson] “There’s nothing in particular wrong with FX Factory per se. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with any plugin manufacturer. However, the more you add to a system that isn’t directly controlled by Apple and it’s programmers, the more likely you are to have issues with it. Therefore I avoid anything that isn’t home brewed by my team.”
I can understand your position in wanting a clean, safe environment free of risk and in principle that’s clearly a sound business decision that we should all be emulating – but there’s risk and risk.
I just wanted to point out that there’s a world of difference between buying a plug-in from FxFactory and buying one from one of the very many more questionable operations that have sprung up to exploit the opportunities presented by FCP X.
Mentioning FxFactory specifically in relation to an issue raised by a plug-in from Pixel Film Studios seemed like a particularly low blow – though I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way.
FxFactory have been around for 10 years, long before FCP X was ever thought of, and have been providing plug-ins for FCP Legacy, Premiere, After Effects and Motion from a number of very well-respected developers – people like Graeme Nattress and Tim Dashwood among others, as well as Gabe’s own seriously extensive array of tools.
Gabe and Niclas have built an extremely robust and sophisticated ecosystem for the delivery of these plug-ins that is really far superior to anything else out there in my view. As Mathieu points out below, handling multiple licenses in a multi-seat environment should be pretty straightforward with this system – maybe it’s not perfectly suited to the way you work but it’s impressively streamlined, I think. If there’s something that you can imagine they should be doing better, I really do suggest you let them know, as Gabe works tirelessly to make the system better.
To extrapolate from saying that some plug-ins cause issues to saying that therefore all plug-ins should be avoided is not I think a reasonable position.
Though of course, I would say all that 😉
I also suspect that you’re not fully consistent in your avoidance of third party solutions. I can’t remember what you’ve said about this but I’m presuming you need to get audio out of FCP X for finishing and hence must be using X2Pro. As we know, Apple has left certain chunks of the FCP X environment deliberately uncatered for which means that third party solutions are a necessity for many of us.
Is there really any difference in risk between using X2Pro and, say, Dashwood’s Stereo3D Toolbox? I don’t really see it myself.
I’d also suggest that however impressive the skills of your Motion team and much as I like Motion myself, there are tasks that it’s simply beyond Motion to be able to deliver on, which is where properly designed and executed plug-ins can really speed up your workflow. (Not mine, of course – they’re all rubbish.) And as much as the avoidance of risk is an important consideration, so also is delivering the end product quickly and efficiently.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[John Davidson] “And that’s why I avoid FX Factory and most 3rd party plugins as well.”
Hi John,
I’m not sure why you are referencing FxFactory in this context.
The issue Julian had was specifically with a product from the (shall we say?) notorious Pixel Film Studios, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days.
I am perfectly prepared to accept that there may have been issues with one of their “products” but …
How does this relate to FxFactory?
Are there particular issues you have had with FxFactory in the past?
Have you alerted FxFactory to any specific concerns you have had over a specific plug-in?
Have you discussed your concerns with the developer of that specific product?
All I can say, is that in my experience, FxFactory take customer satisfaction very seriously indeed which probably accounts for the high regard in which they are held in the industry.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com