After Effects Poll

[PurposeDriven]

This is just a quick poll to see what the DVX crowd prefers as far as 2D compositing applications. Sorry if I forgot your favorite, but these are the most popular off the top of my head.

[Zoomforce]

nice idea Purpose.. I chose Combustion but recently I have discovered the AE serverfarm applet so I can take the 5 workstations here to automically combine and work together to render projects and it saves a ton of time... so I may be slowly switching over to AE..

[PurposeDriven]

There is a render engine offered in the Professional versions of AE. You may also setup multi sequences to be rendered and use other computers networked to assist the render.

As far as Combustion goes, I have just found that when you are presenting someting to a client in combustion, having to restart from a lock up is quite embarrasing. AE is a rock... never flinching, always a work horse. This is just my experience with these applications.

[Zoomforce]

yes sorry If i wasnt clear.. that is what I started using the pro version of AE... the render farm program. works great.

The only thing I hate about all Adobe products is the ridiculous start up time.

[PurposeDriven]

That is true. But here's something you can try. Open the program; Close it; then open it again, and it will blow your mind how fast it will go ;D

[Jive]

Interestingly, the fastest-opening Adobe program I have is Audition, which coincidentally is not an original Adobe program (previously Cool Edit Pro by Syntrillium).

I give it a few versions until is starts acting like the rest of its siblings and takes longer opening up. :)

[kai]

AE is a rock... never flinching, always a work horse. This is just my experience with these applications.

Oh believe me I find ways daily to crash it :)

[PurposeDriven]

Don't get me wrong. No program is "un-crashable" However... I've had 15 sequences with up tp 40 layers in a few of those. Each with Effects up the wazoo and 3D layers with lights and camera movements, and the program will render it... trucking a long at a somewhat slow speed. But, it will just "little engine that could" its ways.

Now, if I tried to work a mile a minute with that kind of composition, I'm sure it wouldn't take long before the program stalled. You just need to baby it if you are stacking it crazily. But it's no p*ssy program. That's for sure.

[kai]

Ya I usually take the approach that my mind is working 4 times faster than the computer... and it can't keep up. One comp for an mtv intro had over 100 layers, and the ram preview time was pathetic! (granted it's MUCH faster now on a dual 2ghz g5)

[PurposeDriven]

A comp for MTV... Impressive.. Most Impressive. If you have a web version of it, I'd love to check that out.. or any of your other AE work.

[kai]

http://www.kylestauffer.com/portfolio/dubtv.htm

[Zoomforce]

that dub tv is wicked.. remember seeing it awhile back.

[kai]

thanks man :)

[PurposeDriven]

Looks great. You got the footage from MTV or did you shoot it?

My hat is off to you again good Sir.

[kai]

The car/artist footage was all raw betacam sent from them. I took those raw reels and (after drooling over the pimpin cars for awhile) designed & produced the spot, along with the music remix.... then popped it all back out and the tapes flew to nyc & miami.

...and lived happily ever after *8)

(ps :: I just did a Bacardi spot 2 months ago that was shot using the dvx though...)

[David Jimerson]

How would you guys rate Commotion Pro?

I've been fiddling around with it . . . I'm as of yet an incompetent compositor, but I'm learning. Seems to me that Commotion and AE are very similar in many ways, and I get from a number of forums that it has the best motion-tracker.

I'm looking at AE Pro, and wondering if it's head-and-shoulders better.

[Taylor Moore]

Bear with me here:
They are all good tools in there own way.

Commotion great for rotoscoping
AE great for all round efx and alpha channel comping and easily imports AI files
Combustion great for Greenscreen/Bluescreen keying and color correction
Shake used to rule the world of comping till Apple took the PC rev away.

Alot of the time I use all of them on one project. My 2 cents ;D

[David Jimerson]

That's actually sort of why I leaned toward Commotion -- the rotoscoping. Not that I'm any good at it yet (I'd post a teensy little thing I just did if I had a place to do so).

Heck, I use Liquid Edition and Vegas in conjunction, so why not two effects programs, too?

[PurposeDriven]

I know that combustion and maybe commotion have great keying tools. I know the tracking tools in Combustion and the Partical effects are much better the AE.

However. When it comes down to it, and you need a powerful application to handle almost any type of video, audio, and picture files. Blending in effects, with movement and titles. Lights and a virtual camera. With the stability to run for hours on end with out a lock up. Then AE is your App. It has been fine-tuned to level 6 now. They know their stuff, and if I was gonna have only 1 tool on my side. I'd choose AE 6 Pro.

That's my 2 cents.

[kai]

I throw another 25 cents in the pot for that post. As far as desktop compositing software, I've always relied on AE. There is always the high-end Flame, Inferno, Smoke, etc rigs.. but that's a given they're better. For real-life work, AE has always fit the bill. It's quite flexible with the motion math, scripting, 3D features, network renders, typical Adobe interface, etc.

Combustion is also a powerful tool, and if you're ever planning on moving up to an SGI seat with it's big brothers someday, you'll already have somewhat of a taste of the Discreet interface/control style.

[Jive]

Commotion is very cool because I think it still has a faster and more accurate motion tracker than AE 6 Pro (which everyone was gushing about when it first came out). Rotoscoping and simply efficient 'painting' were the main advantages of this program (semi-automated wire removal, clone tool, etc.). The matte generation is also top notch (color correction, spill supression, etc. is all very simple to use but customisable as well).

However, with the introduction of AE6 Pro, the gap closes and the advantages of Commotion had less of a hold on me. AE6's Keylight tool is amazing for pulling good mattes from bad footage (something which I had to do today). Also, AE6 has a whole slew of vector based painting tools (such as a clone tool, brushes, etc. which are based off of photoshop's paint tools). Also, while the motion tracker isn't as good IMO as Commotion's (haven't used Combustion's enough to gauge it--still learning), it's much better than any previous motion tracker AE employed. Before picking up AE6 Pro, I was not looking forward to the idea of using Commotion in conjunction with AE (which I had done since AE4), as I was tired of switching between programs just to do an effect. Since I started using AE6 Pro, I have not used Commotion a single time. While I would still say that it is an awsome program, AE just has so much more than Commotion as well as a good amount of what Commotion itself has. On the other hand, Commotion does what it does great, but cannot compete with AE in any other respect.

Combustion is also very nice (especially with the (not too) recent price drop). I just find that AE does what I need well enough not to warrant the purchase of another piece of software.

[scharky]

If your really looking for a good rotoscoping tool, I know many may laugh at this idea but look at using macromedia flash. *I did a 30sec short commercial for a class and did all of the rotoscoping in flash. *It may seem wierd but it works amazingly well. *YOu can see the piece I did on my web page.

http://www.stefweb.net *

go to the short films section, and it is #3 "faux target ad". *It took forever to do, but it was a good learning experience.

[Zoomforce]

dont laugh... I do all my text in flash. Flash kicks ass, even more that it has full quicktime support.

[David Jimerson]

But how does Flash look on a big screen? It always looked overly computer-ish to me.

[scharky]

IT really depends on how fast your computer is. You can set your resolution to anything immaginable. IT also depends on how you use flash. You can basically let flash do all of the tweening for you, which will give a "too perfect" computer look, or you can hand draw everything for a much more rough, hand drawn look. I chose to hand draw everything and when I was done I exported to quicktime at 24fps and mixed in music and sound effects in premiere. It really doesn't look much different than what can be done in after effects. The only thing that flash can't do is add motion blur, but that can be done later anyways.

[kai]

It's all about using the best/easiest tool to get the job done. Shoot, I use AE to actually edit alot of the time... (aside from effects & compositing). The sheer amount of manual control you have over every aspect of your piece is great.

[kai]

scharky-

I really liked the idea of that target ad, with the freeze frame product features, etc... very creative idea. I can imagine it too you FOREVER rotoscoping that in Flash...

[scharky]

Yeah, it took me about 27hrs just for the rotoscoping. *Then about another 7 or 8 hrs for the other effects, chairs, table etc. *Then about 2hrs for the music and sound effects. *And I still only got a B+ on the dang thing. *

[SoerenM]

Hm sorry but I think AE is kind of akward nowadays as most of the Adobe products. They are all heavily in the need of a total rewrite (in terms of coding)! ;-)
I just had to work with their SDK again (writing a plugin)... *sigh*
However Digital Fusion is missing here in the poll!!! It's super fast.. absolutely rock stable... more kind of Shake style ;) and personally I find it much more intuitive to use.
I think it comes down to taste and to what you can afford price wise.
Personally I'm a Fusioneer! Yeah baby.. ;-P

Cheers,
-Sören

[kai]

There ya go... DF is in the poll :)

[kai]

btw: considering Digital Fusion is about 5 times the price of AE Production bundle, is that a fair comparison? DF is more along the lines of a Shake seat.

[lars_S]

After using Maya Fusion , and now Digital Fusion for some time I think After Affects is for people with too much time on there hands, for a lot of thing you simply are more productive with Digital Fusion, or shake or any other node based compositing tool.

since I begin to dislike adobe for some reason (slow with innovation, old GUI), I prefer the more open packages like fusion, shake, ok it cost a lot more, but what about the improved workflow , thats worth some money isn't it ?

bottom line: node-based all the way!

[SoerenM]

Kai there are bundles etc. or smaller packages available that cost much less than the full blown DF version!
I think Lars' post sums it up nicely.. couldn't have said it better!
(I think Adobe is currently benefiting from it's image mostly rather than real product quality ;o)

[kai]

Nevertheless, Adobe has always been a staple in the design world, and AE is used worldwide in films, television, etc (just like DF, Shake, etc)...

Maybe it's a staple the same reason Yamaha NS-10's were THE studio monitors back in the day (ya know black with a white cone). Granted they were the staple because Yamaha gave them away to studios everywhere so they'd be used... but guess what.. they were. If something has been around long enough and enough people use it, it's going to stick.

After Effects has been around for awhile, and probably always will be. There will always be bigger and better products.. that's the nature of software and computers, but for me and many others, AE fits the bill on both price and performance.

[Zoomforce]

true enough.. I refuse to ever put photoshop on my system, only because by the time photoshop actually loads I coulda done it 3 times in another program. Im just to impatient I guess. Everyone thinks im crazy though.. "how the hell do you do anything without photoshop?"

[Neil Rowe]

i dont even like photoshop..i use it for some stuff, but i prefer corel draw..it just fits my thought process better , and i like the workflow.

[Jive]

Photoshop opens pretty fast on my computer. It opens faster than AE or Vegas on my System. But then again, I've always used Photoshop, so I'm used to the wait.

[Jay_Blanchard]

Kai--

I just saw your clip for MTV's DUB TV--very impressive! I have a couple of questions for you, if you don't mind revealing some secrets....

1) What method did you use for the white silhouettes-to-video on the stills? It looks like the alpha channel with a moving matte revealing the video--am I close, and could you explain your process?

2) What was the liquid effect you used when transitioning up to the logo & later in the Missy Elliot shot?

Thanks!

[kai]

Hi Jay-

1) The white silhouettes were pretty simple actually. I initially traced the shape of the body in Photoshop, and saved out a layer in a psd with the white (ie: layer named "kobe_white", etc). Then, it's animated using a track matte to reveal the layer underneath. So yes, you were close :)

2) It's actually a smoke effect being used as a luminence track matte. It was some old stock footage I had of smoke filling up the frame (black & white)

Let me know if you have any more questions! Thanks for the compliment man :)

[kai]

one more thing, in the shot of Kobe sitting in the lamborghini, it has a "write-on" effect at the beginning to bring in the silhouette. That part was just animated by hand old-school-like 8)

[Jay_Blanchard]

Thanks Kai! :)

Hope you don't mind, but there's a good possiblity I might be "borrowing" your techniques for my next AE project ;)

[kai]

hey by all means... that's what this is here for! ;)

Let me know if I can do anything else... and be sure to post your next project up here!