Which Studios Use AE For Their Effects Work?

A

andybiz_2005

Well-known member
Hi all,

I just want to post a question here as to which are the big, most well known, major post production studios that utilize AE heavily for their special effects work in movie & television. Just curious as to how widely used & popular AE really is. I'm sure there are other compositing s/w out there like Combustion, Shake, etc, but what makes AE such a great speciala effects s/w above others? Thank you in advance.

Andrew
 
Each vfx package has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Different places aproach these differently. The biggest post house that I know of that is using AE for vfx in film is The Orphanage. They have developed many inhouse workarounds for different scenarios to make AE more pliable for high-end vfx work. Many of these are available to the public now through Red Giant software, eLin which is a workaround for float color space in AE (which is no longer needed with v7 out), Magic Bullet, and others.

Most of the larger effects facilities use shake, and higher end systems like flame and inferno. The problem with AE is that it is cumbersome to use when you have lots of layers (i.e. 24 or more) and also it's a bit harder to control the render order of effects/elements. It also does some things automatically behind the scenes that if you don't know they are happening, then it could mess up a comp. Node based software like shake is completely controlled by the end user. Just to move something you have to add a node, you can't just grab it in the viewer and move it around like in AE.

With that being said, from my understanding, AE is used a lot more in the TV world than the film world. It is very versatile because it can do an excellent job at motion graphics as well as visual effects, plus it's price is lower than other packages. This gives it much more "bang for the buck" to a company doing primarily tight schedule TV work.

Ultimately, they all work very well, and it depends on the artist. I started to learn comping in AE, then moved on to shake. Personally, I love shake for comps because the amount of control I have, and the simplicity of changing something down the road that I did earlier. I've never pre-render/pre-composed something in shake yet, but I had to precomp a lot in AE to pull out successful comps. It really depends on you. Shake is a hard program to learn, and AE is very deep.

To end with a few examples of AE in movies. It was used extensively on The Day After Tomorrow. I think some of the snow elements were generated by Trapcode Particular, and the scene in which the helicopter in England freezes in mid-air. In that scene, the whole "supercell" surrounding them were 2d projections, about two dozen of them.

AE & eLin in Hellboy and The Day After Tomorrow article

Article on AE use in the Aviator
 
Hi oneinfiniteloop,

Thank you for taking the time & effort in clearly sharing wiith me about which studios use AE. Indeed your knowledge on compositing is quite vast. I've never used Shake, but I've heard some good things about how versatile it is. Coming from a 3D background (I modelled using Maya), I do understand fully about node-based s/w. Btw, I've got the "Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Vol. 1: The Essentials (3rd Edition, Version 6.5) by Trish Meyer and Chris Meyer" book & found it to be quite excellent in taking a beginner step by step. All the illustrations are in full color too :) What do you think about the book? Have you used it? Is it helpful for you? Thanks.
 
I've never used that book, but Chris & Trish Meyer know the program. That book is more geared towards motion graphics and I don't think it gives you much insight into the compositing aspect of the program. The book I highly recommend is After Effects 6.5 Studio Techniques, which now has revision for Version 7. It's one of the best books on the subject of compositing because it teaches you the core techniques that are used to build the effects, rather than step by step tutorials. The guy that wrote it was the lead AE guy on The Day After Tomorrow, as well as having worked on SW: Episode 1 and others. Another one that I'm about to pick up is The Art and Science of Digital Compositing, which has gotten very good reviews. It is written by Ron Brinkman, who was the lead programmer on the original shake, so he knows a little bit about the subject.

Personally, I like books that teach you the nuts and bolts of how to do something rather than tell you how. The theory is much more useful than the steps. Tutorials are good to pick up techniques here and there, then modify them to be your own, but you're not going to learn much from them, especially if you want a job in the field.
 
Yep, JAK Films at Lucasfilm used it as well as the desktop 'Rebel Unit' at ILM. AE gets
used a ton of films by the second tier vfx houses and below. A lot of work is awarded
to a vfx house then gets sub-contracted out for all or part of specific shots. Many of
the freelancers and small botique houses that pick up work that way use it.

Very little of the top tier work is AE however. Its a perfectly capable app.. I
particularly dislike it and avoid using it at all costs, but its got a huge
marketshare and some nifty plugins. I just hate the workflow. Its success
is solely due to its price, not because its a particularly powerful or intuitive
application.
 
We're one of the largest private houses in the nation and 75% of our effects/design work is AE on macs. We have multiple Flames, Smoke, Flint, Quantel, etc as well, but AE is the box of choice.
 
Hi oneinfiniteloop,

Thanks for your reply. For me I'm a beginner in AE, so I do need to learn from Chris & Trish Meyer step by step. I also have the AE 6.5 Studio Techniques book, but I'm reserving that when I'm more competent in AE. Thanks again for your views.

Andrew
 
Unix said:
should a beginner in fx (not u andybiz ) start with AE or should he go straight to shake?
Click to expand...

Depends what you want to be doing. If it's design/mograph type work, then AE. If it's strictly more traditional compositing work, then Shake.
 
kai said:
Depends what you want to be doing. If it's design/mograph type work, then AE. If it's strictly more traditional compositing work, then Shake.
Click to expand...


Or even Digital Fusion. Lot's of folks use that too.

If I could pick from Shake, Combustion, and all the others (besides AE) I'de like to get a knowledge of DF.
 
Rapier_100a said:
Or even Digital Fusion. Lot's of folks use that too.
Click to expand...

...if he's on PC. Sat through the demos at nab of fusion, not too shabby. But, PC based.
 
*busts out the door and whips out .40 caliber mac pistol (in gloss white of course)*

..looks around, sees no one there... goes back inside.

:)
 
Greggl said:
Yep, JAK Films at Lucasfilm used it as well as the desktop 'Rebel Unit' at ILM. AE gets
used a ton of films by the second tier vfx houses and below. A lot of work is awarded
to a vfx house then gets sub-contracted out for all or part of specific shots. Many of
the freelancers and small botique houses that pick up work that way use it.

Very little of the top tier work is AE however. Its a perfectly capable app.. I
particularly dislike it and avoid using it at all costs, but its got a huge
marketshare and some nifty plugins. I just hate the workflow. Its success
is solely due to its price, not because its a particularly powerful or intuitive
application.
Click to expand...

I think its success is also due to fx artists like Eric Chauvin who swear by AE and is constantly creating outstanding film vfx and who keeps racking up the Emmy awards for vfx on television.
 
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