Comments on: Giant Spider Compositing with After Effects http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/09/giant-spider-compositing-with-after-effects/ Fresh Blender News, Every Day Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:12:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Daniel Reynolds http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/09/giant-spider-compositing-with-after-effects/#comment-326053 Daniel Reynolds Sun, 18 May 2008 23:33:02 +0000 http://www.blendernation.com/?p=4031#comment-326053 THANK YOU FOR THE POST! No wonder I got so many hits! Very cool, and thank you very much. THANK YOU FOR THE POST!

No wonder I got so many hits! Very cool, and thank you very much.

]]> By: MarkZ http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/09/giant-spider-compositing-with-after-effects/#comment-322360 MarkZ Sat, 10 May 2008 17:08:21 +0000 http://www.blendernation.com/?p=4031#comment-322360 Contrary to what Sparkus said, AE is a professional tool and is used widely to produce TV, commercial and film work. This is true East to West, North to South. It's even true in Hollywood. e.g. on the big screen it was used extensively throughout the production of the recent star wars films (John Knoll himself used it to produce complete space battle sequences), Once Upon a time in Mexico, Sin City, 300 and ever for big money shots on ILM films such as Van Helsing. See this movie for a demo of the van helsing effects: http://www.vfxhq.com/overflow/vanhelsinginterview.mov. Also see http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html for lots of free tutorials on how to use AE to do effects work. If you follow the motion graphics and music video world (say over at motionographer.com) you'll know just how much broadcast TV is coming out of after effects. LOTS! Nodal compositors are better than AE when an effect gets very complicated (100's of layers) and are great on teams because it is easier to script shot pipelines. But the combination of the timeline and compositor make AE extremely powerful as you can work with a complete edit (many shots) and not just a single shot at a time. IMHO Blender and AE together are easily the cheapest and most powerful effects tools you could ask for. Contrary to what Sparkus said, AE is a professional tool and is used widely to produce TV, commercial and film work. This is true East to West, North to South. It's even true in Hollywood. e.g. on the big screen it was used extensively throughout the production of the recent star wars films (John Knoll himself used it to produce complete space battle sequences), Once Upon a time in Mexico, Sin City, 300 and ever for big money shots on ILM films such as Van Helsing.

See this movie for a demo of the van helsing effects: http://www.vfxhq.com/overflow/vanhelsinginterview.mov.

Also see http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html for lots of free tutorials on how to use AE to do effects work.

If you follow the motion graphics and music video world (say over at motionographer.com) you'll know just how much broadcast TV is coming out of after effects. LOTS!

Nodal compositors are better than AE when an effect gets very complicated (100's of layers) and are great on teams because it is easier to script shot pipelines. But the combination of the timeline and compositor make AE extremely powerful as you can work with a complete edit (many shots) and not just a single shot at a time. IMHO Blender and AE together are easily the cheapest and most powerful effects tools you could ask for.

]]> By: o http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/09/giant-spider-compositing-with-after-effects/#comment-322340 o Sat, 10 May 2008 12:10:27 +0000 http://www.blendernation.com/?p=4031#comment-322340 @Sparkus : You can not say AE is NOT a professional tool, in that case blender is NOT either... it is professional as soon as you can earn money with it, which is what a lot of people do. And yes it is far way not the bext tool for VFX compositing, it is actually more for motion design, and in that case it has some nice features and workflow to my opinion. This post is just to temperate your statement. It all depends how u use a tool, a tool is a tool. some are better for specific jobs. @Sparkus :
You can not say AE is NOT a professional tool, in that case blender is NOT either… it is professional as soon as you can earn money with it, which is what a lot of people do.
And yes it is far way not the bext tool for VFX compositing, it is actually more for motion design, and in that case it has some nice features and workflow to my opinion.
This post is just to temperate your statement. It all depends how u use a tool, a tool is a tool. some are better for specific jobs.

]]> By: steve http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/09/giant-spider-compositing-with-after-effects/#comment-322315 steve Sat, 10 May 2008 07:29:50 +0000 http://www.blendernation.com/?p=4031#comment-322315 Even before I read MrE's comment I was planning to write that the constant dragging around of the screen (often for no good reason) and variable volume made this tut. unwatchable for me. Even before I read MrE's comment I was planning to write that the constant dragging around of the screen (often for no good reason) and variable volume made this tut. unwatchable for me.

]]> By: TweakingKnobs http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/09/giant-spider-compositing-with-after-effects/#comment-322184 TweakingKnobs Fri, 09 May 2008 13:33:03 +0000 http://www.blendernation.com/?p=4031#comment-322184 15 years old ??? 15 years old ???

]]> By: ! FaB ! http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/09/giant-spider-compositing-with-after-effects/#comment-322183 ! FaB ! Fri, 09 May 2008 13:17:11 +0000 http://www.blendernation.com/?p=4031#comment-322183 Loool ! When I start the video, my pc reboot^^ Loool ! When I start the video, my pc reboot^^

]]> By: Rakunko http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/09/giant-spider-compositing-with-after-effects/#comment-322170 Rakunko Fri, 09 May 2008 12:28:45 +0000 http://www.blendernation.com/?p=4031#comment-322170 very nice tut ^^ personally iam a champloo compositor mostly since my after effects (totally not stolen >_> ) doesnt do audio so well...so i do my 3D and post animation comp in blender and than do my fire/fx/color/etc in after effects than to audacity for audio mixing and music than voice over and fade with blender for the last step. my work flow is all over the place...(persoanlly iam abit better in aftereffects than jashaka http://jahshaka.org/ but to each their own. personally i strave to be more open source than to 'use' others *cough cough* very nice tut ^^
personally iam a champloo compositor
mostly since my after effects (totally not stolen >_> ) doesnt do audio so well…so i do my 3D and post animation comp in blender and than do my fire/fx/color/etc in after effects than to audacity for audio mixing and music than voice over and fade with blender for the last step.
my work flow is all over the place…(persoanlly iam abit better in aftereffects than jashaka http://jahshaka.org/ but to each their own. personally i strave to be more open source than to 'use' others *cough cough*

]]> By: e.perinelli http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/09/giant-spider-compositing-with-after-effects/#comment-322169 e.perinelli Fri, 09 May 2008 12:22:22 +0000 http://www.blendernation.com/?p=4031#comment-322169 @Sparkus, @kattkieru you're right: i'm more interested in compositing using ZBuffer sorting than in discussing wheter a tool is pro or not any help in this sense would be much appreciated did you use any of the tools you mention (Shake, Combustion...), do you think they're intuitive and easy to learn? in AE CS3 what i've been trying is this: - output the renders in openEXR(half) format, with ZBuffer included - was able to "extract" the "3D channel" but not to use it as an index to composite the layers depending on distance from the camera the larger colorspace offered by openEXR anyway boosts a lot the quality of the final AE rendering, expecially if you need a bit of color correction on the layers @Sparkus, @kattkieru

you're right: i'm more interested in compositing using ZBuffer sorting than in discussing wheter a tool is pro or not

any help in this sense would be much appreciated

did you use any of the tools you mention (Shake, Combustion…), do you think they're intuitive and easy to learn?

in AE CS3 what i've been trying is this:

- output the renders in openEXR(half) format, with ZBuffer included
- was able to "extract" the "3D channel" but not to use it as an index to composite the layers depending on distance from the camera

the larger colorspace offered by openEXR anyway boosts a lot the quality of the final AE rendering, expecially if you need a bit of color correction on the layers

]]> By: kattkieru http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/09/giant-spider-compositing-with-after-effects/#comment-322168 kattkieru Fri, 09 May 2008 12:09:37 +0000 http://www.blendernation.com/?p=4031#comment-322168 Actually AE does have network rendering. You can set it up as a slave on any number of machines. I'm not exactly sure what people mean by ZBuffer stuff, but if you mean moving AE objects behind rendered 3D objects based on a ZBuffer it has that too. (I'm pretty sure you can do that stuff if you render to RPF, as in Combustion.) In the end, folks shouldn't be thinking about what's professional and what's not. Use what works for you. Personally I hate Combustion but I love AE so I do my compositing in AE. If Blender had better matting operators then it'd be a good solution, but it doesn't. It also doesn't have paint effects in the compositor. Actually AE does have network rendering. You can set it up as a slave on any number of machines. I'm not exactly sure what people mean by ZBuffer stuff, but if you mean moving AE objects behind rendered 3D objects based on a ZBuffer it has that too. (I'm pretty sure you can do that stuff if you render to RPF, as in Combustion.)

In the end, folks shouldn't be thinking about what's professional and what's not. Use what works for you. Personally I hate Combustion but I love AE so I do my compositing in AE. If Blender had better matting operators then it'd be a good solution, but it doesn't. It also doesn't have paint effects in the compositor.

]]> By: Sparkus http://www.blendernation.com/2008/05/09/giant-spider-compositing-with-after-effects/#comment-322162 Sparkus Fri, 09 May 2008 11:33:20 +0000 http://www.blendernation.com/?p=4031#comment-322162 @e.perinelli: Sorry to disappoint you, but AE definitely is NO "professional" tool. Although Adobe likes to promote it like that. I know only one region where AE was used a lot and that is asia, because most VFX tools don't support UNICODE. But everywhere else AE is rarely used. It has one of the slowest renderers, it's inflexible (due to it's layer-based system) and it's only Mac and Win. I don't know if it has network rendering. The only big advantage is that there's a heck lot of plugins available and that most plugins are fully compatible only in an AE host. @ROUBAL: Though 3D tracking is indeed available by 3rd party tools, an integrated tracker is often needed. Because most of the time you're not tracking the camera itself but you're tracking a feature in the footage to mask or replace. @e.perinelli: Sorry to disappoint you, but AE definitely is NO "professional" tool. Although Adobe likes to promote it like that. I know only one region where AE was used a lot and that is asia, because most VFX tools don't support UNICODE. But everywhere else AE is rarely used. It has one of the slowest renderers, it's inflexible (due to it's layer-based system) and it's only Mac and Win. I don't know if it has network rendering. The only big advantage is that there's a heck lot of plugins available and that most plugins are fully compatible only in an AE host.

@ROUBAL: Though 3D tracking is indeed available by 3rd party tools, an integrated tracker is often needed. Because most of the time you're not tracking the camera itself but you're tracking a feature in the footage to mask or replace.

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