Comments on: Jahshaka V2 Startup Screen Finalists

By: luminansky

luminansky — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 21:55:30 +0000

@Peter:
I know my comment is a little late. But I did not read this thread earlier.

In my opinion You are completely right!
What You miss is what I miss too, and I am glad that You miss it.
I worked for years as a 3D and compositing artist, so I know what I am talking about.
Most of the compositing systems I know try to integrate 3D more and more.
Blender is coming from the opposite direction and for me that is very very interesting.
I also agree that to have all that in one single tool can be very effective, especially for Previsualization or if You have a client in Your neck.
So please continue what You do ! You have the right attitude for that stuff.

By: demt

demt — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 19:16:47 +0000

anyone know how to render the animation?

cheers demt

By: Gez

Gez — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 18:18:15 +0000

Peter: Maybe my poor english doesn't let me explain myself clearly.
I'm not saying "take the compositor and sequence editor off Blender". What I'm trying to say is: if you are an editor, you want a program for EDITING, not a complete suite with things you don't need.
This is specificity, and this allows better productivity, because the interface design is focused in getting the most efficient workflow. That's why you'd use Premiere instead of After Effects for editing, despite the editing possibilities of After Effects, for instance.
The key is productivity.
Blender has a great productivity, but is mainly a 3D program. As I said before, it's ok to have some supporting tools for editing and compositing *the 3D strips*.
Obviously, if they create a standalone compositor, it should have the proper interoperativity with Blender, because it's an critic part of the workflow.
But you must remember that compositing isn't always integrating a CG character or object with a filmed background. Sometimes you need to move, rotate and scale hundreds of 2D layers and making a strip in blender with the motion of every single layer and assembling it in the sequence editor ins't precisely the fastest way to do it.
I love Blender, I love open source software, but I still open After Effects when I have to make 2D motion graphics and open Premiere (could be Cinelerra if I learn a little more how to use it) when I want to trim a video and edit it.
Anyway, I don't think you're wrong. If that way works for your needs, of course it's ok.

By: Peter Schlaile

Peter Schlaile — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 17:37:54 +0000

@Gez: Hmm. You haven't really answered the second part of my question: what do you really _miss_? What I really liked about a tight integration: a NLE is a multitrack editor with effect functionality and some compositing functions. The effects are either basic (fades, add channels, etc) or are heavy loaded specialized 3D-transition effects. The first part is easy and can be integrated well and the second part is – oops – a lot better done with blender, because of it's flexibility. The compositing functions are also better done with a generic compositor that has basic nodes that can be freely (and I mean _freely_) combined into larger really usefull things. I think, there are thousands of reasons to combine a 3D-editor with a compositor with a NLE. (Also, because other programs try to do the same, but don't have a really good 3D-editor but rather do specialized by hand coding…)

My point is: a NLE is a rather basic tool. The complexity comes most of the time from effect filters (can be done a lot better with blender, since it is a _general_ 3D-editor / compositing tool). If you want to seperate 3D-editor from compositing tool you will loose a lot functionality (think of the awesome vector-motion-blur). If you want to seperate the NLE, you will have to recode all the compositing / 3D-features, that are _also_ needed within a NLE, basically doubling the effort.

What I miss myself in Blender (and therefor code it, when I have time):
- IPO-driving of _all_ effect parameters in the sequence editor
- A sound node editor (think of Reaktor) Is _really_ funny to combine with 3D-scenes if you want to do room simulations ;-)
- Better integration of the sequence-effect tracks with the compositor / 3D-editor (think of custom transitions build in the 3D-editor driven by IPO-curves from the sequence editor and "baken" for speed reasons into a cache-track).
- Better sound mixing code. (Sound effect tracks, pegel meters, better output control (5.1 e.g.)

Nothing of these ideas will result in really bloated code. (The sound code needs a cleanup anyways, why not just do it this time in a generic way?)

The cool thing about Blender is that it has a totally orthogonal view to the full production pipeline. Therefore, I don't think, it's approach will fail.

Just my 2 cents.

Greetings,
Peter

By: Kamran

Kamran — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 14:02:21 +0000

i wonder how jahshaka people even thought about displaying that junk at siggraph? i am one of those many ppl who have been trying jahshaka and waiting for its years old promise of the ultimate v 3.0 initially and now a decent usable 2.0 atleast.. BUT I have given up hope in this project. I would suggest the jahshaka developers to do something they can do decently becasue I don't see if they can make decent software.

and please, do NOT make excuses of less developer resources! you know its a lame excuse.. you'd find plenty of great one-man projects!

By: Gez

Gez — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 06:05:22 +0000

I didn't mention Cinelerra because I was talking about a compositor mostly. Cinelerra is a NLE program with some basic compositing features.
I've got Cinelerra 2 installed in my Ubuntu working fine.

By: Omar

Omar — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:05:56 +0000

You seems to avoid/forget Cinelerra, this is an excellent NLE (and production proof :)).

btw, Cinelerra-CV would have deserved a place on the booth.

cheers

take a lookt @ http://cvs.cinelerra.org/about.php

By: Gez

Gez — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 19:52:33 +0000

@Peter: I think most of us want a standalone compositor, although a non linear editor would be nice too.
Why do we want it as a standalone instead of integrated to blender? Just because we want to keep Blender as a good 3D software. It's ok it has builtin compositing and editing tools, but just as supporting tools. If Blender becomes a all-in-one software it will fail as the majority do. Blender would loose specificity and would become more and more difficult to mantain and debug.
Blender, IMO, is one of the best softwares I've seen, and that's because it does well what it is supposed to do. If you pack it with features that not belong to it you'll begin to have problems of usability and productivity (i.e.: even more cross referenced keyboard shorcuts, neverending menus, etc.)
If a derivative branch of Blender develop a standalone compositor, for instance, maybe some work in this program could be used inside blender compositor, but maybe lots of things useful in a compositor would be unnecesary inside a 3D software, cluttering the interface and making it big and heavy).
I thing a program must target its main application instead of trying to be multi-purpose. If you need to burn a CD, you need a CD burner program, not a 300 MB "media center". :-D
That's frequently the difference between Linux and Windows applications, and that's because the need of a pretext for making money with "new versions", not to please their users.

But don't get me wrong: I'm not criticizing the builtin NLE and compositor, but they are intended to other use. We love Blender, but we can't say it can replace a full featured NLE or compositor (at least not yet, but I'm still thinking that it's not a good idea).

By: Peter Schlaile

Peter Schlaile — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:00:17 +0000

Could someone tell me:
- Why everyone wants a standalone NLE? What I liked very much about Blenders sequencer (and therefore enhanced it), was the tight integration with the modeller. Generating titles / credits etc. is very easy and straight forward that way.
- What do you miss within the current Blender sequencer? It should be right now good enough to get serious work done IMHO. Tell me about your showstoppers ;-)

Greetings,
Peter

By: Chico

Chico — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:32:38 +0000

I did not find who is developing this tool from their home.

Names? Locations? Or… is this guys aliens?