Motion Graphics Questions
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- benfal99
What are the must have software when you want to do motion graphics stuff?
Outside Premiere and After Effects.
What do you use to burn DVD-Video?
What is the best settings when you render a video for DVD-Video?
What CODEC are you using? How do you compress your videos?
- Douglas0
basics: PS, AI, AE, C4d, FCP
if you want to get fancy with characters, particle systems, textures, etc, Maya or 3dsMax or Softimage
if you want to get into hardcore compositing: Nuke or Flame
DVD Studio Pro for buring dvds
DVD Studio Pro will automatically compress it as Mpeg 2 which is the best that DVD's can write.
Apple Pro-res is a great codec for working with video.
If I compress for web, I use QTPro H.264 (high), ACC 44.1kHz audio, Fast Start.
- Douglas0
also regarding the last question, i render everything out of AE as either Lossless, or Animation compression for final output.
- inteliboy0
^ Spot on. Thread over.
3d = your showreel will be miles ahead of kids just using AE.Also if you can operate flame = lots of work out there.
- benfal990
DVD Studio Pro is better than Adobe Encore?
- benfal990
anyways, DVD Studio Pro is for Mac and iam on PC since 2 weeks. :P
- ********0
anyone actually use flame or nuke for motion graphics?
- mostly for compositing, but it's part of the same work flow at times. ive done actual graphics on Smoke though.Douglas
- ifeltdave0
douglas gets the crown for this thread! I'd like to throw in the humble quicktime pro.. comes in handy at times when you need the quick and dirty.
- SoulFly0
Flash
- Sometimes it can be quicker to bosh out animation on the timeline in FL than AE, then import a img seq into AEmikotondria3
- CyBrainX0
I would suggest that Premiere and Final Cut are must NOTs. They do nothing After Effects can't do better with more options. The only thing I ever used those for was capturing video from a camcorder. And since I bought my 5D Mk II, I just take the video files from the card. Definitely pick a 3D package.
- They handle video playback for longer sequences far better. I'd get fcpbabaganush
- dragonfruit0
3dsmax+realflow+fumefx+krakatoa... for the win.
- dragonfruit0
^... +vray+orbazbox
- boat0
^... +bryce
- mcmillions0
In bare bones situations, you can get a lot of work with AE alone, but it's definitely worth knowing C4D and/or FCP—I've been getting more situations in which employers want me to know either some editing, or some 3d along with 2d. And plug-in wise, the trapcode and sapphire plug-ins have been mainstays of mine for awhile, but there are other really good ones out there.
Regarding compositing, After Effects is actually not a terrible option for that as well—there are books dedicated to compositing, which cover both after effects and nuke as worthwhile options, so AE is a solid, jack-of-all-trades 2d program. But industry-wise, compositing is very commonly a nuke thing.
Avoid flash (sorry SoulFly/Mikotondria3)—if you know what you're doing, animation is just as easy in AE as it is in flash. Plus, importing an image sequence into another program means an additional step, and more headaches if changes are requested by a client. And aside from programmatic animation (which is honestly possible in AE), no reason to use flash instead.
- DaveO0
After effects is amazing and i agree with most of the stuff up there but you NEED to be able to preview properly if working with a footage edit – so a fast machine. Just been working on something with minimal animation with footage in the background and it was PAINFUL as shit.
After Effects = Photoshop with wheels. On Steroids.
- NONEIS0
Never render your finals as a codec up front, always use frame sequences for anything over 15 seconds, then recompile the sequence with your codec of choice. This will save you much time and anguish, allowing you to easily patch and review work in progress and recover quite easily if AE is being bitchy and decides to crash during a render.
- NONEIS0
DaveO, this is what proxies are for...
- loool0
premiere is pretty lousy software that's for sure...
AE+C4D is excellent combination for basic things...