Post production pipeline

# 1 23-02-2013 , 12:51 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2013

Posts: 8

What are some good programs to learn for animating your rendered maya scenes & creating short films?

What I'm really looking for is an all-in-one tool so that I can focus on learning it well instead of spending time on multiple pipelines. This tool would be able to import my renders, edit footage, transition, incorporate sound, and encode multiple high-quality formats. I'm not opposed to something that could do some dynamic stuff too...as long as it covers my base needs.

I figure this is a huge newbie question, but I can't quite find the answer I'm looking for so I hope someone can point me in the right direction.

Here's what I understand:

1. I know how non-linear video editing works. I've used the Pinnacle series for a long time. But it seems like I want something more powerful.

2. I understand that for simply animating a scene, I can use virtualdub.

3. I know that there are compositors, and then there are video editors. I know that compositing is
used to combine images and video but beyond that I don't really understand the differences.

So what is it that I really want? After Effects? Premiere Pro? Maya Composite? A Maya plugin like V-Ray? Or something else entirely?

Thanks

Last edited by Thayxen; 23-02-2013 at 01:19 AM.

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# 2 23-02-2013 , 03:55 AM

EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Toronto

Posts: 3,374

Based on your question, I think that After Effects is probably the best "all-in-one" for compositing, editing and exporting. There are others, but after effects isn't terribly hard to learn, at least to get started.

There are many aspects of compositing. You can use it to tweak various passes that you render out of maya and add in other effects "in post" as it were.

-stwert

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# 3 23-02-2013 , 08:59 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2013

Posts: 8

Thanks Stwert. I read up a little bit more on a comparison thread at DT. AE probably is the best choice for me. I think I have this natural gag reaction to the node-based UI because I'm so use to working with timelines. AE has a timeline and I'm liking the sound of layers. I can't figure out if Toxik / composite has a timeline, or is node only. If it does have a timeline...toxik may be more powerful for encoding and adding motion blur? Is this correct? But does it lose out on anything else AE has? I could care less about texturing or doing anything in a compositor that can be done in Maya or another 3D app.

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