Which composition software

# 1 05-11-2002 , 12:11 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Jul 2002

Location: USA

Posts: 142

Hi,

I'm thinking about buy a software to compose. But since I haven't touch any, I would like your guys help. After effects or Combustion? Should I have Premiere? Why?

Can anyone explain what each of theses softwares used for?

Rodrigo Soares
www.r3dimensional.com

Quote

# 2 05-11-2002 , 02:08 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: CCS, Venezuela

Posts: 3,363

Hello, Rodi

Actually Premiere isn´t a compositing software but a video editing one. AfterEffects is a somewhat of an industry standard (much like Photoshop), and it´s by far the most common compositing package at the moment. It´s from Adobe (More info available here)
Combustion is Discreet´s most available (and less pricey)compositing package. It has a somewhat steep learning curve (Specially if you´re an adept to Adobe´s Products) but essentialy they both do the same. They composite. You just have to learn how to, and in reality it won´t differ too much whichever one you should choose. You´ll have to learn how to use them anyway.

By the way, now that you asked, Premiere is used to actually edit video, and it´s being used like crazy to make all those anime music videos you can find around P2P networks.

Prices?
Premiere goes for 549 US$
AfterEffects goes for 699 US$
Combustion goes for 4995 US$

Hope this helps ...

adldesigner
Caracas, Venezuela
Hell .. not gone perse, but with a certainly lower post count per day.

Quote

# 3 05-11-2002 , 06:42 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Jul 2002

Location: USA

Posts: 142

thanx adl.

helped me a alot

Rodrigo Soares
www.r3dimensional.com

Quote

# 4 06-11-2002 , 07:21 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: May 2002

Location: Faringdon, UK

Posts: 1,480

combustion is solid user added image

commotion has an interface like photoshop if u like that, butid go with combustion, very nice for the price user added image

- Simon

My Website: www.Glass-Prison.com

Quote

# 5 06-11-2002 , 11:54 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2002

Posts: 24

Digital fusion is also a good one. You can get the full functional demo front their website. It just adds a water mark when your render. Not sure if they have released a 4.0 demo yet since it just came out. But ive heard its good software.

Has anyone tried the new compositing software form side effects called halo i believe?

Quote

# 6 07-11-2002 , 12:21 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Jul 2002

Location: USA

Posts: 142

thanx guys

Rodrigo Soares
www.r3dimensional.com

Quote

# 7 07-11-2002 , 03:57 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: May 2002

Location: Faringdon, UK

Posts: 1,480

houdini halo, yeah i tried the apprentice of that, have it on CD, its very very confusing to use user added image

same as houdini master, seems very flexible tho

- Simon

My Website: www.Glass-Prison.com

Quote

# 8 08-11-2002 , 11:08 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Aug 2002

Location: Uk

Posts: 75

yeh i have been playing with the houdini apprentice stuff...its a bit mind boggling user added image

hmmm...

Quote

# 9 10-11-2002 , 08:19 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: Minnesota, USA

Posts: 3,709

I use both After Effects and Commotion for all of my compositing work.

I use Commotion mainly for roto-splines, color matching and the Primatte Keyer, and I use After Effects for everything else.
After Effects and Photoshop are my PRIMARY 2d weapons user added image

Right now, I'm in the process of doing 4 compositing movie tutorials here at SM.

The first 2 are FREE user added image

The first one covers:
BASIC COMPOSITING FOR VFX
Part 1
- Compositing theory
- History of Compositing
- Color spaces
About 25minutes long.

The second covers:
- Maya Render Layers, and why they are usefull for compositing.
- Photoshop and After Effects usage in VFX
- Basics of Matte creation
- Maya camera shake techniques. (For no other reason than you should know it user added image

The VIP vids will cover:

VID 1 - COMPOSITING for VFX:
- zero-G explosion animation and compositing
- debris creation
- paticle instancing debris
- stock footage pyro usage
- rotoscoping

VID 2 - MORE COMPOSITING for VFX:
- inter-earth solid-body explosions
- advanced matte creation methods
- more debris creation methods
- more paticle instancing debris
- stock footage debris and pyro usage
- more rotoscoping

All of these videos cover After Effects and Photoshop usage pertaining to VFX.

There will also be links to the demo versions so you can follow along in case you don't have the software at the moment user added image

Hope you check them out.

Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com

Quote

# 10 10-11-2002 , 08:30 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2002

Location: Bristol, UK

Posts: 25

One product that seems to be looked over quite often is Boris RED. The Boris family of products has a similar interface to after Effects, but I've always found it a lot easier to use, and a lot more powerful.

The website is at https://www.borisfx.com/ and, from there, you can download the 'keyframer', which is basically a fully-working version, but without the ability to render (you can save out, and render elsewhere, though...)

Hugh Macdonald

UnFramed Productions
Goodnight Opus - TD Lead

VFXTalk.com - Online Compositing Community - Admin

Quote

# 11 10-11-2002 , 10:49 AM

Moderator
Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: London, UK

Posts: 3,198

rage: awesome, can't wait to see those! user added image

Kari
- My Website
- My IMDB

Do a lot, Fail a lot and Learn a lot!

Quote

# 12 10-11-2002 , 04:57 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2002

Location: London

Posts: 50

I'm kind of with ragecgi on this, my set up is AE and Commotion accelerated with a Blue Ice board and I love the ease of workflow plus the fact Media 100 can export it's timeline to AE, which is nice.

I haven't used Shake yet but as it's node based set up is pretty much like Maya's I'd sure as heck like to get my grubbies on it.
In your shoes I'd go and see a few demos of AE, Combustion and Shake ask a lot of questions, see which is suited to the way you work then check your budget.
If your budget is tight then you don't need to go for the full AE production bundle the Standard version will do pretty nicely to start you off.

Quote

# 13 10-11-2002 , 07:00 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2002

Posts: 24

I dont pretend to know much about compositing but why doesnt anyone recommecd digital fusion but me? Is it that bad. Ive only used to to composite my animations that have hardware and software renderings but ive heard its powerfull.

Quote

# 14 10-11-2002 , 09:47 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2002

Location: London

Posts: 50

At $5000 it should be powerful. user added image

Seriously though there is a demo of version 4 coming soon, and again it's node based.
I for one have no experience of it, seen no demo, tell no lies. user added image

Quote

# 15 11-11-2002 , 12:04 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: May 2002

Location: Faringdon, UK

Posts: 1,480

its not the price of something that dictates how good a piece of software is, like inferno which is a coupla thousaind (over 10 i believe) and its basically the same as combustion but faster and better on networks

digital fusion is a very good program, but its kinda old, havent played with version 4 yet, but 3.1 was pretty good, still prefer combustion tho user added image

- Simon

My Website: www.Glass-Prison.com

Quote

Which composition software

Posting Rules Forum Rules

Similar Threads

Topics

Free Courses

Full Courses

VFX News