Testing New Software

[rtrowbridge]

I just purchased a program called Visionlab Studio from FXHome. It's similar to After Effects, but was within my budget. I used it to add some effects to an animation I did recently in EIAS v.8. Here is the link.

So far, I'm liking the program. It accepts both MOV files and image streams, so I have a couple options of getting my EIAS animations into it. I feel like it makes my video editing suite more complete. I have EIAS for 3D rendering, Visionlab for post processing effects, and VideoStudio to put it all together. It's still just a hobby, but it sure is a lot of fun...:D

Ross

[RichardJoly]

Keep up the spirit Ross! Nice job you did.

Have you look into Open Source applications? We get more and more surprisingly good stuff in there. Check out these links, it might pick your interest:

http://www.cinefx.org/cinefx/

http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

[rtrowbridge]

Richard,

Cinefx looks interesting. I've been using Super and Rad Video Tools for video conversion. Super works very well, but it has a weird interface.

The demo version of VisionLab Studio is fully functional, but has a watermark on all rendered output. I'm going to be adding a lightsaber effect to video I have of my daughter fighting Darth Vader at Disneyland. It is really a lot of fun just to play around with. One of their resellers occasionally lists the program on ebay, where I picked it up for about 1/2 the cost it sells for on Amazon (yes, it is the most current version). And it came with a 10' x 12' muslin greenscreen for even more fun.

I've taken a couple other animations I have done and thrown effects into them, too. I'm happy with them as well. I also took a video my wife and I shot a year ago for a video contest and inserted lightning climbing up a man's arm when he touches an electric fence (just for fun). I actually stumbled across this software looking for open source alternatives to After Effects (though it is a commercial program, not open source).

Ross

Keep up the spirit Ross! Nice job you did.

Have you look into Open Source applications? We get more and more surprisingly good stuff in there. Check out these links, it might pick your interest:

http://www.cinefx.org/cinefx/

http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

[Mark Johnston]

Hi Ross I liked your for fun video, looks good to me. Hi Richard a question about Cinefx and quicktime . I do almost all test renders I do to quicktime at HD resolution and when I try to play them back they will never play back in real time at that size. I have to compress them to play them and then the quality goes down. I read cinefx plays large resolution in any format in real time is this really so ? I don't understand why quicktime doesn't play them in real time when its only stream off one hardrive. When I see ads all the time saying play up to ten streams of HD from some brand of raid. Any insight about this?

Thanks Mark

[RichardJoly]

Mark, I never used CineFX. I merely pionted it to Ross as an alternative to After Effects. As for playing uncompressed HD format in realtime, it has to do with the amount of data your hard drive can output per second. (Tech info needed here) On the standard Drive that comes with my Mac, I cannot play move than a few seconds of uncompressed HD Quicktime. I get more time using my Raid but for most jobs, using compression is really the way to go. Try rendering with Quicktime using PNG compression.

[rtrowbridge]

Richard,

I tried to install CineFX, but the Windows installer was for the JahPlayer. And then it wouldn't run on my Vista machine. I've played around with Jahshaka before, but wasn't very impressed with it. So far, I'm very happy with my new purchase.

When I render out an MOV, I use the MPEG-4 Video compression. It looks good and has a smooth playback. I would prefer to use the H.264, but the gamma issue drives me nuts. VisionLab Studio does a great job with image streams, so I have been experimenting with outputing PNG streams from EIAS and they work well.

Ross

[RichardJoly]

... I've played around with Jahshaka before' date=' but wasn't very impressed with it. So far, I'm very happy with my new purchase.[/quote']

Yes, you got a good deal and the product is probably more mature.

I use the Open Source x264 encoder. Same compression, no gamma issue.

http://www.videolan.org/developers/x264.html

[rtrowbridge]

Richard,

I'll have to give x264 a try. You can take a look at VisionLab Studio at www.fxhome.com. The interface is reminiscent of After Effects, so there's not too much of a learning curve if you're already familiar with AE.

Ross

[rtrowbridge]

I did a second test.

One thing I have never been able to recreate in EIAS is the effect of a phaser/disruptor hitting a ship's shields. Phasers (tube lights) and torpedoes (light flares) were always easy. This is my first attempt at a shield hit using the new software i purchased. I'm pretty happy with it.

Now I need to finish storyboarding a space battle between this ship and a couple Cardassians. There will be three or four large ships, a handful of Federation Tactical Fighters, and several asteroids. It will all be animated using EIAS, and then have weapons effects added in post production. The nice thing is that there are no deadlines, so I can take my time to get it the way I want it to be.

Ross

[KurtF]

Nice.

You could always put a sphere around your ship, then scale it to more of an egg shape to match the hull, then apply a procedural shader for 'energy blast' effects. Later you could mask it to just the area where you want the effect.

Good one.

[Juanxer]

I know this is a silly suggestion, but… If those apps let you do painting in a per frame basis, give it a try: airbrushing phaser emitters' muzzle flash, embellishing shield impacts, etc. Doing it by hand is laborious, but it is great fun, too, and gives things an old optical printer-era spacebattles feel. When I got my first copy of EI, I did my first little spacebattle sequence by exporting the 3D footage in filmstrip format (a single image containing all frames sorted into a single column), opening it in Photoshop and doing all the beams, glows, electric arcs, flares and such there. It had lots of energy. Nowadays' tools should make it far easier.

[RichardJoly]

Nice job Ross!

Mapping an animated impact on a sphere gives you another method of achieving the effect.

Movie:

http://www.rdnmultimedia.com/eias/Energy_hit.mov

Project:

http://www.rdnmultimedia.com/eias/Energy_Hit.zip

[Mark Johnston]

Hi Yeah I like it Ross . Richard what version of quicktime are you using I tried your animator project and I get a camera error saying I don't have some codec. I'm using Quicktime pro 7.6.2(518) I also tried the aep and it said I was missing something , any help would be great

Thanks Mark

[RichardJoly]

My bad Mark, I forgot a file for After Effects and I used the x264 codec for my Quicktime render. Try to download again, it should work.

x264 has more option than H264 and is not plague with the gamma issue. You can find it for OS X at Version Tracker.

[rtrowbridge]

Thank you, everybody, for the comments.

I've tried the "shield bubble" technique, but could never get a look I was really happy with. It could be a pain to get the visible section of shield exactly where I wanted it to be, especially if I wanted two or more simultaneous shield hits. Because the the bubble was oval, not round, I had to move the filter map for each hit.

Using VisionLab has made it much easier. The effect is based on one of their muzzle flashes (fun to play with). I can move the hit anywhere on screen and have handles for the X and Y coordinates to angle the hit any way I want it to appear. Having the hit behind the ship is slightly more complicated, but can be accomplished by inserting a garbage matte to block the effect where the ship would be located.

I"ll probably continue to tweek this effect. The first thing I'm looking at doing is moving the banding shades closer together so the effect is more subtle.

Richard, I like your animated hit. Very nice!

Ross

[Mark Johnston]

Hi all , Thanks for updates Richard BTW the hit mov looks great.

Mark