What's the best compositor?

General Moho topics.

Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger

banjar
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:09 pm
Location: Sunnyvale, California

What's the best compositor?

Post by banjar »

Many of you have mentioned using Quicktime Pro to composite your projects. Is this the best one to use? What about using Adobe Premiere or some other program?

What is the best compositing program to use for assembling the scenes, sound tracks, title screens, etc?

Any suggestions?
User avatar
slowtiger
Posts: 6067
Joined: Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:53 pm
Location: Berlin, Germany
Contact:

Post by slowtiger »

A bit of clearance: "Compositing" is the process of combining several layers into one image or video.

"Editing" is the process of assembling scenes together in time.

There is no "best". It all depends on your machine, OS, and target format.
User avatar
mkelley
Posts: 1647
Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 5:29 pm
Location: Sunny Florida
Contact:

Post by mkelley »

Yeah, the title of your message threw me as well. I immediately thought of After Effects (other than Combustion it has no equal in the compositing world).

I use Premiere Pro for all my editing -- putting together the individual AS scenes, adding sound, etc. You can some simple compositing (green screen or other layer work) in PP as well (indeed, you can do it in AS too) but for heavy lifting AE is the way to go. Most houses use a combo of a high-end editing suite as well as post effects suite, such as PP with AE (my preferred combo).
User avatar
GCharb
Posts: 2202
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 2:31 am
Location: Saint-Donat, Quebec, Canada
Contact:

Post by GCharb »

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/in ... d=10223720

These are the best :D

Way to expensive, but damn good, used to be a certified Flame Artist.

Seriously, I use Combustion but AE is pretty good and easy, eyeon fusion 6 seems even better, runs on Linux too as does Combustion.

For video montage, well, Quicktime pro is more of an encoder, turns sequences of images to videos.

Premiere Pro is what comes to mind on Mac/Pc, finalcut pro for Mac!

Like everythingelse, they all have pros and cons. Get demos and try them!

My two cents
banjar
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:09 pm
Location: Sunnyvale, California

Post by banjar »

mkelley wrote:Yeah, the title of your message threw me as well. I immediately thought of After Effects (other than Combustion it has no equal in the compositing world).

I use Premiere Pro for all my editing -- putting together the individual AS scenes, adding sound, etc. You can some simple compositing (green screen or other layer work) in PP as well (indeed, you can do it in AS too) but for heavy lifting AE is the way to go. Most houses use a combo of a high-end editing suite as well as post effects suite, such as PP with AE (my preferred combo).
I tried to use Premier when I was working with Flash. But the Flash sequence files in Premier were all of a duration of 5 frames each instead of one frame each. Is there a way to reduce the duration of each frame in Premier without having to change each duration individually? A batch process of some kind? A switch that I am missing?
banjar
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:09 pm
Location: Sunnyvale, California

Post by banjar »

slowtiger wrote:A bit of clearance: "Compositing" is the process of combining several layers into one image or video.

"Editing" is the process of assembling scenes together in time.

There is no "best". It all depends on your machine, OS, and target format.
Oops, sorry. I meant editing software, which is the best to use for a Windows machine?
User avatar
GCharb
Posts: 2202
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 2:31 am
Location: Saint-Donat, Quebec, Canada
Contact:

Post by GCharb »

Hello banjar

Adobe Premiere is the most used on Windows, dont know of any other good ones for windows!

GC
User avatar
mkelley
Posts: 1647
Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 5:29 pm
Location: Sunny Florida
Contact:

Post by mkelley »

banjar wrote:I tried to use Premier when I was working with Flash. But the Flash sequence files in Premier were all of a duration of 5 frames each instead of one frame each. Is there a way to reduce the duration of each frame in Premier without having to change each duration individually? A batch process of some kind? A switch that I am missing?
When you import a still image you can change the default duration (150 frames) in preferences. When you import a sequence of stills (like BMPs) they will always come in one frame for each still. However, other sequences (such as AVI or WMV) come in as they "tell" PP what they are.

I've never used Flash so I can't tell you what the problem is -- but I'm not even sure I understand the question (I thought Flash *was* a sequence and not single stills). I guess my advice would be to save your stuff as BMPs or TGAs and not use Flash for stills.
User avatar
slowtiger
Posts: 6067
Joined: Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:53 pm
Location: Berlin, Germany
Contact:

Post by slowtiger »

banjar: There's no need to export image sequences from Flash. Exporting a video file is much easier. Since you want to edit it afterwards, use a video codec with no compression, like Animation or PNG (with the correct settings).
banjar
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:09 pm
Location: Sunnyvale, California

Post by banjar »

slowtiger wrote:banjar: There's no need to export image sequences from Flash. Exporting a video file is much easier. Since you want to edit it afterwards, use a video codec with no compression, like Animation or PNG (with the correct settings).
Another good tip.

But I am trying to get away from Flash entirely and move my stuff over to Anime Studio Pro. I am still new to AS. So, I am like a blind man using his cane to feel out the territory, not real sure if this is the way to go. So far, so good.
banjar
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:09 pm
Location: Sunnyvale, California

Post by banjar »

mkelley wrote:
banjar wrote:I tried to use Premier when I was working with Flash. But the Flash sequence files in Premier were all of a duration of 5 frames each instead of one frame each. Is there a way to reduce the duration of each frame in Premier without having to change each duration individually? A batch process of some kind? A switch that I am missing?
When you import a still image you can change the default duration (150 frames) in preferences. When you import a sequence of stills (like BMPs) they will always come in one frame for each still. However, other sequences (such as AVI or WMV) come in as they "tell" PP what they are.

I've never used Flash so I can't tell you what the problem is -- but I'm not even sure I understand the question (I thought Flash *was* a sequence and not single stills). I guess my advice would be to save your stuff as BMPs or TGAs and not use Flash for stills.
Flash is mainly for web content. Getting it to behave for REAL animation projects, has not been all that easy for me. Thanks! you solved the problem.
gyula
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2008 8:32 pm
Location: Antwerp

Post by gyula »

GCharb wrote: Adobe Premiere is the most used on Windows, dont know of any other good ones for windows!
GC
Sony Vegas is used on PC by more and more, they say it beats Premiere (I am saying 'they' becouse Im using Final Cut on the Mac)
Although Premiere works very good with Encore, After Effects, Photoshop.
User avatar
uddhava
Posts: 315
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 7:24 pm
Location: American back in Hungary

Post by uddhava »

Since originally this topic started out talking about compositing software I want to ask a question I have had for a while.
Can TV Paint be used for compositing? I believe it has a connection to Aura which I think was used for compositing. If I could use TV Paint for animation and compositing that could be a good deal.

udd.
User avatar
slowtiger
Posts: 6067
Joined: Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:53 pm
Location: Berlin, Germany
Contact:

Post by slowtiger »

TVP can be used for compositing, yes.

More generally speaking, you could easily test any program's ability for compositing. It needs to have these features:

- import from several sources
- recognize alpha channel information
- stack layers/levels on top of each other
- be able to change appearance of each layer separately (brightness, contrast, colour)
- same for dimensions/position information
- export in several formats

That's more or less all about it. Most of these requirements are met by ordinary video editing software. The real big compositing packages try to make it easier to get the same results on different scenes, they add asset management and of course have a very sophisticated memory management.
chucky
Posts: 4650
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:24 am

Post by chucky »

TV paint/mirage is pretty damn good for compositing, mirage even calls itself a composting tool.
I use it for this sometimes especially for compositing single frame sequences with alphas, and as I don't own After effects :cry: :oops:- (All Adobe stuff is so damn expensive-makes me wanna puke no wonder everyone's mum has a pirate copy),as my editor which normally is pretty good for a lot of comping -vegas- is a bit retarded on the importing single frame /alpha channel issue (have set alpha ion each frame,waaaahghh :? )
Post Reply