Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 12/30/2010, 8:50 PM
"If one possesses the talent,"

And the time. I take literally the author's remark that this took 500-1000 hours to produce.
PeterWright wrote on 12/30/2010, 9:11 PM
Yeah, thanks for sharing John - I love these clips that remind us that it's not the technology, it's the idea.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 12/31/2010, 4:13 AM
Thought I regonized the voice. Someone did a "The Movies" video to his zombie song, that video was awesome. :)

I'm finding I hate that AE effect more & more. IMHO it's the equivalent of whiz-bang transitions people always seem to want to use. It wouldn't be bad but EVERYBODY is using it. It's like the word cloud thing: at first it was really awesome but now everybody uses it & it's been overdone for at least a year now. Even getting bulk mail that uses it now. Same with the AE effect. I find the video more annoying then cool.

While individually I find each little element neat & very interesting, a whole video of them drives me nuts.
ushere wrote on 12/31/2010, 4:51 AM
sort of agree with thf, there does seem to be an awful lot of this sort of thing around at present - very clever, creative and all that, but a bit overdone - and an ever increasing number of pretty bad ones too.

DGates wrote on 12/31/2010, 4:39 PM
"If one possesses the talent, there is no reason that this couldn't be done in Vegas."

It's not a matter of talent, it's the tools. Vegas isn't a compositor.
John_Cline wrote on 12/31/2010, 5:01 PM
"It's not a matter of talent, it's the tools. Vegas isn't a compositor."

I didn't say that it would be easy to do in Vegas.
farss wrote on 12/31/2010, 5:41 PM
Not exactly easy to do with any application. Even if it was to take a quarter of the time in AE compared to Vegas that's probably 500 hours compared to 2,000 hours. Neither of those are numbers attractive to those lacking the determination to see such a project through to the end. I include myself in that category.

Bob.
DGates wrote on 1/1/2011, 12:27 AM
I can travel from LA to NY in a car or on a bicycle. Yes, either way I'll get their alright, but...

=]
Grazie wrote on 1/1/2011, 12:40 AM
The right tool for the job. My thoughts are that either I would be realistic, wave a White flag and/or not think about any creative options to do it as I knew that Vegas would struggle.

And in another thread, around here, we've been cranking ourselves as to how to do the most simplest of manipulation: How to sync a word's colour change to the Timeline.

Interesting. Sometimes having the "right" or appropriate tool allows me to be creative. And at the same time, having an ounce of realism I can decide just how much time I have to live on the Planet.

Grazie



TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/1/2011, 6:14 AM
It's not a matter of talent, it's the tools. Vegas isn't a compositor.

Vegas is more of a compositor then other NLE's out there. The compositing isn't what would make this difficult, it's the non-super advanced motion tools Vegas has.

I didn't say that it would be easy to do in Vegas.

I agree, Vegas could do this! Like I said above, it's motion tools aren't going to make it easy to do. Nested Veg's look like the way to go though.

IMHO this could be done in a 3d app easier then it could be done in any NLE/compositor app, unless there's something to make it easier. From the sounds of it, @ 500 hours there's not something easy in the Adobe lineup to do this.

From looking at the video again, the biggest issues would be that track motion doesn't keep the high resolution of the lower tracks in nested track motion, it keeps the resolution of the highest track.

With a 3D App I see nothing in this video that couldn't be done quicker. Not sure about Maya or 3DS but Blender has a built in compositor & you could do the blurs, zooms, etc. & not have a loss in resolution. IMHO he did this in AE to show off just like if one of us did it in Vegas. It wouldn't be because it's easier, just to show off that we did it.
farss wrote on 1/1/2011, 1:39 PM
"Vegas is more of a compositor then other NLE's out there"

For around the same cost maybe. Avid DS handles both advanced compositing and its an NLE. On the other hand Vegas has to be able to do compositing. Other NLEs can get done in one track what you need many to get done in Vegas. You want to add text in Vegas, hello, you need another track being composited. Other NLEs, text is an FX.

" The compositing isn't what would make this difficult, it's the non-super advanced motion tools Vegas has."

You don't need super advanced compositing tools to do that video. It's all simple 2D planar surfaces. The thing that holds Vegas back is its render engine, it's way, way too slow at updating the work area to be used as a serious compositor. I've run 100 layer of full HD and still had real time update in AE CS3, at 30 tracks in Vegas it was impossible to keep working. That's with nothing fancy going on, just vanilla comps.

"IMHO this could be done in a 3d app easier then it could be done in any NLE/compositor app"

Why would you burden yourself with the overhead of a 3D app to do a 2D or 2.5D task. It'd be slower in a 3D app, not faster.


" Not sure about Maya or 3DS but Blender has a built in compositor & you could do the blurs, zooms, etc. & not have a loss in resolution."

There's no loss of resolution in Vegas with nesting when the project is actually rendered.

What makes AE or any dedicated compositing tool faster to do this is how the tool works. Specifically you don't need anything advanced to help you, the tools in both AE and Vegas are more than adequate. The key difference is how they work. In AE etc you have ONE work area where you can do all the manipulation, your eye and brain stays on the task. With Vegas you're jumping all over the place manipulating different widgets. On top of that nesting is way faster in AE. A couple of quick clicks and you have a new comp, drag another into it, drag 5 or 10, no waiting.

At the end of the day that video is not a complex compositing task and it's not the kind of work that dedicated compositors are used for. A typical role for a compositing app such as AE, Nuke or Fusion is as a finishing tool, NOT motion graphics. Adding the subtle elements to CGI renders that make it all work together and look photorealistic, that is what compositors do.
I agree this video is a bit of a show off piece but all it shows off really is the grit of the guy sticking with it. Good compositing is invisible, you never see it. Pretty well every Hollywood production today has been through the hands of a compositor. You don't know its there because the aim is to be invisible. You see an explosion in a cheap movie that doesn't look real, that's the fault of the guy doing the compositing, you see a key that's obviously a key for some reason, same thing, poor work by the compositor.

Bob.