Moho Animation Forum

Hi,

I have the After Effects CS 4 demo for Mac and on their website it looks like I can't use the trial for commercial purposes. I really could use it for a project I'm working on now which has a lot of little scenes that need to be spliced together in time to music. iMovie is good but its linear so I can't just leave a video clip in place down the timeline and fix something earlier on in the timeline because anything I do earlier affects what happens later. Unless I'm missing something.

So what I'm thinking of doing is using Anime Studio Pro as a post production video editor. Anyone know if there are any drawbacks to this? I mean, I'd be able to place clips along the timeline in the sequencer and have them stay there. I've done a bit before in it and it seemed to work out OK, using uncompressed Quicktime footage. When I come to think of it I guess it could do a lot that After Effects could do. If anyone's used it as a post video compositor please lemme know your thoughts!

I'd buy After Effects, but its pretty expensive. I still might if its a lot easier to use for compositing video 'n all.

Thanks,

Mike

This would work, however it will be slower rendering than other dedicated applications. If you do this make sure you use uncompressed source video. I am pretty sure that AS treats video just like an image layer so there will probably be some antialiasing that might effect it. I don't know this for sure, haven't tested it yet. There are some issues with certain types of AVI files that won't import. Something to do with codecs. If you use uncompressed QT it shouldn't be a problem.

The other issue is the "audio sync" problem. I don't know if this effects video import. In another topic I think the cause was the bit depth of the wav file. I have only had issues in preview of audio not in rendering.

I am in the same boat. I may use AS for video compositing as well. I have iMovie on my Mac but that poor machine is so old and klunky I think rendering out video from AS will actually be FASTER.

My current project is done ENTIRELY in Anime Studio. EVERYTHING, including particles, image backgrounds etc (everything except mixing the sound track. Used Audacity for that but it's free so it counts ). It would be really COOL to do the WHOLE DANG THING in AS including final editing and compositing. A complete animation package.

-vern

Using uncompressed video would playback kind of slow. On the pc the lagarith codec could be used. It being a lossless codec you get the same quality of an uncompressed video but with better playback speed. Isn't there a codec similar to this on a mac? Because editing uncompressed video on any pc would have some syncing issues. I would imagine anyway.

Actually in AS the codec of a video layer "doesn't matter". Each frame is displayed as an "image" as it renders. The size or compression of the video won't effect the RENDERING but yes, it may effect the playback or the speed of rendering.

I suppose you could use a small proxy video for editing in AS and then "swap out" the video for the high res version before rendering by selecting a new source for that layer. Or you could just swap out the original file in the folder on the computer.

-vern

Very true.

Also, you could even do basic color editing in AS. Let's say you need a little bit more red in your video. Just create a big red box over the video and set the alpha of the red to the desired strength. I think AS could be used a lot like AE. You have masking, particles and now motion tracking. Sometimes you just have to think outside the box to get some task done.

Well, what I need to do is create a vignette over the whole piece which iMovie doesn't really do (no layers and you COULD do it with a bit of fiddling because it has a green screen option but its kind of not ideal...) and I'd need an alpha option if I wanted to put backgrounds in, which After Effects would be great with, but I guess I can do this with AS too. Render out character animation with alpha included and then reimport the movies and add backgrounds on another layer.

And then I'd probably render out the scenes double the size, reimport them into AS, and then render out normal size from AS, or render out double the size (that'd be double PAL size) and then import that into iMovie for final render and adding the audio track.

If you are on a PC, Wax is a free nle/fx software:

http://www.debugmode.com/wax/

However, if all you're doing is creating a vignette, you could render the movie as frames (with QT Pro) then do that effect with Actions in Photoshop. Gimp probably has similar "Actions" feature.

I can't remember who came up with this trick but someone here on the forum had a cool trick for doing "compound" bone warping using exported animation and reimporting to AS.

You would do bone warping of an image layer (or vector) and render that out. Then you would reimport that video and do ADDITIONAL bone warping on top of the video.

-vern

Thanks for all the great heads up guys

I'm on Mac - anyone know a free non-linear video editor for Mac? I tried searching a while ago but didn't really turn up with anything. Maybe I didn't look hard enough. Far as I can remember there was something in development for Mac...I'm racking my brain. I think I may have found something but it didn't lodge itself in my memory banks.

It'd be nice if AS also showed the audio visual for a movie that you imported. That way it'd be pretty precise when matching audio.

Kool. With a K.

There is Hyperengine-AV free non-linear video editor for mac, really cool interface, I don't know about stability though, and it's not been developed for the last 2-3 years I think. Here's a link:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hyperengine/

You could use Blender as an nle/fx. There is a Mac version and lots of how-to's on the net and Youtube:

http://www.blender.org/development/rele ... ce-editor/

DAZ studio is free, might be able to project video on a polygon and edit that way. Not sure if there is a Mac version:
http://www.daz3d.com/i/software/studio

Jahshaka is the now seemingly dead project that was offering a AFX alternative. Might be for PC only, not sure:
http://jahshaka.org/

Hyper Engine looks pretty good! And under 2 MB! Crazy.

I'd say you could do it in AS. With some tricks you could work as fast as in Final Cut (which I have).

Let's see, what are the requirements?
- vignette
- alpha channel
- PAL resolution

Do all your source material in PAL. Don't bother with any double dimensions file. Every pixel of a video will go straight through AS and will stay the same pixel, as long as you don't scale or rotate the video.

Create all source material as PAL uncompressed 4:2:2. Only the scenes which need an alpha channel should be rendered with the PNG codec and Millions+ colours. BTW, there's no real visible difference between PNG and Uncompressed, so you can as well use PNG for all, but don't use Millions+ unless the scene needs alpha. (PNG, best quality, millions or millions+)

Sound in a video file will be absolutely in sync when rendered.

Any vignette or some colouring of a video can be done with a vector layer, a gradient, and the layer transfer settings (multiply etc). I just used this myself, this stuff will hopefully be online on the 15th of September.

Thanks for the reply slow

Yep, think I'm heading the AS route.

Think I might still render double-size though to be sure. Probably not necessary... Also happy to use a vignette with a vector layer.

Hey, look forward to your vid. If its the guy trying to get over the wall, I liked the test I saw a while ago.

No, not the "wall" thingie - that's completed as well, and submitted to the "Going Underground" festival. My other film "Paraplü" already is accepted for competition, so yay! it's going to be seen by thousands of berlin subway users next month.

The other project (which I did at the same time - not a good idea ...) was the proposal for this competition: http://daskleinefernsehspiel.zdf.de/ZDF ... 20,00.html.