Editing and Effects Together in One Editor Part 2

Editing & Effects All-In-One
Autodesk has always been known for the strength of their effects and image processing tools. The tools in Smoke have been used in everything from major Hollywood blockbusters, to national commercials for major corporations, to finishing shows airing on premium cable and broadcast networks.  Personally, knowing that I am using these same tools for my local broadcast promos… gets me where my geek lives.  Smoke has some very powerful tools.  Who wouldn’t want to use those same tools on their own projects?

Editing and Effects Together in One Editor Part 1

Post NAB 2012 Adobe has released the CS6 suite, Avid is pushing Symphony, and you may think that the editing revolution is over… but you would be wrong. Autodesk announced Smoke 2013 for the Mac platform for $3495.  There has been quite a buzz about Smoke since NAB. 

The Top Smoke 2013 Questions from NAB Part 2

5. So does this mean I don’t need plugins? Smoke and the ConnectFX workflow has a lot of built in effects and effects tools built right in.  So no, you may not need plugins depending on your needs.  Smoke contains one of the best chroma keyers in any software, the Master Keyer, and even has a node based keyer for more advanced keying.  Effects like Blurs, Glows, Depth of Field, Stylize Pen/Ink/Sketch looks, Recursive & Timewarp tools, Customizable 3D lens flares with occlusion and 3D text,  and a host of other tools are built right in.

The Top Smoke 2013 Questions from NAB Part 1

NAB 2012 just ended but it feels like a lifetime ago.  I had the pleasure of being one of the Smoke Experts demonstrating the New Smoke 2013 on Mac to the show public.  I talked to people from Utah to Singapore to India, and content creators from one system editorial boutiques to large universities to multi-system, large scale post facilities.  They were all interested in Smoke 2013 and here are the top things I was asked to explain.

Shane Ross Reports from NAB on Post Production

While we were bringing NAB to you with our extensive video coverage of the expo, editor Shane Ross was shooting interviews of his own with a focus on editing and post. His special report from NAB is engaging, informative…and funny. And he’s wearing a Della Luce shirt! Watch below.

Autodesk Smoke 2013: it really changed for the better

Autodesk has been saying for quite a few weeks now that Smoke is changing and they were right. What was previously a very high-end, very expensive, somewhat inaccessible piece of post-production software is now a very high-end, much more affordable (though still expensive for many) and more approachable piece of post-production software. The biggest news of all is that Smoke for Mac has gone from $15,000 down to $3,495. The second bit of news is that it should be a lot easier for editors to use.

Autodesk Smoke is Changing. Everything.

The annual National Association of Broadcasters or NAB is just a few days away. Rumors have been spreading across the internet like wildfire.  The first was the Supermeet.com and CPUG announcement that showed Marc-Andre Ferguson was going to show a “super secret” presentation at the Supermeet.  This was later titled “Smoke is changing. Everything.”  The rest of the description said we could be the first to see “new technology that connects effects and editing like never before.”

The Top 10 things you miss about Final Cut are in Autodesk Smoke Part II

6. Simple compositing on the timeline:  Even though Shane likes the vertical compositing in FCP and Premiere, and feels that Avid is lacking, I have to say that Smoke beats them all.  This is where Smoke moves from being and editor to being a finishing tool.  So all of the tools you need to composite on the timeline are there.  And they are easily accessible as soft effects. So they can be easily changed and copied from clip to clip via drag and drop. Smoke has advanced Color Correcting with secondaries, and multiple keying tools including freehand drawn garbage masking tools (Gmask) and blurs.  You can also put clips in Containers which act like Nested timelines or like precomps.  If you need more, then there is Smoke’s true 3D compositor called Action, that you can easily take your timeline shots into.  Text is also available as an easy timeline tool.  Not only can you composite with effects on clips.  But you can also use effects on empty areas of the timeline called Gaps.  When you place an effect there, it will act like an adjustment layer through all the clips below.  And when it comes to keyframing, nothing beats the Keyframe channel editor in Smoke with its ease of adjusting keyframes via realtime animation curves.

The Top 10 things you miss about Final Cut are in Autodesk Smoke Part I

Recently, Shane Ross wrote a post on his Little Frog in High Def Blog about the 10 things he missed from Final Cut Pro 7.  Shane is a well-respected freelance broadcast editor in Los Angeles.  He has edited numerous programs for The History Channel, the Discovery Channel, SYFY, and more.  Since the reboot of Final Cut as FCPX, Shane, like so many others has had to find other more reliable tools for the type of work that he does.  So Shane’s list of things he misses from FCP is compared and contrasted with Adobe Premiere Pro CS5(.5) and Avid Media Composer 6.  As I read through his list, I compared them to the editing features in Smoke 2012.  Here is how Smoke fairs with the others in terms of the features that Shane misses in the same order that he presented.

AutoStabilize In Autodesk Smoke

We recently purchased a Canon 5D MarkII at WTHR-TV.  Our photographer wanted to do some cool timelapes of the Indianapolis, but wanted to make them more dynamic and generate some large camera moves.  He wanted more than the standard DSLR sliders and discovered this example on the web.

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