ProVideo Coalition.com: Creating Motion Graphics by Chris & Trish Meyer

Speaking of natural forces, Digital Anarchy has licensed technology from SpeedSix Software Limited and announced a new FLUIDZ effect set for Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro. FLUIDZ uses 2D fluid dynamic simulations to create fire, water, smoke, and vapor-based effects. We were particularly impressed by a pair of pre-rendered demos where fire followed a halftone grid of a woman dancing, reacting to the luminance values in the underlying footage, and making a logo disappear in a swirly fog.

FLUIDZ is still a little ways off from shipping; we’ll report more complete impressions later after we’ve seen a more finished version of the plug-ins. In the meantime, click here to see some examples of what the technology can do running inside of Autodesk systems.

The Foundry’s Nuke 5.1

Last year, The Foundry - British purveyor of high-end effects for numerous editing, effects and graphics packages - acquired the high-end compositing application Nuke from Digital Domain. In February of this year, they released Nuke 5, which featured a new graphical user interface that has received praise from such demanding users as Stu Maschwitz of The Orphanage.

We went and checked out Nuke ourselves at NAB, and were deeply impressed at how well-integrated of a 3D environment it provided for what is actually a compositing rather than 3D application, including the import of .obj models and the ability to texture, shade, and projection map them. The 3D layer warp capability also had a fellow After Effects user drooling. This GPU-accelerated program also looked highly responsive on a Mac, a platform not known for having the best graphic performance out of your available options.

For those just as curious as we are, The Foundry was giving away a training DVD for Nuke, and also offers a 30-day trial which can be downloaded here. You can download a Fact Sheet (483 kB PDF) here, and the User Guide (13.93 MB PDF) here.

At $3500, Nuke is certainly more expensive than After Effects, but not outrageously so. It’s hardly a motion graphics tool - there are no 3D shadows, audio support, only basic type, et cetera - but it’s certainly a major player in the visual effects realm, especially with Apple Shake essentially frozen.

Are You Well Trained?

As mentioned in the lead-in, in this slow economy, it seems that many are turning to training as a way to survive or get ahead. Lynda.com (who we also create content for) is booming, far more self-described advanced users attended our sessions at Post|Production World this year than the previous two, and more and more companies are ramping up their own training materials (or creating entire training sites, such as Maxon US’s Cineversity).

We picked up some “homework” from motion graphics designer John Dickinson of Motionworks in the form of three volumes of his Making It Look Great training series. The set is distributed by Zaxwerks as either DVD-ROMs or as “download only” projects. Hosts John, Alan Shisko, and Harry Frank step you through creating professional-quality projects using ProAnimator, 3D Invigorator, After Effects, Illustrator, and third-party plug-ins. We plan to review those soon up here on PVC when we come up for air!

(Speaking of Zaxwerks, he also announced that a version of ProAnimator which will work in real time inside Final Cut Pro is almost ready to go...)

We didn’t get to see everything at NAB; for example, we missed Peder Norrby’s demo of his upcoming Trapcode Horizon plug-in which helps match camera moves to virtual backgrounds in After Effects, and only caught the tail-end of the Radium Glow demo in the Red Giant kiosk at the Plug-in Pavilion (in short, it consists of Glow EZ, a simple plug-in with limited controls, Glow with advanced controls and masking, Glow Edge for creating glows only on the edges of an image or around text, and Glow Depth which will create the Glow based on a secondary z-depth or depth buffer layer - due in a couple of months for $99). However, it was certainly enough to get the creative juices flowing again, and whet our appetite for trying out some new toys!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

NAB 2008: Plugged In

We came away with three themes buzzing in our head: plug-ins, training, and Nuke.

Digital Anarchy at Speed

The Foundry’s Nuke 5.1

Are You Well Trained?