Here's an extra grand...must haves?

[beckmanvfx 0]

I'm surprised no one has asked yet, but what type of business do you do? Obviously Mograph, but what kinds of clients are you servicing; what types of projects bring in the bulk of your income. I know I certainly get caught up in wanting all the toys: it's one of the things I love AND hate about this business. Oftentimes I like to take a step back and think about where the revenue is coming from, putting money and resources towards getting the bread and butter work done more quickly and effectively.

Unless of course, you work for someone else, and you need to spend your equipment budget by the end of the year. Then by all means, stock up.

[Nick Campbell 0]

No!

 

Build your own!

 

 

Definitely don't wanna hijack this thread, but I would love to know more about your opinion on the light kit. If there are things I can do to it to make it better, I definitely would love to know about it. I'm always trying to improve it.

 

As for plugins, RSMB, Frishluft, Trapcode, Knoll, and Looks are my faves.

[a2visual 0]

you can buy time. Hire a freelancer.

 

haha, true, and we just did, two of them

[AromaKat 1]

seems to me that if you can't think of something you must have, then you probably don't need it & shouldn't waste the money on it.

 

Agreed. Put the remaining funds aside and wait for the day you hit a problem and need a specific tool to help solve it.

[Colin@movecraft 0]

hyp3, on 29 October 2010 - 04:17 PM, said:

No!

 

Build your own!

 

Definitely don't wanna hijack this thread, but I would love to know more about your opinion on the light kit. If there are things I can do to it to make it better, I definitely would love to know about it. I'm always trying to improve it.

 

 

Supposedly, virtuosic jazzman Bill Evans was sitting at the piano riffing around the keys with his brother. While comping, his brother asked, "Hey, that phrasing and fingering you are using is crazy! Can you show me that?" Evans refused, stating "I wouldn't want to deprive you from the pleasure of finding it out for yourself."

 

c

Edited November 2, 2010 by Colin@movecraft

[Duder 0]

Definitely don't wanna hijack this thread, but I would love to know more about your opinion on the light kit. If there are things I can do to it to make it better, I definitely would love to know about it. I'm always trying to improve it.

 

As for plugins, RSMB, Frishluft, Trapcode, Knoll, and Looks are my faves.

 

Hi Nick,

 

by no means was I bagging on the LightKit you make...I think it's great and the price you set is really really cheap compared to what it can do.

 

 

 

 

I think definitely people should get the kit and analyze how it works so they can spin off and do their own thing. Or try on their own.

 

That's all I meant by my comment.

 

Just an opinion.

[Nick Campbell 0]

Hi Nick,

 

by no means was I bagging on the LightKit you make...I think it's great and the price you set is really really cheap compared to what it can do.

 

 

 

 

I think definitely people should get the kit and analyze how it works so they can spin off and do their own thing. Or try on their own.

 

That's all I meant by my comment.

 

Just an opinion.

Thanks for clarifying! I really appreciate that and I totally agree. Honestly, most people start off using the presets with the kit, but it's when you start to try to light for your own specific scenes and scenarios when the real learning happens. As with most plugin discussions, it's a balance between taking time to do it from scratch or using a plugin that is preset, yet faster.

 

Thanks again!

 

Cheers,

Nick

[basilisk 0]

Colorista II is great if you do a lot of colour correction. Magic Bullet Suite is good value overall - denoiser works quick and well.

[rchrdgrsshff 0]

Colorista II is great if you do a lot of colour correction. Magic Bullet Suite is good value overall - denoiser works quick and well.

 

Agreed. Colorista is a must have if you care about grading your animations/footage in AE.

[the_Monkey 8]

As for plugins, RSMB, Frishluft, Trapcode, Knoll, and Looks are my faves.

You tell Kramer you still use Knoll? I've noticed Optical Flares showing up at more studios.

 

-m

[pixelpoetic 0]

Wow, Mr Campbell, hijack away! (not worthy!) and who knew this would spark this great discussion...

 

Beckman, I should have stated the business, my apologies... it's good ole air grafx for a cable net, and one never knows what comes up, and it is also a 'spend it now' budget type of thing or forget it, so that why it's only a grand and a quick purchase at that, so the responses are MUCH appreciated, as the time for research ended yesterday.

 

For those intersted:

RSMB

Foundry CameraTracker (sorry, still excited about it)

Lenscare

steadycampro

and updated modo to 401 (what! that's not on list! yeah, couldn't resist, love modeling in that thing!)

 

looks, colorista, and sir gorilla'z light kit were close- but I just don't cc much to justify the first two, and when I do Color Finesse really does me good- or even just tweaking color curves! (gasps all around). And the light kit would be awesome, maybe next go round.

 

anyway, thanks to all!

[jayfaker 1]

Well, aside from those things above, I have a couple of suggestions:

 

1. Total Finder ($15) will help you save tons of time browsing and moving files on the mac.

 

 

2. Since you have the cash to burn, actually pay for all those scripts you are getting over at aescripts.com. Help fund the people fixing all the things in AE that don't work or work poorly. That's my goal once I get the money to do it. (I promise...)

Edited November 4, 2010 by jayfaker

[Nick Campbell 0]

You tell Kramer you still use Knoll? I've noticed Optical Flares showing up at more studios.

 

-m

hehe. I'm easing into Optical Flares. It's definitely powerful (too powerful?). I learned too many tricks with Knoll to leave too quickly. Old habits die hard, I guess.

[the_Monkey 8]

and updated modo to 401 (what! that's not on list! yeah, couldn't resist, love modeling in that thing!)

The modeling tools in Modo haven't changed a whole lot since 1.0 and I think they should either give up or start over on their approach to animation.

Still... I :H Luxology.

 

-m

[mete_shop 0]

Optical flares is fantastic! I used it quite heavily for a spot I comped a few months back, and am very happy with the results. For such a reasonable price it really delivers, and despite a sometimes idiosyncratic interface it's miles ahead of knoll in terms of ease of use. Plus: adept and responsive technical support. Suffice it to say, I won't be going back to knoll.

[killkillakillyo 0]

Optical flares is fantastic! I used it quite heavily for a spot I comped a few months back, and am very happy with the results. For such a reasonable price it really delivers, and despite a sometimes idiosyncratic interface it's miles ahead of knoll in terms of ease of use. Plus: adept and responsive technical support. Suffice it to say, I won't be going back to knoll.

 

there's no undo feature in optical flare. if there is someone please enlighten me. from what i know once you close the interface all changes take effect and there is no way to revert back to your original settings.

[blatherskyte 0]

I dunno, any other ideas?

 

 

Hard drives - several. for copious backups

Dropbox account -- makes it easy to take C4D projects around if you use different workstations

Vimeo Plus acount - clients like getting a link to a private/password protected comp-in-progress

 

 

-j.

[mete_shop 0]

there's no undo feature in optical flare. if there is someone please enlighten me. from what i know once you close the interface all changes take effect and there is no way to revert back to your original settings.

 

Yeah, once you close the window you can't revert back to an older instance of the effect. My guess is because it has to open a separate app within after effects - so generic commands work only while the optical flares interface is running. Make sure to make lots of presets, I usually have 3-4 presets I work off of, in addition to the ones that come with the plugin.