Advanced Special Effects: How do they do them?

[SS5_Majin_Bebi]

Using Premiere, you can get "Euphoria" like effects by using multiple-track mattes. I just learned how to do it myself, over the weekend. Once you figure out how to do the technical side, the next obstacle is getting it to LOOK good, the timing and stuff. Any idiot with some time to spare can make a video filled with keying effects, matted layers and areas of transparency, but but they can't necessarily make it look good.

Yeah, but too bad Koop didn't use Premiere and used Magix and MS paint instead.

BTW all this talk of piracy is a direct breaking of the forum rules. I suggest you read them, but realize that you already did since you clicked "I agree."

*sigh*

Where is there talk of piracy?? I can't see it. And I am being serious.

[J-0080]

tattle tale, tattle tale

dwchang is a tattle tale

/childlike voice

[jonmartensen]

...BTW all this talk of piracy is a direct breaking of the forum rules. I suggest you read them, but realize that you already did since you clicked "I agree."

*sigh*

Spin: arrrr, pirates of the south west
Spin: thar be large pipes o'bandwith near ye'ol univarsety.
Pirate: yearg, ye may be an ta somethan thar.
Spin: what say ye we pull yonder USB hard disk longside yonder NMSU puter and begin tha lutin and plunderin.
Pirate: yearg. The master done gaved me a testin machine with a grand ol CDR.
Pirate: Avast!
Pirate: MP3s off the starboard bow!
Spin: stere clear of ye porn pop ups rollin in from tha east.
Pirate: I have mah trusty Opera browsa to help me fend em off.
Spin: encrypt the data holds, batton down thar security patches, argh thar be spyware abound.

HAAARRRR!

[Scintilla]

Where is there talk of piracy?? I can't see it. And I am being serious.

Ummmm...

Should I take up BeoWulf's offer to get Premiere and After Effects for free?

Many of us, admitted or not, are pirates. Hows yer sense of morality, matey? ARRRR!

My attitude is that if you're going to be using the software to MAKE money, you should probably pay for it (if you think it's worth what they're charging). But if you're just using it for one or two lil hobby projects, nah.

It comes with Paint Shop Pro 7, which you can download from KaZaA...or from the Jasc homepage...depending on how yer sense of ethics. *shrugs*

As for myself, luck was mine that my father bought a legitimate copy of Premiere 5.1 a few years ago when it was new.

[SS5_Majin_Bebi]

Where is there talk of piracy?? I can't see it. And I am being serious.

Ummmm...

Should I take up BeoWulf's offer to get Premiere and After Effects for free?

Many of us, admitted or not, are pirates. Hows yer sense of morality, matey? ARRRR!

My attitude is that if you're going to be using the software to MAKE money, you should probably pay for it (if you think it's worth what they're charging). But if you're just using it for one or two lil hobby projects, nah.

It comes with Paint Shop Pro 7, which you can download from KaZaA...or from the Jasc homepage...depending on how yer sense of ethics. *shrugs*

As for myself, luck was mine that my father bought a legitimate copy of Premiere 5.1 a few years ago when it was new.

Yeh, I noticed that after I posted. I thought he was actually referring ot what I said, seeing as he quoted me when he made the comment. My bad.

[trythil]

Argh.

The editing software you use really doesn't matter...

Erm, to an extent it does, I mean there are simply some thingts that you cannot do with Windows Movie Maker. o_O

Alright, so expand the tool domain to include VirtualDub, AVISynth, WMM, MSPaint, GIMP, CinePaint, Blender. These are all free (speech and beer) pieces of software.

Maybe I should have phrased it differently: "more expensive does not mean more capability".

And if you're going to be doing frame by frame editing, the software you use REALLY matters. I couldn't imagine doing it with anything other than animation shop

Then you have a serious failure of imagination. "always" contains several substantial portions of frame-by-frame work, done with transcode, with animation tasks split between GIMP and Photoshop. (I didn't know CinePaint all too well at the time I made "always", and I was more comfortable doing certain operations in Photoshop than the GIMP.)

I could have used only used transcode and CinePaint. Indeed, for a project I'm working on right now, I did use only those two tools to do frame-by-frame character removal. It looks fine.

That's probably the biggest problem I'm having with finding answers around here: every solution is based on Premiere. I find it pretty mind-boggling that almost every last person here spent over $500 ($699.99 according to Adobe.com) for a movie-making program, $500 for an image editing program, and $500 for a special effects program.

You're right; I didn't pay for Premiere. I use something else.

I did pay for Photoshop and Flash, though. Didn't want to pay more after that

[Zarxrax]

Although I'm sure this open source software is all great, most people choose to run a windows system. And for each situation, there are specific tools that work best for that situation. You don't try to put in a screw with a hammer, it's just stupid. There's stuff that you NEED after effects for. There's probably stuff that you NEED photoshop for. There's probably stuff that you can need cinepaint, blender, etc for as well. What I'm saying is you can't just say "you dont need those program that cost money, they are worthless". Everything has its uses. I would like to see anyone reproduce giant mosaic scene in my NES Project video with free software :p And trust me, I looked :p

[Onideus_Mad_Hatter]

Then you have a serious failure of imagination. "always" contains several substantial portions of frame-by-frame work, done<SNIP>

I didn't mean that it wasn't possible, just that it wasn't as practical. Coincidentally one of the best pieces of software there is for frame by frame editing is ACDSee...but only if you've got a mouse with a scroll wheel. ^_^

[Warpwind]

Meh, It's like anything else... Adobe Premiere/Photoshop have become industry standards. Sure you can use other software to do it but "everyone" uses these so most people just follow the flow. Plus there is more help available for "common" software (as you've already noticed).

It's just like Microsoft Word/Excel/Powerpoint. "Everyone" has them and "everyone" uses them. It's as common as dirt. Hell I hear that Office XP biggest competition is earlier editions of Office. I myself have about 3 other programes that will do exactly what Word does (much better and with more control in some cases) but what program do I use to do my assignments? Word. Why? Because if I want to email Lecturers a copy of my assignment rather than print it out I can. And I know they will be able to read the file because they have Word.

Sure I could make the document in Adobe Pagemaker or QuarkXpress but then I'd have to convert the file to a pdf before emailing it. Also if they wanted to edit the actual document (make corrects and blah) they couldn't on a pdf. Personally I hate Word... if I could never use the evil program again I would. I hate the "autoformatting" and the locking to a grid and other stupid preset functions. But I use it every damn day..

Now Premiere I like and Photoshop I love so I'm going to keep on using them and promoting them. At least the aren't made by microsoft.

[Anime2Envy]

I would like to see anyone reproduce giant mosaic scene in my NES Project video with free software :p And trust me, I looked :p

I could do it! I would just have to take the next five years and write the software I need, slap a GNU license on it, and keep hitting the render button until it works without crashing! See, that simple!

You're right; I didn't pay for Premiere. I use something else.

Your right, there are other options out there, its just a matter of how much work you want to put into them.
Personally I REALLY wanted to run cinelerra, but I only had a total of 20 minuets experience on a linux box. So I went out and read several books on linux, researched all the distros, installed linux, bought a new sound card that was linux friendly and went to work. It only took me a day to get Linux running and understand the basis of how to use it, getting Cinelerra running took me several more days. I was all ready to start my video when Cinelerra crashed, and crashed, and crashed. It would just shut down on my randomly, no errors or warnings, nothing.
I searched the web, and talked to some linux guru's at school and alls I got was "recompile this", "configure that" and so on. Finally after a week I yelled "FUCK YOU!" to every nerd siting behind a linux machine and preceded to reformat my drive.
The moral of the story is....What was it again?....Oh-yeah, free options do exist, just don't be surprised if you have to work for them. (or was it not to post a 2:00am?)