What app is good for 3D compositing only?

[rakmaya]

If you have the opportunity to learn, then take either Shake or Fusion as they are expensive to buy on your own. Since you are interested in 3D, I will suggest Fusion as it make life a lot easier when it comes to 3D. Combustion and AE (I am not that familiar with AE and Combustion) does all the things you were talking about as well. But those software are cheap and your could learn your own. So why waste the chance.

[Edit: By the way, you have two posts regarding this. I guess a miss-press of the Submit button?]

[orbitalpunk]

Hi rakmaya, thank you for replying. do you know if there are any additional features in Fusion that i might not find in AE or Combustion?

Thanks again,
P.S. sorry for the doulbe post. Dont Know why that happened. I've erased the messaged asking someone to delete it.

[JoshKirk]

Fusion has an insane particle system that AE and combustion cant match. AE isnt node based and combustion kinda has a node based thing in it, but fusion is pure node. Fusion is just more professional

If all you are doing is multipass rendering you can composite those in with FCP or vegas if you need to. If you want to add 3d lights and shadows and stuff later though then AE and combustion does this, but fusion has much more options.

[orbitalpunk]

Hey Josh, Thanks for the info. yes, a good particle system is important. This info has really helped.

P.S. Bansky is amazing.

[JoshKirk]

he sure is.

Another plus is fusion is SUPER cheap for students too. So if you try it and like it you can probably afford your own copy as well.

[rakmaya]

ya, Fusion will give you the best bang for the buck. Most particle effects can be done in Fusion instead of Maya and this is a great factor if you are into creating such effects. Like I said, I haven't used AE and Combustion much (other than a test drive), so I can't do any comparision.

If you are into programming, like I am, you will love the scripting in Shake and Fusion. Although I haven't used Fusion 5, I was told that Fusion 5 has a much powerful scripting than Fusion 4.

[orbitalpunk]

Thank you again guys. This has really helped alot. I've been working on the demo and am inspired by it already. I also ordered this great looking training DVD to get a head start.

http://www.cmivfx.com/dvd_fu5_3d.asp

Im also glad CGtalk didnt close this thread. I know they fear of wars. but in this case, it really helped a fellow student out.

[SalaTar]

"I've been working on the demo"

Where did you find a Fu5 demo?

[orbitalpunk]

http://www.eyeonline.com/Web/EyeonWeb/Products/RegisterDemo.aspx

[naabero]

Sry. Admins, delete this. :banghead:

[StudioJ]

Little offtopic,

Fusion guys, when you pick up that application, how you learn it? I have noticed that in internet there is much more tutorials (and other info) at programs like Combustion and AE.


Sorry for my English :/

[Wizdoc]

Eyeon has free Fusion courseware up on their site:

http://www.eyeonline.com/Web/EyeonWeb/Techniques/courseware/courseware_ed2.aspx

Going through that, you'll be pretty much proficient with Fusion (that courseware is for DF4, but I believe Fusion 5 works the same in principle). It won't make you a brilliant compositor, of course, but it'll teach you the program inside out (Fusion is extremely easy to learn) and allows you to do your own magic without being hampered by the software.

Yeah, I'm a DF fanboy. :)

[beaker]

For pure 3d compositing, just about any package will do. 3d is the simplest thing in the world to do, so even plain old After Effects perfect for this type of thing. All the hard stuff in compositing is when your dealing with the real world. So get whichever package is cheapest. The only big difference is DF & Shake will be much faster then AE at rendering. Functionality, there is very little difference from this POV.

Funny thing is the worst package for this type of thing is something like Flint/Flame/Inferno since it has to load everything into the framestore, which can take days to do, especially if your dealing with lots of layers.

[Aneks]

Funny thing is the worst package for this type of thing is something like Flint/Flame/Inferno since it has to load everything into the framestore, which can take days to do, especially if your dealing with lots of layers.

That and its inability to work in float space. Deal with z-depth channels, normal passes, uv information.....etc Nice tracker though !

[orbitalpunk]

would anyone care to talk about there techniques for rendering out layer passes in Maya 7? This seems to be a hard subject to find info on. I did have one thread asking about doing reflections and i got a nice reply from Jeremy Birn. I had also asked about layer order in photoshop. I'd be doing this in fusion as well for animated sequences. I will post his info below but if anyone would like to add to it. Im still trying to understand maya 7 renderlayers. i do see some presets for difuse, specular and shadow. would there be any other usefull layers to get out of a pass? and how would that be done. and if anyone has anything to add to Jeremy's reply. maybe an alternate method. Thanks again for everyones repsonses.

1)Diffuse,Specular, and Reflection are "Linear Dodge" (which is what's called "add" in most compositing programs.)

Add Diffuse and Specular together first, then use the Shadow Pass (that should be "normal") and then add the reflections as more "linear dodge" layers.

2)For an object's reflection layer, let's say the reflections on a car, you'd include the car and the things it needs to reflect in that layer.

Make sure "Auto Overrides" option is on, go into hypershade while in that layer and with the car selected, assign a new shader to the car, that has reflectivity, but does not have diffuse or specular shading (color to black, highlight size to 0 should work.)

Then open the attribute editor for the objects it needs to reflect. Under Render Stats turn off Primary Visibility, but leave on Visible in Reflections.

The layer will show the reflections on the car, of the other objects. You might need more than one than reflection layer. If the road was wet and reflected the car for example, you'd need to make something like this for the reflections on the road.

[Aneks]

www.tahlniran.com
go to the shake tutorials look at multipass compositing and compositing ambient occlusion

also look at normal map rendering on the shake thread

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