A few questions about Shake (center offset, aliasing, color replace etc)

[Aneks]

First thing concerns the center point of transforms. I can't seem to animate their position without the images moving too. Surely it makes more sense to be able to move the center independently of the image. It says in the manual to use a separate node with its own center for each time you need to offset the center point. What would you do if you wanted to animate the center point so that the image scaled into a point moving around in a circle?

Using an animated centerpoint is generally a bad idea because of the way shake applies transforms like scale and rotate, using the centerpoint as a the base for these calculations. To do the effect you described use two seperate move2d's. One will animate the image moving in a circular fashion and one will perform the scale.

Second, how do you color replace white with alpha? If I have footage with a white backdrop, how do I make this transparent? I tried color replace but it doesn't seem to work for white.

You are trying to generate an alpha for a white BG ? Try using either a chroma keyer or a luma key.

Third, how do you anti-alias images in Shake? If I drop an un-antialiased image into Apple Motion, it anti-aliases it. In Shake, it doesn't.

I am not sure what you are referring to here. Anti-aliasing on a prerendered 3d image ? or anti-aliasing of an image which is being manipulated in the app ?

Fourth, does Shake support vector images? Is there a plugin that does? Maybe I should use Combustion instead?

basically no. shake is not designed to maintain vectors in an image. As far as i know there will never be a plugin to do this as shake uses a openGL/raster engine for all image processing.

Why specifically would you want to use combustion for vector graphics. After Effects has much better vector support than any other app !

[osxrules]

Thanks for the reply.

Using an animated centerpoint is generally a bad idea because of the way shake applies transforms like scale and rotate, using the centerpoint as a the base for these calculations. To do the effect you described use two seperate move2d's. One will animate the image moving in a circular fashion and one will perform the scale.

Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm not sure why Shake does transforms that way. I would imagine the other way would be far more flexible. 3D apps like Maya allow you to animate the center point of transformations for example.

You are trying to generate an alpha for a white BG ? Try using either a chroma keyer or a luma key.

Thanks, the luma key worked.

I am not sure what you are referring to here. Anti-aliasing on a prerendered 3d image ? or anti-aliasing of an image which is being manipulated in the app ?

Essentially anti-aliasing an image that comes out of a 3D rendering that doesn't have any over-sampling. Apple Motion seems to apply some level of anti-aliasing so it doesn't look jagged but Shake leaves it with jagged edges. Applying a low Gaussian blur in Shake made it look smoother but it's not the same thing.

Why specifically would you want to use combustion for vector graphics. After Effects has much better vector support than any other app !

I heard that Combustion was a better compositor than AE and I wanted a tool to do both. At the moment, I can use Motion combined with Shake but I really don't like Motion that much at all. Plus I heard that Combustion does some better effects than AE and it is closer to being node-based.

I'll check out AE though. I guess now Adobe owns Macromedia their vector support will be the best. Plus we already have the CS packages so it will probably integrate well.

How does AE compare to Shake? I actually really like Shake as it is very intuitive to me but we have some web designers and they are looking to do some vector-based compositing.

[Aneks]

Apple Motion seems to apply some level of anti-aliasing so it doesn't look jagged but Shake leaves it with jagged edges. Applying a low Gaussian blur in Shake made it look smoother but it's not the same thing.

Not sure about this. For te most part when working on images, I would want to avoid any softening or filtering that may change the look of the image, unless it was expressly intended. I have never used motion so I am not sure what it does.

I heard that Combustion was a better compositor than AE and I wanted a tool to do both. At the moment, I can use Motion combined with Shake but I really don't like Motion that much at all. Plus I heard that Combustion does some better effects than AE and it is closer to being node-based.

I'll check out AE though. I guess now Adobe owns Macromedia their vector support will be the best. Plus we already have the CS packages so it will probably integrate well.

How does AE compare to Shake? I actually really like Shake as it is very intuitive to me but we have some web designers and they are looking to do some vector-based compositing.

I am not going to do a blow by blow comparisson except to say that shake's strength is largely as an image compositor and integrator. With a bias towards visual effects requirements, and after effects is very highly favoured for its brilliant motion graphics tools. Although now that AE 7 is full 32 bit compliant it really is a serious contender for hardcore visual effects work. Working with AE and other adobe apps especially newer CS versions is a dream.

Combustion has brilliant roto, paint and in my opinion the best tracker on any desktop package.

[osxrules]

Not sure about this. For te most part when working on images, I would want to avoid any softening or filtering that may change the look of the image, unless it was expressly intended. I have never used motion so I am not sure what it does.

Yeah, that's a good point. I was thinking maybe there would be some sort of anti-alias node though. Maybe using a blur filter is just the way to do it.

I am not going to do a blow by blow comparisson except to say that shake's strength is largely as an image compositor and integrator. With a bias towards visual effects requirements, and after effects is very highly favoured for its brilliant motion graphics tools. Although now that AE 7 is full 32 bit compliant it really is a serious contender for hardcore visual effects work. Working with AE and other adobe apps especially newer CS versions is a dream.

Combustion has brilliant roto, paint and in my opinion the best tracker on any desktop package.

Thanks for the summary. I think for price and functionality, AE looks like it might be a good all round package to use for everything. I think even for visual effects because it seems to have a lot of plugins.

I'm actually trying to come up with a way to do a smoke effect in Shake so I can make a room look as though it is filled with cigarette smoke, do you have any ideas how do to this?

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