What software does everybody use!!!

[Dave Buckley]

Throughout a project everyone uses numerous pieces of software, i was just wondering what all you professionals use out there throughout the complete process?

 

Example

 

Stills:

 

Max, Vray, Photoshop

 

Animations/Films:

 

Max, Vray, Lustre (Colour Grading), Premiere (Editing) etc etc

 

Also what order do you carry out your tasks in order to get to a finished piece

 

The reason i ask is that i am trying to dd a bit of 'hollywood' to my visualizations such as the likes of Uniform do. But i am unsure of what software to get. Been looking at the Autodesk Website and am confused by what the differences are between Flame, Inferno, Flint, Smoke etc etc

 

And which ones are used in industry

[AJLynn]

I do all my rendering and animation in Illustrator now.

[Dave Buckley]

What???

[Horhe]

I do all my rendering and animation in Illustrator now.

 

Yes Andrew so did I until a few days ago. Theres a program called Mayura Draw - does a way better job on rendering and even greater on animation. And its faster and cheaper too. It has quite a lot of presets and handles well on 2 Gb ram (I gor 4 Gb so just imagine!!!!).

[Antisthenes]

I do it all(CAD, Model, Animation(bongo), Rendering(vray, penguin, Brazil, Fryrender, Maxwell, Renderman, flamingo) in Rhinoceros. And some pixel pushing in Photoshop. video edit in Premiere, sometimes I use Gimp and VirtualDub

[JonRashid]

I use Max and Combustion (animation) and Photoshop for stills. Combustion works well with max and allows addition of realtime effects.

[AJLynn]

Yes Andrew so did I until a few days ago. Theres a program called Mayura Draw - does a way better job on rendering and even greater on animation. And its faster and cheaper too. It has quite a lot of presets and handles well on 2 Gb ram (I gor 4 Gb so just imagine!!!!).

 

I've actually been experimenting with Vector Designer for Mac, which was included in a bundle I got a while back, and it's quite good.

[lucho]

Not all in the world is 3d max and vray, some of us (just a few) uses other software,

[SandmanNinja]

While I don't use it, Maya is pretty much the way to go with Film.

Lightwave was used to do the CGI for Babylon 5, but that was over a decade ago.

Max is considered mainly a game modeller/render engine/level maker.

Hopefully the Design edition of Max 2009 will make some people re-think that.

 

I personally feel it's what you can do with the software, unfortunately when big Production Houses set up their work flow for hundreds of modellers, riggers, animators, etc they decide on the software. If you want to enter that sort of industry, it's best to be skilled in a variety of software.

[IC]

Lightwave was used to do the CGI for Babylon 5, but that was over a decade ago.

 

It's still used in a huge amount of major TV and film projects like BS-G and 300.

A lot of studios use it as the renderer in their Maya based pipeline.

 

http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/film.php

[Dave Buckley]

What i want to make is visualization animations in the a similiar sort of style to the likes of Uniforma nd Neoscape, so i was just wondering what the step by step process is, i am quite familiar with a few bits of different software, premiere, max, vray, mental ray, after effects, photoshop.

 

but i kinda needed to know what processes an animation goes through from start to finish and in which order???

 

model, light, texture, render image sequence, colour grading, editing, titles, voila

 

or any other order, i guess i am unsure of the whole process, which stage comes before which i am ok up until i have my sequence of rendered images, no where do i go??? i was thinkin, max/vray, then to after effects/combustion for colour grading and effects, and then to premiere for editing the final piece together????? does this sound like the norm???

 

or would effects come after editing and vice versa

[JonRashid]

Having worked in children's television for 7yrs, I would say that the first step is the storyboard and then the soundtrack. Most animation is done to the sound whether voiceover or incidental music. Most people just throw a soundtrack on afterwards. The storyboard allows you to judge where detail is necessary. Unless music is being especially commisioned then this should be laid down first. The storyboard also allows you to compile a shot breakdown and perhaps render individual shots rather than the whole animation. These shots can then be rendered at a low detail level and a rough cut can be created in order to get a feel for the animation with the soundtrack. Also Combustion is far more powerful than just colour correction. You can add realtime effects, transitions etc. It is a high end piece of post production software that form the entry level to smoke and flint etc we are top end post production suites. In my opinion the storyboard is intrinsic to any animation.

[Dave Buckley]

Ok this is what confused me

 

what is the difference between the likes of Smoke, Flame, Inferno, Combustion, Lustre, the descriptions on the Autodesk website all sound incredibly simliar. So i don't know which i'd need, it sounds like they all do the same kind of stuff, or should i say Lustre is for colour grading, yet i imagine i could colour grade in Combustion.

[JonRashid]

Combustion is the entry level programme to that suite of software. It can do pretty much everything you would want for architectural animation.

Colour grading, animated masks, compositing etc. It is very powerful and runs extremely well on a standard PC

[Dave Buckley]

Ok so at the minute i have access to, Max Design 2009, Vray, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere and Combustion

 

Would you say my toolset is complete to be able to produce high def/great quality animations that could be sold to potential customers???

[Trevor Tizard]

Combustion will be fine for your needs, the likes of Flame, Inferno etc are extremely expensive.

 

You could also consider After Effects.

[JonRashid]

Your software is easily good enough to produce broadcast quality animation

[Dave Buckley]

Cheers guys, you've helped alot, i just wanted to make sure i had the right tools to ensure that i can do everything i wish to do, which i think i have covered

[adricorrea]

Are Combustion and After Effect prety similar:confused:

 

That is what I thought, but reading this thread make me doubt

 

 

I use Autocad - Max and Photoshop for still

and Premier for editing, but my editing skills are prety basic, also I was thinking about learning After Effects or Combustion, but I am confused:rolleyes:

[Trevor Tizard]

Yes, Combustion and After Effects are similar in many ways. If you are familiar with both Premier and Photoshop I would suggest After Effects as they are all layed out in a similar fashion.

[adricorrea]

Yeah, that is what I though

 

Thanks Trevor:D

[graphicdude]

There are several good programs, but at LazyAnimation and 3D Arkitektur we mostly use 3D Max and Vray. Other good programs include Maya and open source software 3D Blender.

[Charles Gaushell]

We use:

 

Lightwave (with fprime) and Modo for 3D modeling and rendering

Every Adobe product known to mankind

PaintshopPro

Piranesi

Framecylcer

[O.D.S]

I currently use:

3ds Max - for modeling, animating, rigging, some material creation

Vray/Mental Ray - for rendering

Photoshop - texture creation, composition

Premiere - video editing/final output

 

Will be getting into:

Combustion

AutoCad

[phillip@esperient]

At Esperient we use Max, Vray and Creator (obviously).

 

We also use Right Hemisphere Deep Exploration for CAD data conversion- though largely engineering stuff.

 

At customers typical workflows we see include:

 

2D still: AutoCAD/Revit/Bentley -> 3DS Max + Mental Ray/Vray -> Photoshop

Video: AutoCAD/Revit/Bentley -> 3DS Max + Mental Ray/Vray -> Premiere

real time: design tools -> Max/Maya + Mental ray/Vray for light baking -> Creator and often come across other tools such as Virtools, Eon Reality, RTT, turn tool etc

 

- phillip