Editing animation. What software?

[Jonathan]

As someone exploring animation as a medium I am interested in your thoughts regarding editing software. How important is this piece of kit within our field and how difficult is it to master? Up until now my brief excursions with animation have been put together with none other than Windows Movie Maker! Not exactly high spec but it is always interesting to see what can be done with a little.

Am I right in thinking that Premiere is the suited and standard Viz choice? As a student I have the option of a student liscence however I am still 32 bit:( Are there any alternatives out there that are worth learning? I have access to Final Cut but am reluctant to spend too much time with it as its not very industry standard.

Thanks in advance.

[PuffinViz]

I've recently been learning Adobe After Effects and its fantastic, if you have good knowledge of photoshop its pretty easy to pick up and allows you to improve raw animations much in the same way PS works with stills. Im under the impression premier is better for compiling animations together but I havent really used it before, but I seem to be getting by fine with After effects at the mo. Hope that helps, cheers

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Download Aftereffects and Premiere 30 day demos and test them. They are not the uber high end suites but are more than capable of doing what you will need for Arch Viz. This is even more true since Composite is now included with Max. The Adobe suite can do composites, but not well.

[Bruce Hart]

If you are getting into After Effects, there is an excellent set of free video tutorials on http://www.videocopilot.net. There is a basic training set on there for starters.

Edited November 14, 2010 by Bruce Hart