Purchasing After Effects...

[FilmwannabeGoldenjabba]

Now that I understand the recipe for filmmaking a whole lot more, I got thinking, should I upgrade from Fxhome's effects lab pro to Adobe After Effects? Is it worth the money? Will it go obsolete the moment a new version comes out?

Which version should I buy? ( where I live, Cs3 costs 1200$ in stores, while online only 1000 for CS4)

I have watched some of Andrew Kramer's tutorials, and I understand it takes time and (lots) of effort.

If I continue with my current job, I should have enough money to buy after effects without obliterating my bank account.

Should I buy it or not? I can definetley see it is a powerful filmmaking tool... I am just curious :D

[dancingchickenproductions]

If you have the money then YES. It takes some time to learn, but once you learn it you'll never look back.

[FilmwannabeGoldenjabba]

If you have the money then YES. It takes some time to learn, but once you learn it you'll never look back.


Do you reccomend I buy the most recent version?

[theradoreo]

Go to the website and try it out first.
Get it if you like it.

[UndergroundLairProductions]

Do you reccomend I buy the most recent version?
It doesn't really matter. I'm running CS3 and it works beautifully. CS4 has a few minor upgrades, but nothing that truely warrants spending the extra money, especially when first starting out with AE.
Just see if you can find a reasonably priced copy of CS3.

[Balooga Studios]

Go make friends with someone who's in college, and have them buy it for you. (Master costs $500 at most university bookstores.)

Just make sure they're not into Adobe products or anything, becuase they can only buy one.
I was taking Calc with this guy, and he bought Production Premium for me, in exchange for me giving him a full copy of Mathematica (I have two licences of it.).


On the subject of Andrew Kramer's tutorials (amazing, by the way), I can't really seem to be able to unzip the presets from the website. I download them, and unzip, but it keeps telling me that the file and folder are named the same, and it won't unzip. Could somebody maybe send me a link to an unzipped copy or tell me how to solve my problem? thanks.

[MasterCheese]

@Balooga Studios I can get you unzipped ones if you like just shoot me a PM.

On Topic: Yes if you can afford it definetely get it. It takes a while to learn but its great!

[theSarge00]

I'm biased of course - I've been comping with AE since it was made by CoSA (Bought out by Aldus, then later Aldus was acquired by Adobe). It's a fully functioning compositing tool. That said, there are a wide variety of compositing tools that you don't generally hear about. Shake, the now defunct Motion, Combustion, and Nuke amongst others. If you are familar with Photoshop at all, AE will be a no brainer: it's layered just like a photoshop document, with the layers having transfer modes (lighten, darken, burn, dodge, overlay, difference, etc), and the ability to change their degree of opacity, along with scale and rotation and position in the same way you would in Photoshop. In fact, you can do layouts in Photoshop, then import the layered PS doc into AE as a composition, preserving layered opacity settings and whatnot.

With most other modern compositing programs, you have to adopt a very different mindset: nodal systems. Nodal systems are a bit more abstract.
http://thefunklab.net/blog/wp-content/images/2007/10/picture-4.png
You might look it up and see if it sounds like it makes sense to you. Myself, I find layers and a timeline (like After Effects) much more intuitive.

It's really taster's choice. Anything you can do in AE you can do in most any other package, it really just comes down to comfort.

As to version numbers: someone was just recently asking about 5.5 vs the CS versions - again, it really depends on how deep you're gonna go. They don't get outdated, except in the matter of import/export and filter compatibility. CS3 vs CS4, if you can get a better deal on CS3 go for it. They're close enough for it not to really matter.

[FilmwannabeGoldenjabba]

I don't own Photoshop, (yet) but I have knowledge in layers and most of the tools. ( I use GIMP 2.6)

If i do find a deal on CS3, I will surely purchase it rather than CS4.

[Razback]

Yes like me i use only freeware programs cause money hehehe,yes for the photoshoping i use gimp 2.6 and for the extra effects i use FX home more good than after effetcs like me and more easy to use

[UndergroundLairProductions]

FX home more good than after effetcs
This is a lie.
If you're using a 'freeware' version of FxHome, you are either using the Demo version (which leaves a hideous watermark on the lower left-hand corner of the video), or a pirated copy. Neither one is a good thing.

[bobaandy1]

FX home is effects made simple. It's cheating, in a way. It appeals to newbies because it promises good looking effects with no work. That's just not how it happens. AE is a professional compositing product, and FX home is, well, the furthest from.

Your not going to find FX Home in any post house, let me tell you that.