CG Meetup has a post on the new features of the newly updated Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite. You can also check it out at Autodesk.
They have various versions of their suite from $5775 to $8395.
They all include Maya, 3dsMax, Motionbuilder, Mudbox and Sketchbook designer, and the two higher end versions also have soft image.
Would love to get my hands on 3dsMax, but it is just too much for me to play with.
The Pro Video Coalition has a preview of a new After Effects tool, Adobe Refine Edge. It is an extension of the powerful rotobrush, but with the ability to pull objects from backgrounds you never would have thought possible.
Sounds very cool, but rather than see this demoed, I would rather have it go out to Creative Cloud users. I thought that was the point of paying more and constantly, that we would get early updates to software. And while we have, it hasn’t been anything for the production bundle, which is really what I need anyway.
Come on Adobe I want Premiere Pro and After Effects Updates, even if they are testing betas! Let us give them a try!
Video Copilot has released version 1.6 of Element 3D it’s 3D plug in for After Effects. They have a video of new features on their blog. It is a Free Update to registered users. It has a bunch of new features and bug fixes.
FEATURES
- Added world position pass.
- Added scene relink.
- Added replace model option.
- Added a subsampling mode for post effects.
- Added planar and polygon mapping types.
- Added render order.
- Added group nulls.
- Added generate 3D position null.
- Added shape order animation mode.
- Improved automatic relinking.
- Fix: issue with baked animation in different groups.
- Fix: crash due to path aspect ratio fix.
- Fix: occlusion map was rendering below diffuse.
- Fix: masks with different aspect ratio than layer.
- Fix: baked animation wasn’t working with 3D object replicator shape.
- Fix: rendering issues on OSX.
- Fix: crash when rendering empty scene with missing assets.
- Fix: licensing popup on Windows when opening old projects.
I love this plug in and think it is a must have and it just keeps getting better and better with each update.
All Things D has a good article on the closing of Google Reader. It contends not only did Reader not even have a product manager or full time engineer when it was closed, but now every team needs a team dealing with privacy issues, with lawyers and others, and since google wasn’t making money off of it, they didn’t want to put those people on. And it claims it was too integrated into google apps to sell it (though I don’t believe that).
Interesting point, but I still think they could keep their users happy and keep it going, especially after killing the rest of the market with it, but we are all finding alternatives now, and will be moving to them if we already have not.
1.5 Years! I don’t think so! Though to be fair I do have 5.3 TB of data, and the 1.1 TB music drive is on a NAS connected via 10/1000 ethernet, but still! And the number does change. I see it go down to 6 months sometimes, but I also find that for a good portion of every day it seems to be just scanning my drives, and not uploading. And I am on Fios with 35 Mb up and down so I have a fairly fast connection.
I am thankful for the free 30 day trial so I could learn this, very cool, otherwise I would have purchased and realized I would paying for likely 2 years before I had a full backup! Now way!
Now I went with CrashPlan after reading all about it, and seeing reviews and it does look like an excellent cloud based backup solution. And it’s Java based app is easy to use and free and can be used for local backups as well.
And they have many plans, from 32.99 for 10GB, 59.99 for unlimited on one computer and $149.99 a year for unlimited on 5 computers. Seems reasonable, though you can only download a certain amount and must pay and send a hard drive for more, (EDIT: I was wrong, they don’t charge to download, which is awesome, thanks to the comment) but it does keep your data secure away from your home.
I wanted a cloud backup as I had a drive go down recently and it really screwed me, but I don’t think this is the solution. I am still thinking a large local storage would be better for me, though I certainly can’t afford it right now.
EDIT: And yes I do have a local backup, though not of everything, I just don’t currently have the hard drive space. I have a 3TB backup, and everything on MUSIC is RAID 1, so I have a copy of what is on there, but if things get messed up, they will be messed up in both places.
ADDITIONAL: Been keeping Crashplan running, hoping it will jump forward and have downloaded a lot more by the time the time the demo is over so will then buy it and use it. Lots of the time it seems to spend re-scanning all my drives, and with the amount I have, that takes a lot of time, but yesterday I came home to this:
HA! 10.5 Years huh? And when I tried to snap the picture it was 11.5 years, but I didn’t snap fast enough! Now I know that isn’t the actual time, but that is a long time to say it needs to back up!
I need a big raid as storage, but with redundancy, though I do like the idea of an offsite solution with great encryption, which Crash Plan is. It just isn’t for someone with the storage needs that I have.
I wen to a new General Practitioner and he wants me to lose weight faster, and do my morning 2.1 mile walk in 30 instead of 45 minutes. To that end, yesterday I jogged part of it. 1/4 of a mile, then 2 1/8’s of a mile, and I did the same today. And it really wasn’t a problem. Didn’t even get that out of breath, though I did sweat allot! Still I could NEVER JOG! Not at all, ever! This is a huge difference! Absolutely huge! Wow, I can jog! Now I need some better sneakers and I bet I can jog a whole lot more! Wow!
He also wants me to exercise for another 15 minutes when I get home. Leg exercises, so I am doing kettle bell, and core, so situps and some hand weights, like I used to do. Not too much with my chest as it is still sore, but as much as I can.
As for my weight, I am still losing some weight, and am still on the 8 hour diet, though things are moving very slowly, but I am trending down.
Here is my last week from Fitbit. Tend to go up a bit on the weekend, but still trending down. Even with some days getting fast food as I get off work so late (hate still driving at 7:30 PM).
Still I am sticking with the 8 hour diet (though the doctor said to eat breakfast, but I have never liked breakfast, it makes me hungry all day!).
Here is my scar. Still not white, and if anything it has gotten bigger, or at least wider. Still not hurting so much, though I am still using a pillow under a seatbelt as it feels better in the car.
Brain fog is better, though my creativity really isn’t better, but getting home by 8 and going to bed at 10, and having super busy weekends may not be helping on that end much either.
Overall I am doing pretty great, and I CAN JOG! WOW!
Wow, further proof that AVID is doing incredibly badly right now.
I think AVID needs to innovate but I don’t want to see them go under.
Cheesycam has the news on the new Rebel level EOS cameras the T5i and the very small Canon EOS Rebel SL1 both of which shoot full HD video, though certainly without the full HD out of the new 100D and 700D.
Cinescopophilia has the news on these new DSLR’s that can shoot 24 fps for up to 22 minutes. They also mention HDMI mini output wiht full high definition, which if true is huge, as it will bypass the crappy h.264 compression.
I didn’t expect to have 2 S lens cameras released at the same time. Pretty cool.