What editing/effects software should I get?

Raven · Post by **Raven** » Sat Feb 08, 2003 4:08 am

I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get a new PC, and I'd like to get some video editing software for it. I'm wondering what software is best for everything. If you'd go through the list below and pick what you think is best (and a second-best one), it'd be great. Thanks!

For editing:
Premiere?
Any others...?

For effects:
After Effects?
combustion 2?

For animation:
3ds Studio Max?
Maya?
LightWave?
SoftImage XSI?
SoftImage 3D?

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Sat Feb 08, 2003 9:41 am

For editing I love Premiere. Also i like any Adobe Product. You can't go wrong.

Ornsack · Post by **Ornsack** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 12:03 am

Editing, yeah definately Premiere for the PC platform. Avid is the industry standard but I still feel Premiere is better (god knows why Avid's are used so much).

Effects, After Effects. Combustion is equally as good but After Effects works well with Premiere and the filters are pretty much backwards compatible.

Animation, 3D Studio Max. It's a professional program with a simple layout, a huge amount of info on the web for amatuer to professional users, and has good support for non-professional 3D accelerator cards like 3DFX

Raven · Post by **Raven** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 1:48 am

Thanks for the reply. It really helped. I was thinking the same thing you were anyway - except for one thing.

Why not use combustion 2 for effects? I'm not sure about the After Effects production bundle thing that costs way more, but in the demo version I tested... well, I was impressed with all of it's cool features, but it looked like the main thing you do is color correction and stuff like that. Sure, you can work in 3d and whatnot, but from what I see on Discreet's website, you can do a lot more with that. Examples:

http://www.discreet.com/images/events/s ... _keyer.gif that looks like pretty advanced bluescreening. It gets rid of the shadow and everything.

http://www.discreet.com/images/events/s ... twheel.gif Maybe it's just me, but never saw where you do that sort of thing in After Effects.

The other thing is the particle system. You have to get the production bundle of After Effects to use that, right? And... the Production Bundle is so expensive.

After Effects will work well with Premiere, but Combustion would work well with 3ds studio max.

Correct me if I'm horribly wrong.

Ornsack · Post by **Ornsack** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 9:40 pm

You can get rid of shadows in After Effects, just use a secondary colour and select the shadow area.

And you'll be better off using 3D Studio Max's particle system! You'll have more freedom and control using a 3D environment.

But at the end of the day it's your decition! If you do get it let me know what you think... I think I'm too biased with After Effects to go with anything else

The second image didn't work btw =*(

padawanNick · Post by **padawanNick** » Tue Feb 11, 2003 4:53 pm

Personally, I use Media Studio Pro for editing and effects, but that's primarily becuase it's much less expensive than getting Prememier & AE together.

The Premiere and AE combo is really the way to go. You can find TONS of resources for these throughout the net and they are extremely capable programs.

AE can do the same type of keying you see there for cumbusion. Also you can get an inexpensive plugin called dvMatte from DVGarage. that greatly enhances and streamlines the AE compositing process.

Max is a fantastic animation program (I have that too) and it will work well with virtually any editor/effects system.

Good luck!
Have fun.