Maybe the title of the post is overly blunt, but it’s true. I saw the Hobbit in 48fps, in 3D. Please don’t make the same mistake. 48fps. Looks great! I have no idea if the Hobbit is a good film. The ‘soap opera’ look of 48fps combined with 3D was distracting and outright ruined many scenes by making them look like a low budget Saturday morning cartoon. The climatic scene actually works out pretty well, but for the first 2+ hours it’s an awful movie experience. Peter Jackson has gone on record as saying that 48fps makes 3D more enjoyable. Whatever he is smoking, please send some of it to San Francisco. 3D tends to brighten the image up to begin with and you add 48fps to that mix and the result is so bad it’s comical. I was hoping the initial reports of the look of 48fps were exaggerated and due to viewing unfinished shots. I think it’s clear that in both cases it’s not. It looks like 3D humans suffering from the ‘uncanny valley’ effects. It doesn’t look like film, but it doesn’t look real either. It just looks like bad TV. With Hobbits. Maybe they can resurrect the Ewok Christmas special and shoot that in 48fps, 3D. I realize there’s a lot of new technology out there and you have to test it out on something. But to test it out on a major motion picture? Honestly, I wish folks would just try to make better movies instead of screwing around with all this stuff (48fps, 3d) which doesn’t make the films look better and rarely adds anything to the story. In the case of the Hobbit, it really affected the story poorly. I do think there’s some technology which will change movies for the better. The super high resolution cameras produce great looking imagery. Internet connected TVs will change the way we watch movies and how they get distributed. But 48fps is just crap. So thank you to Peter Jackson for proving that.
The Future of Photography
CES/PMA is having a mini-conference called the Future Imaging Summit. I’m on the panel on software, so I’ve been pondering what software is going to look like in five years, at least as it pertains to photography. I’d love to hear your thoughts on where you think it’s going to be and what you expect. Do you want a Canon 5D markV running Android and apps? Do you want it easier to add metadata like keywords? Editing in the cloud? 3D photos? (god forbid 😉 It will be interesting to see what kind of changes happen to photography over the next five years. One trend that will definitely
Using Plugins on Multiple Computers
So you’ve got two (or 20) computers and you want to use Beauty Box (or whatever) on all of them. This is always a tricky thing for software developers. On one hand we realize many folks have multiple machines and since they’re only one person, they can only use one machine at a time. We would like to allow them the flexibility of having it on a couple machines. On the other hand, if you’re a studio with multiple machines and multiple people we think that if our software is good enough to be installed and used on all those machines we should be paid for it. Making sure that happens sometimes gets in the way of how a single user is using our plugins. Companies When you buy a license of our software, you’re buying it for one user. If you’re a company with multiple machines and multiple artists/editors using those machines, then there’s not much gray area and you need a license for each computer being used. We offer pretty good volume discounts and site licenses for this type of situation, you can contact sales@digitalanarchy.com for pricing. There is one big exception to this… if you’re using After Effects’ network rendering. You do not need extra licenses for After Effects render nodes. You can install Beauty Box on as many render nodes as you want for free. People (and, no, companies are not people. I don’t care what the Dread Pirate Roberts says) If you’re just one person with multiple machines then there’s some gray areas. The software can be installed on a couple machines, but we use the internet to determine if the plugin is being used on multiple computers at the same time. So if you have a desktop and a laptop and you’re using one or the other depending on whether you’re at home or at the office, no problem. You’re good to go. However, if you’re in your studio/office and trying to use both machines for rendering/editing at the same time, you may run into problems. If so, here’s what you can do: 1) You can purchase a second license. We do offer discounts for second licenses. Contact sales@digitalanarchy.com. 2) Use the second machine as an After Effects render node. As mentioned above, you can use Beauty Box on as many render nodes as you want for free. So if the machine is just being used to process frames sent to it from another machine you shouldn’t have any problems. 3) Our licensing is set up so that you can install on two machines, they just can’t be in use simultaneously. The way we check this is via the internet. So if you disable the internet connection on one machine, then we can’t check it. This is a hack and technically violates the license. However, since the spirit of the license is for one user, as long as it’s the same person using the machines we’re ok with it. 4) Render out the Beauty Box clip on one machine while working on another part of your project on the second machine. BB just gets watermarked on the second machine, so it’s still usable. Like most of you, we’re running a small company. We try to be as flexible as possible, but if you’re making money using our software we would like you to buy the correct number of licenses. Please support the companies that make the tools you use and that help you be successful.
When Cats Go To NAB
We’ve been exhibiting at NAB since 2001 and one of the traditions is that any extra exhibitor badges we have get put in the name of our hard working mascots… Fierce Peanut and Molotov Cupcake (our two cats). They have not made it out to Vegas yet, but we don’t want them to feel left out so they get their own badge. This has led to them receiving emails, including some amusing ones such as the one below inviting them to speak at a conference. While I’m sure Ms Peanut would be more than happy to speak, her expertise tends to be limited to mobile device viewing, particularly games and media for… well, cats. Why, yes, we’d be delighted to speak at your conference. Will there be tuna hors d’oeuvres?
I Feel the Need for Rendering Speed (or Why I Love My GPU)
We’re about to release a free update to Beauty Box Video (2.0.4… look for it next week) and figured it was time to talk about GPUs again. We’re seeing 500-800% speed increase using the GPU on newer graphics cards, especially Nvidia boards which seem to be more stable than AMD or Intel. (You can get more info on Beauty Box and a free trial version HERE) So where are we getting these numbers and how do YOU get them?
YouTube Opens Production Facility in London, LA
YouTube/Google is opening a full fledged Do-It-Yourself production facility called Creator Space in London and, if rumors are true, Los Angeles. What does this mean? The most immediate result is that we will probably see better produced sneezing cat and laughing dog videos. This alone is exciting. Think of the cat videos we can get with a full cyc greenscreen! The possibilities stagger the mind. Seriously though, there’s not a lot of info about it, but the promo video doesn’t give me reason to believe any post houses or production facilities should be sweating it too hard.
Joy of Photography
One of the great things about running DA is that it gives me an excuse to buy fancy camera equipment and play with it. The latest subject I’m infatuated with is stars. No, I haven’t joined the paparazzi. I’m talking about the stars you can see when you’re 10,000 feet up on a rock in the middle of the Pacific ( the Haleakala volcano in Maui). Photography is absolutely amazing. It really forces you to be present in the place you’re at and the moment you’re there.
E3: Game Look vs. Film Look
I was hanging around E3 on Tuesday, indulging my gamer geek side (games are a sister industry to the film industry so I get in on an industry pass, but I have no real legit business reason to go. It’s just fun.). One of the things I’ve noticed about games is that the ‘look’ is still very much the same as it ever was. Yes, the polygon counts are higher and everything is in HD, but the look is the same. No depth of field and harsh lighting (usually either on or off). I was looking at a couple up and coming games and they just reminded me of Half-Life and every other game I’ve played. They look better, but they don’t look like film. This is interesting, because films are starting to look like games and I don’t think it’s a good direction. I want games to start looking like films, not the other way around. Where is this ‘Game Look’ for films coming from? I think it starts with 3D. One of the smaller booths (You should’ve seen the xbox, ps3, wii booths) at E3 this year.
Carpal Tunnel Injuries
What is referred to as Carpal Tunnel injuries is usually a collection of different injuries that are better known as repetitive stress injuries (RSI). They are serious problems that I’ve struggled with to vary degrees for the last 10 years or so. One of the other anarchists has had it longer and had to work through a severe version of it. And I am pretty much the poster child for what happens if you ignore the possibility of RSI. Back when I first started working in software, I worked with a programmer who had to have someone hired to do his typing. The company had people come in and speak about ergonomics and how to avoid RSI. I ignored all of it. Clearly these people were just weak, and I, being invincible, would never suffer such things . Not so much. Age and too many 16 hour days hunched over a keyboard/mouse tend to take their toll. The whole growing older thing is really a pain in the neck (literally). People usually associate RSI with wrists, but in fact it can affect your arms, shoulders, neck, and back. If you’re on a computer a lot (and if you’re reading this most likely you make your living using a computer) it’s critically important that you pay attention to it. It’ll seriously affect your ability to use a computer and, if you’re a photographer, your ability to hold a camera for long periods.
Argh, Matey! Pirates!
Once every year or two something happens to make me get a bug up my shorts about piracy. Generally I don’t care much about it… most piracy is done by college students, software ‘collectors’ (people that just download it to have it but don’t use it), and other people that wouldn’t buy the software anyways. We recently had the technical guy at a photography studio give us a call. Their primary business is doing greenscreen photography for clients and they use Primatte for it. He called to complain that they had recently upgraded to Primatte 5.0 and that he gets an error message when he tries to run it on all his machines. All of Digital Anarchy’s software looks for other instances of the plugin running on a network and shuts down if it sees a copy with the same serial number. This studio, which makes their living doing greenscreen, had one serial number. In his words “We have Primatte 3 installed on all our machines and never had a problem, but now it looks like we’ll have to buy more licenses. Why?”.
Beauty Box Video and Final Cut Pro X
As most of you know FCP X came out yesterday. This was the first time we’ve seen it. In Apple‘s infinitely looped wisdom, most plugin developers were not given a chance to see anything before yesterday nor were we told anything. Apparently there were a couple ‘special’ developers that did get a heads up, but for the rest of us, no such luck. So if you’re wondering why there’s a dearth of FCP X plugin announcements, that’s why. But along with FCP X, we got some info about FxPlug 2.0. Luckily for us, Beauty Box Video is a relatively new product written from the ground up to be 64-bit. So we’re in pretty good shape to port this over to FCP X/Motion 5. It is very possible that we’ll have a new version done by August or sooner. It may be free or there may be a small charge for the upgrade. Just depends on how much work it takes to port. But we’re optimistic that we can get something going in the very near future. One thing to note… it looks like if you want to use third party plugins you’ll need Motion. FxPlug 2.0 works with Motion and then Final Cut links to Motion. This is my understanding at the moment, but that info may change. Look for updates here and on our Facebook page.
Beautiful Example of ‘In-Camera’ Motion Graphics
BDDP Unlimited has created a beautiful spot for Solidarités International about the dangers of dirty water. While not a CG piece, it looks like real water and ink were used, it’s still inspiring both graphically and in the message. Check it out:
