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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Autodesk Composite 2011

Paul Lee

Paul Lee

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Some 3D friends were recently telling me how much they like Composite 2011 (which was Toxik). I couldn't find ANYTHING on Autodesk's web site other than support issues. Anyone know about it? Use it? Where to get it, etc.? Thanks!
 
Awesome software, but a bit quirky and expensive. You need to talk to an authorized Autodesk reseller. That would be GW Hannaway or 5280 Digital for us, Paul. They should be able to give you a demo or at least let you play with it. IMO, if you want to spend money on some compositing software, your money will be better spent with Nuke. Especially if you're not using other Autodesk tools (Flame, Smoke, Lustre).
 
Interesting Jeff. I thought it was odd that it doesn't appear anywhere on their site. Seems like it would be a bigger deal! SO I'm assuming it must be in the $3-6k range?
 
You can no longer buy Toxik/Composite separately. But it comes free with Maya and 3ds Max which are both the same price as Toxik was before being bundled... so I guess alternately you could say Max comes free with Composite.

Or you could get Nuke for a little bit more.

My experience with Toxik has been that it's kind of 'meh' not to mention buggy on Windows. If you do decide to go Composite instead of Nuke... wait a month or two for 2012.
 
Composite is included when you buy Maya 2011. As far as I know it's no longer a separate program. Not sure if it comes with 3ds max as well...
 
Ah, so it's a 'bundle-only' bonus app. Interesting and not encouraging.

Thanks guys
 
Paul Lee said:
Ah, so it's a 'bundle-only' bonus app. Interesting and not encouraging.

Thanks guys
Click to expand...

I don't really like the workflow that much, but in its defense it does still have a development team working on it. So it shouldn't be mistaken for an abandoned app like Stitcher or Combustion which was just EOL'ed.
 
Whoops.. I had no idea they were bundling it now.

I stand by my Nuke recommendation. Nuke is awesome.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Whoops.. I had no idea they were bundling it now.

I stand by my Nuke recommendation. Nuke is awesome.
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And nuke has native r3d support, which Composite does not.
 
Ah, that's big!
 
Recently I'd attended a Smoke on a Mac demo. It is a bit surprising, unless I'm missing something, but I don't think Smoke on a Mac can write either Prores or DnxHD or for this matter, write any kind of high quality compressed codec. Yes, it can soft import RAW, but I find the process very kludgy and it's still hadn't been updated to the latest Red SDK. Very disappointing trackers, color grading needs to be updated. Frankly, I don't even know why there are still two CC, as color warper is the only barely usable one. The Euphonics support is interesting, but overall, personally, I'm disappointed. Way overpriced for it's present toolset. For compositing Nuke is much more powerful with tons of 3rd party tools and way more economical.
 
i prefer nuke. but i'm sure you can get things done with composite. if you want maya or max, and don't want to purchase nuke on top of that, you'd probably be fine... however, as was mentioned, i would wait just a bit for the 2012 version to come out. maya 2011 has been a really buggy release, and while i use it over the earlier versions, it's a bit of a "raw deal."

remember with nuke you get upgrades and support for a year. and they have really good updates and support. also, it does work better with red footage, probably even more so with the foundry's new storm release. autodesk updates, well... sometimes they decide to fix things, but they're certainly not going to add any new features in their patches. they need to just get a somewhat reliable version and then spend a couple of years looking at their source code. but don't get me wrong, i love their software (maya) and use it quite a bit.
 
Sven Seynaeve said:
So what you all think about the flame premium package?? smoke, flame and lustre???
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Unless you are in a client session and doing a lot of look dev or editing then Smoke/Flame isn't really worth the expense (except of course if you can bill it, in which case--do the business plan and see if it's worth purchasing). I do client sessions with Nuke regularly and it's not nearly as slick as FFI's versioning and desktop features it is probably the more capable compositor--especially with NukeX.

The nice thing about something like Flame though is that you can do all of the titling more easily. I've done motion graphics in Nuke but it's a bit of a PITA.
 
Jake, Smoke on Mac is my daily workhorse.

jake blackstone said:
Recently I'd attended a Smoke on a Mac demo. It is a bit surprising, unless I'm missing something, but I don't think Smoke on a Mac can write either Prores or DnxHD or for this matter, write any kind of high quality compressed codec.
Click to expand...

Yes true. Should be working.

jake blackstone said:
Yes, it can soft import RAW, but I find the process very kludgy and it's still hadn't been updated to the latest Red SDK.
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Yes. 2012 is around the corner. Let's see what the Red SDK will be then. BTW, I find it much better to work with RGB files than with RAW that needs CPU demanding debayering.

jake blackstone said:
Very disappointing trackers, color grading needs to be updated. Frankly, I don't even know why there are still two CC, as color warper is the only barely usable one.
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The Tracker is a legend and working very well, IMHO. Why there is the CC I don't know. The CW is the best colour correction tool in any NLE I know. The Modular Keyer is second to none if quality and speed have to set into a meaningful perspective. And last but not least, Smoke's audio tools are better than anything available in FCP for instance.

jake blackstone said:
The Euphonics support is interesting, but overall, personally, I'm disappointed. Way overpriced for it's present toolset.
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My perspective is from the filmmakers point of view. I invested 60+ USD into a RedOne package because it looks nearly as good as 35mm and helps to safe money. I don't see why I then should save money in post production and rely on tools that either deliver mediocre quality or steel my time unnecessarily due to workflow issues. People tend to justify a 45k cine zoom and whine when a software package exceeds the 3k realm.

jake blackstone said:
For compositing Nuke is much more powerful with tons of 3rd party tools and way more economical.
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Jake, here you compare apples with pairs. Smoke is an NLE with a tool set that is designed to tackle problems when finishing a project. It's not a compositor like Nuke, although it's Action module has some powerful composting features. If you want to compare anything of the Autodesk finishing range to Nuke than be fare and chose Flame.

FCP is more economical than FCP when you compare price tags. When you compare labour time there are many projects where a combo of FCP, AE and Nuke is much slower and hardly less costly than Smoke. Just think of versioning, client attended sessions, etc....

There is a reason why all post houses around the world that work in the TVC market rely heavily on Autodesk Flame and Smoke.

Hans
 
" People tend to justify a 45k cine zoom and whine when a software package exceeds the 3k realm."

Classic so sadly true!!!
 
Hans von Sonntag said:
Jake, Smoke on Mac is my daily workhorse.
The Tracker is a legend and working very well, IMHO. Why there is the CC I don't know. The CW is the best colour correction tool in any NLE I know. The Modular Keyer is second to none if quality and speed have to set into a meaningful perspective. And last but not least, Smoke's audio tools are better than anything available in FCP for instance.
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Point trackers are so yesterday. For 1990 it may be a good tracker, not for 2011. Even AE provides Moca for planar tracking. AE has WAY better tools for grading. And I'm not even talking about 3rd party tools, like Color Finesse, that are available. CW is extremely limited. For example, in CW you can do just three secondaries. Again, it's so 1990s. Smoke keyers are good, but Nuke has great keyers as well.


Hans von Sonntag said:
My perspective is from the filmmakers point of view. I invested 60+ USD into a RedOne package because it looks nearly as good as 35mm and helps to safe money. I don't see why I then should save money in post production and rely on tools that either deliver mediocre quality or steel my time unnecessarily due to workflow issues. People tend to justify a 45k cine zoom and whine when a software package exceeds the 3k realm.
Click to expand...
Not sure what's your point. Are you saying, that software has to be expensive to be good?



Hans von Sonntag said:
Jake, here you compare apples with pairs. Smoke is an NLE with a tool set that is designed to tackle problems when finishing a project. It's not a compositor like Nuke, although it's Action module has some powerful composting features. If you want to compare anything of the Autodesk finishing range to Nuke than be fare and chose Flame.
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That will be a surprise to Autodesk marketing, because that is exactly how they promote Smoke on a Mac. Remember, I'm talking about the neutered Mac version, not Smoke advanced.
Hans von Sonntag said:
FCP is more economical than FCP when you compare price tags. When you compare labour time there are many projects where a combo of FCP, AE and Nuke is much slower and hardly less costly than Smoke. Just think of versioning, client attended sessions, etc....

There is a reason why all post houses around the world that work in the TVC market rely heavily on Autodesk Flame and Smoke.

Hans
Click to expand...
I'm assuming you're talking about Flame vs FCP, right? Again, I'm talking about Smoke on a Mac. And how's FCP, AE and Nuke combo is "hardly less costly than Smoke"? It's not even close...
 
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