Back in 2010 I converted my After Effects spill suppression plugin for 64 bit, but never released it. Well, here it is.
Release: Spill suppression for After Effects 64 bit (CS5+)
7
CineGobs Keyer/CineGobs FX development dropped.
I’m sorry to inform you that there will be no more development on CineGobs keyer and also the idea of taking it to the next level, CineGobs FX, has been dropped.
It’s impossible for me to put the nescessary amount of work into it.
CineGobs keyer 2.3.0 released
The main changes in this version:
Matte expansion.
All keyer modules now has an expansion slider instead of the erode slider. With this control you can expand or reduce the matte by an arbitrary amount. This is really usefull for fine tuning the edges of your mattes.
I’ve also added mask expansion to the rotoscoping masks, which works in a similar way.
Improvements and bug-fixes
Lot’s of improvements, especially to rotoscoping, and several important bug fixes.
Avisynth + Windows 7 problems
I’ve heard from several people that they’re unable to open video using AviSynth in CineGobs keyer. One thing they all have in common is that they’re using Windows 7. I’m using the 64 bit version of Windows 7 myself and I have no problems opening video using Avisynth, so there’s very little I can do about it at the moment.
If anyone has suggestions how to solve this problem please let me know.
Carrara 8
Recently Carrara 8 was released and it’s half price until 15′th of June. It’s among the cheapest 3D software, but I’ve been really impressed with what you get.
The only 3D software I’ve been using regularly before is Blender which is open-source. Here are some of my personal observations:
The Good
The user interface suits me much better than Blender. It’s more polished and I feel using it with a Wacom tablet works much better. Placing objects, rigging and animating them is very simple in Carrara. The material editor is awesome and fast to work with. Also having a material library is something I’ve really missed in Blender. The renderer is fast and supports GI, SSS and Caustics. Carrara also has tons of neat things like a terrain generator, plant generator, great hair/fur support, very good 3D paint, easy to use Bullet physics, volumetric fog/fire and much more.
The bad
Modelling works well but felt awkward in the beginning. Also the UV mapping took some getting used to. Particles are pretty easy to work with but more limited than Blenders. Carrara also doesn’t have a compositor, and is missing some of the more special stuff like Blenders fantastic fluid simulator.
The verdict
There’s no doubt that I’m going to be using Carrara 8 as my primary 3D software in the future. It just feels faster and more intuitive to me. I’m not going to stop using Blender though, since it still does a lot of great things that Carrara doesn’t.