After effects vs...

[instinct]

Sure. In nuke every node and every connections pipes through an arbitrary amount of channels whereas in Fusion and AE you are limited to a few designated channels (mostly RGBAZ with some additions in Fusion if i recall right?).
So for example if you where to load a full VRay rendering with all of the renderelements that will always be a single read node in Nuke whereas in non multichannel applications you can read all of the channels but have to select
which you want to read and end up with multiple read nodes or layers.

Cheers,
Thorsten

[Infrared digital]

Ah ok, so you mean that with Nuke you can bring in all your render passes in one exr and pull out each pass using a Shuffle node whereas in Fusion the same passes would have to be extracted from mutliple Loader nodes.

[instinct]

You could do that but it was not really my point. You can bring in all renderpasses and use them without shuffling out. Say you have a bunch of MultiMattes, then you just add a grade node and set the mask channel to the corresponding MMRE. As opposed to having 2 reads and piping one into the mask input of another node. That makes a HUGE difference depending on the amount of channels and the complexity of your scripts.

Cheers,
Thorsten

[Infrared digital]

Yes, 100% agree

[Morne]

The problem I have with Natron is lack of decent documentation and tutorials. I keep hearing "It's a Nuke clone", but I tried following my FXPHD Nuke courses from 2 years ago, and 5 minutes in I already couldnt find the one command. With Nuke the courses obviously worked fine. Daniel Smith now also have a Fusion course and after I'm done with that one I will attempt redoing the original Nuke courses using Fusion hehe.

I had high hopes for Natron, but when I tested it last year October, I didn't get very far...

[m_hinks]

I know what you mean, but I did some Gnomon Nuke videos and Natron was simples after. I use fusion as well but its a bit of a pain with multi layer exrs, they need a "shuffle" node then I'd be sold!

[crazy homeless guy]

Agree that Fusion's handling of multilayer EXR's is crap. Hopefully Blackmagic fixes that soon though I am not sure 8 is going to be much more than porting to OSx/Linux. If you do use Fusion I would recommend developing a standard set of Render Elements for every project. This way you can set up a template that has the EXR's multi channels properly mapped to loaders as a starting point. You can always delete the elements that you will not be using in your project.

If you go this route you will also need to download a few scripts that will allow you to update all the loaders with a few clicks.

Also, Fusion Free is limited to UltraHD output, not HD. Ultra HD is 4k video.

[Deflaminis]

I think nuke has a 'free to learn" version now, at it does according to my local reseller. I've used it once for production and it brought tears to my eyes compared to AE. I work with 32 bit a lot, and AE is kinda bad for the edges of operations in 32bit from what I've seen. In Nuke it just 'knew' what my image and project settings were supposed to be, but in AE I have to interpret footage a lot. I am also not a wizard with either of them, so maybe something basic I'm missing.

Foundry has a 50% off sale once a year, if you time it right it may not cost all THAT much.

[m_hinks]

Agree that Fusion's handling of multilayer EXR's is crap. Hopefully Blackmagic fixes that soon though I am not sure 8 is going to be much more than porting to OSx/Linux. If you do use Fusion I would recommend developing a standard set of Render Elements for every project. This way you can set up a template that has the EXR's multi channels properly mapped to loaders as a starting point. You can always delete the elements that you will not be using in your project.

If you go this route you will also need to download a few scripts that will allow you to update all the loaders with a few clicks.

Also, Fusion Free is limited to UltraHD output, not HD. Ultra HD is 4k video.

I have a simple structure, even to the extend that I have a full reconstruct flow set up, to re-use on projects. What script do you use to re-link all the split up elements to the new .exr sequence? I use the in built script but its a bit flaky.

[crazy homeless guy]

I have a simple structure, even to the extend that I have a full reconstruct flow set up, to re-use on projects. What script do you use to re-link all the split up elements to the new .exr sequence? I use the in built script but its a bit flaky.

I have a few other solutions but I find this one to be the best.
http://timhlittle.prosite.com/100549...g/eyeon-fusion


Also... If you need to generate loaders from scratch this script is a lifesaver. It looks at you EXR and then creates a loader for each layer. I find that it will miss some layers, or not map them how I want, but in general works well.
http://www.svenneve.com/?p=239

[m_hinks]

Cool, thanks for those.

We have just been setting up a Natron workflow, rendering through Deadline, with custom scripts for the exr reconstruct, had some bugs which the coders have fixed, but generally it works very well, and free. We will still keep Fusion as a backup and for old jobs, but we're trying to use Natron solely from now on.

[Oleg_Budeanu]

You can also try Natron

Do you think Natron is stable enough to build freelance workflow around it ?
Does it have any good alternatives for Optical Flares and how good is its DOF effect ? I need specifically these as i am working mostly on static images and these 2 are essentials

[crazy homeless guy]

Cool, thanks for those.

We have just been setting up a Natron workflow, rendering through Deadline, with custom scripts for the exr reconstruct, had some bugs which the coders have fixed, but generally it works very well, and free. We will still keep Fusion as a backup and for old jobs, but we're trying to use Natron solely from now on.

Is Natron more powerful than Fusion? Are you using it for stills or film?

[m_hinks]

Is Natron more powerful than Fusion? Are you using it for stills or film?

Just film, but no reason couldn't use for stills.

Id say if you have used Nuke, and now cant, Natron will take no time to learn - its the same! I've not done an exact fusion/natron comp and speed tested, but its certainly a lot easily to use in terms of using multilayer .exr's and shuffles.

[chriserskine]

dose natron work well with exif/metadata?

I'd like to be able to bring in sequence of photos, that have the normal exif + gps data. then do some masking and save out tifs with alpha channel + all the exif gps data.