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In Search of Affordable Software
As an average, educated, lucky South
African, I find it difficult to part with R20 000 to buy my favourite 3d
animation package. Separate to the negative exchange rate, we have huge
mark-ups as well. It really gets me down how much it costs to get into animation,
video or film production, when it shouldn�t. So, about two months ago I started
looking around to see if there were any alternatives to the current batch of
tools I use at work. Oh by the way I am an animator, so the tools I refer to
are post production orientated. The first place I went to was the net. After
some extensive looking around and testing I found a treasure chest of tools.
The amazing thing about these tools was that they were either free or cost a
fraction of what the tools I use at work cost. But, maybe the reason they are
so cheap or free is because they don�t work well in a production environment.
Well as a proof of concept, I decided to make the cover of this magazine using
all these new and varied tools, to see if this was true.
The packages I found were:
| Blender: |
Killer 3d modelling, animation and rendering package |
| MainVision: |
Full 2d compositing package |
| Paint Shop Pro: |
Paint program |
| Satori Paint: |
Another paint program |
| Animation Master: |
Magical 3d program specialising in character animation |
| Terragen: |
Landscape generator and renderer |
| Zwei Stein: |
Non-linear editor and compositor |
I will leave the addresses for these programs at the end of the article.
Upon starting the creation of the cover, I found it harder than I thought it would be.
I forgot I would have to learn the packages as I used them. Some of them involved a simple
process of finding where the buttons were. Others had a new or very different way of working,
which I had to figure out.
The first thing I did was use a program call Animation Master by Hash (R1800). I actually
bought it myself, I was so impressed with it. It is a 3D program that specialises in character
animation. I used this package to make the woman who is crouching down. I took one of their
stock models and moved and contorted her to the position you see. After some strategic light
and camera placement, I rendered her. This $300 package is capable of doing things that the
big boys have only now started to do. For instance the ability to create your animation in a
non-linear editing fashion. There is a strong and friendly user base, which is more than
useful for those testy times when you have a problem. I am doing a bit of a promo for this
program just because I can't stress how much this opened my eyes to new ideas.
Fine tuning of the action is done in the project workspace.
Curves representing the action can be called up aswell.
The landscape comes from a freeware program call Terragen (free). Basically it is a
program that creates and renders landscapes and outdoor scenes. I built an island and
moved my camera around. I also edited variables like sun position, colour, land texture,
etc. Now you can upgrade this package to a commercial licence to get unlimited rendering
resolution, but for video it is fine.
Adjustments to the cloud layers and
sun attributes are being done.
After rendering that, I took the picture and used a
program called Paint Shop Pro. Long seen as a very poor cousin to Photoshop, Paint Shop
Pro (+-R1000) has come on very well. I last used it 5 or 6 years ago, so I was quite
surprised to see how advanced it has become. Most if not all of the functionality of
Photoshop is there, I just had to get used to finding the buttons in different places.
Most of the compositing of the cover was done in this program, but I found working at
300dpi quite slow towards the end, and I had to jump back to Photoshop to complete it.
For video work however, it is perfect.
The rendered picture is being colour
corrected and extra elements pasted on top.
I ended up only using these three packages for the cover, but I want to highlight a few others.
Blender is another killer 3D application that is free and so very flexible. It was made by
a company called Neo Geo. They made it for in-house use and decided to distribute it for
free as a gift to the 3D community. You will often find software in development will be
free, it provides an excellent way to have people test it for you. I have been learning
this package over the last couple of weeks, and once you get over the interface learning
curve, it is a very well designed piece of software. The features are equally impressive.
This is used in production by the people who made it, so it is very solid and works well.
You can buy a manual and a couple of tutorial books for $40 and $20 each respectively. Peanuts...
Blender allows for layers in a scene, so that
you can work on specific models while hiding the others.
MainVision (shareware) is a 2d compositing program that features a full image processor.
I have just started to use this. I am an After Effects lover, so this was quite a change
to my usual working. What really surprised me and got my programming bone wiggling was the
image processor. This is a way to manipulate, composite and create images using some programming skills.
A few of the examples had kaleidoscopes of colour washing over my screen. It also had excellent
vector facilities. I could create and animate vectors quite simply.
Satori Paint (free) - another paint program where you can edit your paint strokes after you painted them.
So after a longer creation process, what could I say? I was challenged and satisfied. I really liked
these tools. They have decent features, solid workings and some new functions as well. A couple of
features and processes could be bolstered, but that could be said of almost any software package.
Would I use any of these in a production environment? Definitely, actually I have already, but a
couple of the programs could use a bit more development. The core lesson I have taken away from this
exercise is that you don't need the biggest, most expensive, feature laden program to create good work.
Sure it is nice to have that big box, full of manuals and a recognised logo to show off to your clients,
but what matters in the end is the work. The client doesn't care what it was done on, as long they get
what they want. Also the door is then open for people to really create quality content at a lower price
to the big boys. The entry barriers are lowered. Sure you can moan about inexperienced people making trash,
but I think we have that all ready with expensive gear.
One of the chief benefits of these guerrilla programs is the newcomers. People who have not had any or little
experience can learn and practice so much easier than before. There is less need to pirate software as well,
although I don't think it will stop them. I wish I had these types of programs when I first started playing
around with graphics. When I started in animation, the net was still in its infancy as a popular medium,
so my access was limited. Especially in South Africa, where we have so many great stories to tell, and
the opportunity to create a film Mecca, tools like these can only help.
Hopefully in a few months I will have more to show of these great packages. I am going to spend some time
making character studies and some title sequences. I will tell you all when that happens. If anyone wants
to contact me, either for questions or comments, my e-mail is [email protected]
If you want to explore these programs for yourself, here are their web sites:
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