Re: @Walter Biscardi: Yes, Autodesk Smoke 2013 Changes Everything

[Tom Daigon] "From what little Ive seen, it seems a little light in the motion graphics / text animation department compared to AE.
"

Yeah I use both and still prefer AE for a lot of stuff. I think this is really good news but doesn't change everything. AE is one of the best things out there with tons of reasonably priced plugins. We'll have to see how much the plugins come down for Smoke as they have been a lot more than the AE versions.

So to me it kind of comes down to what you do. You have 3 major players and they all have different advantages and disadvantages. Adobe's disadvantage is for now editing and color correction but we'll see how those have been improved soon I hope.

Avid's disadvantage is in effects and color correction. I'm not sure if they are planning on addressing the color issue but these issues are easy to deal with by sending to AE and Resolve. Avid is great for audio I've found as it will run all of my waves plugins with the full interface.

Smoke's main disadvantage is in motion graphics and plugin prices and we'll see about the editing but the color correction is great, comping is a little kludgy and difficult to learn but tracking and roto are great, and the results can be fantastic.

But for a single package Smoke will be a good deal compared to the Avid/AE/Resolve route because you're looking at $2400 for Avid, around $900 for AE, and $1000 for Resolve.

Adobe Production Premium is $1700 which is a lot of software and a great value in comparison but it kind of depends on how good Premiere gets.

All very interesting though.

Robert Brown
Editor/VFX/Colorist - FCP, Smoke, Quantel Pablo, After Effects, 3DS MAX, Premiere Pro

http://vimeo.com/user3987510/videos