Thanks again for another quality riposte in this dialog.
[Jeremy Garchow] "I go back to my statement, the system wasn't ready. It was released in the 10.0 state because everything was not quite in place."
If FCPX were being built in such a way that was truly developer-friendly, then APIs and XML would have been ready before launch. I agree with you that it was not quite ready, but I'm worried that you're underestimating how not ready it was.
Let me use a bad construction analogy. The user sees the finished house, but the developers work with the framing underneath.
The fact that the product is out but developer support is not suggests to me that they are are actually re-framing the house underneath the finished skin -- or that developer support is not a priority. Either one is bad.
[Jeremy Garchow] "Wouldn't you want an EDL that connected to the new Resolve renders? Why go back to an NLE when it's not needed? That's all."
EDLs aren't file based; they're reel/timecode based, so there's no need or way to connect them to the new renders. Instead, you can re-conform from the original EDL with the new render files (replacing the original media files) -- if your NLE supports such old-fashioned interchange notions as EDL and conform.
[Jeremy Garchow] "So now that AE can be used for these things, that means it should remain the same and not get this interchange capability added? So, it's grown or morphed into something that it didn't start out to be. This is good!
And weren't you the one saying that AE is THE example of an open and extensible system, when really, you must play by it's rules and figure out the way to get in and out of it, and then mange that media, or buy third party plugins and use a proprietary linking system that's owned by Adobe? At least FCPX now has FCPXML which we have already seen is talking to "industry standard" applications, and more will come. Shit, FCPX was already talking to AE, even without FCPXML which says something about both programs."
I don't want to argue against expanding capabilities, but this one seems like a stretch. You are suggesting essentially wrapping the entire functionality of Premiere Pro into After Effects, without losing any of what makes AE great.
AE isn't an NLE. It's not a real finishing system. It doesn't have the necessary editorial toolset, because it's not designed to be an editorial tool. The fact that it can be used so far outside of what it was designed to do shows how flexible it is, but you want to bend it more?
Another bad analogy: If an NLE like FCP is a hammer, a compositor like AE is a screwdriver. They are built differently, and built for different purposes.
That said, I actually did drive a nail with a screwdriver a couple days ago. I was on a ladder, and I had the screwdriver in my hand, so I gave up the appropriateness of a hammer for the convenience of not having to climb back down and up again.
If you want to borrow my screwdriver to pound nails, be my guest -- but please don't re-engineer it to drive nails better. I actually use it to drive screws, and rather like the way it works.
If anything, I'd argue that embedding AE in PrP would be a more natural fit: AE is built for shots, and PrP is built for sequences of shots.
Separate note: I would love to see Adobe take on Autodesk Smoke and Avid DS in the finishing market. They've got all the technology, spread out over a couple different applications. I'd love to see them take all those components and integrate them well. Dynamic link is interesting and can be powerful, but using it with AE and PrP shows the difference between a shot orientation and a sequence orientation pretty quickly.
[Jeremy Garchow] "I am looking forward to Lightworks, I hope it can fly, let's see what an open source model can really do."
Agreed. Should be interesting!
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at
Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
