CineMontage

Q3 2022

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F l i x i m p ro v e d h o w i t i m p o r t s p a n e l s w i t h e i t h e r c a m e r a m o v e s o r l a y - e r t r a n s f o r m s . N o w , c a m e r a m o v e keyframes created in Storyboard Pro can be manipulated in Avid Media Composer. S o a s t o r y b o a r d a r t i s t c a n a d d t h e i r sequence to Flix and then export an AAF which contains the camera move key- frames. When the editor imports the AAF into Media Composer, they can open the panel with those keyframes and rework them. The editor can export their revised sequence as an AAF back into Flix so the artist can update their sequence with the edited camera moves. Also, Flix 6.4 can now import full-canvas PSD (Photoshop) files and QuickTime files rendered from Storyboard Pro. Since Flix is designed to work with Premiere and Media Composer, editors can make timing changes, rearrange shots, add markers and audio to a sequence, as well as add in external media such as Ado- be After Effects compositions or a Maya playblast, and all these changes can then be imported back to Flix and will appear as a new revision. "We use Flix to send a sequence with my timing to the storyboard artists for revisions. They make their changes and pass it back through Flix and it retains my timing. It definitely expedites the process," Crist said. Other new features are the Transfer Queue Table with a clearer and more com- prehensive UI that lets both artists and editors track their transfer processes and see and organize uploads and downloads. The newly implemented saving system — the Enabled UI — reduces downtime by allowing users to continue work on current revisions or switch to other revisions, sequences, and shows while transfers are still happening. F l i x 6 . 4 i n t e g r a t e s w i t h p o p u l a r animation and editing tools like the afore- mentioned Adobe Premiere, Photoshop, Avid Media Composer, and Apple Final Cut Pro. According to the Foundry site, support for Shotgrid (through an example plugin) and Maya (simplified) are on the horizon. BLENDER Editor Tim Collins – who worked on Season 1 of Amazon Prime's "The Legend of Vox Machina" and Netflix's "Q-Force" as assistant editor – has always been drawn to animation. His childhood days were spent making short stop-motion films using the Lego Steven Spielberg Moviemaker Set. "Professionally, the projects I've worked on have all been animated. And half of my favorite shows are animated. So, I'm essen- tially the demographic that would watch the things I work on," he joked. His appreciation of animation led to learning tools like Autodesk's Maya while in college, and then exploring the use of Blender (blender.org) for motion graphics in his editing career. One big difference Collins found between the two is the price tag. Blender is an open-source 3D creation suite that can handle all aspects of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, video editing, and even game cre- ation. And it's 100% free. "There's been a growing interest in the creation of 3D content, but most people getting into animation don't have enough money to pay for Maya," he said. "Fea- ture-wise, I can't tell the difference between Maya and Blender at this point for 3D mod- eling, texturing, and animating. Blender even has a basic non-linear video editor and professionally-viable node-based compos- iting system, not to mention a fully featured 2D-within-3D-space hand-drawn anima- tion system called Grease Pencil." Since Blender is open-source software, its development is driven by indepen - dent contributors, including developers, scripters, technical writers, translators, designers, and testers. Collins said, "People from across the world continually modify and update the application's open source code for their own unique uses, and many of those changes make their way into future releases of Blender. Even big corporations sponsor Blender, donating six-digit figures to pay for developers to build integration with their proprietary products in future releases. There are also individual 'Patre- on-style' donations. It's grown from this niche 3D program that you could use if you didn't have any money into a powerhouse. And it keeps growing." As an editor (and not an animator), Collins uses Blender mainly for motion graphics. For example, he's recently edited an animated series and used Blender to create dynamic backgrounds for the end credits. He received concept art from the series art director, imported that 2D art into Photoshop, broke it out into multiple layers, and exported PNGs with alpha channels. In Blender, he used the free plugin "Import images as planes" to import the art as 3D layers. Collins explained, "In our case, we needed transparency in the images, so we The Blender interface. 43 S U M M E R Q 3 I S S U E T E C H

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