question about eyeon digital fusion

[octopus2000]

what features of digital fusion are important enough that lightwave can't do on it's own?

i'm trying to figure out if i need to buy a compositing package. anyone who have first hand knowledge of digital fusion, pls. share your thoughts. i'm trying to make up my mind about compositing programs. i might buy one someday, i don't know if i need it. i'm clueless.

[Dexter2999]

http://newtek.com/forums/showthread....ight=janus+exr

[Jockomo]

In general, if you want more (separated) elements than a background and a foreground then you need a compositing program.

Also it's very useful in certain circumstances to render in layers.
Here's and example http://www.3drender.com/light/compositing/index.html

You can usually download demo versions of software, I'd try that and do some tutorials before you decide to buy.

Personally my new favorite compositor is Nuke

[Eagle66]

Watch this two Videos and you know what a compositing program...

Multi-pass 2D Compositing with Fusion
http://vfxhaiku.com/2009/10/intro-to...s-compositing/

Artist Presentation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJqM2x8dgJ0

[Captain Obvious]

YES, YOU NEED COMPOSITING SOFTWARE!


Not necessarily Fusion, but it's as good a choice as any and can be had for a reasonable price (the 'à la carte' pricing with more expensive subscription is only $1500).

It's not always necessary (or even wise) to render different passes and elements, but if nothing else, compositing lets you grade things easily.

[Greenlaw]

In the Box at R+H, LightWave may be our primary renderer but we rely heavily on Fusion for final compositing. And for us compositing is a very broad term; it's not just for slapping rendered elements and live action plates together; we use Fusion for generating fx elements, 2D and some 3D tracking, custom image processing, motion blur, subsurface scattering, re-lighting and lighting enhancement etc. Basically, almost anything that would be very time consuming for us to do in 3D has found a way to be done as a fully tweakable post process in Fusion. To be fair, we have a lot of in-house plug-ins and scripts to help us do this, though much of what we do can be done with native tools and a few third party LW and Fusion tools, and a bit of creative thinking.

But does it HAVE to be Fusion? We really like Fusion in the Box, but if you've never used a compositing program before there are less expensive options you can experiment with. AfterEffects is an obvious choice for many people, though it's very different from Fusion. AE is layers based while Fusion is completely node based. I've used both in my career, and while I think AE is a lot easier to wrap your head around (especially for PS artists,) Fusion is infinitely more flexible and easier to set up and use once you understand how it works. It really comes down to just how sophisticated you need your comps to be. For a lot of people, AE's capabilities will be more than sufficient and within their budget.

BTW, I think both programs have trial versions available.

[IndieXX]

Hi, I work for eyeon. There are different compositing softwares out there and they all have their upsides and their downsides.

You can read all about the newest features being released, shortly, with Fusion 6.1 at this link http://www.eyeonline.com/Web/EyeonWe...6/fusion6.aspx

And here's the low down on Fusion's pricing, http://www.eyeonline.com/Web/EyeonWe...?articleid=402

We do have an eval available if you want to try it out. Contact me any time if you have questions, sue@eyeonline.com.

Cheers,
Sue