Jason's Recommend Utilities - PC edition

• 1.       MediaFours, Mac Drive; allows us lowly windows users to read hard drives formatted just for Mac's. It does cost a little but if you're in a multiplatform studio then this may save some hassle. Let's face it FAT32 formatting is plain annoying.
• 2.       Auslogic Defrag; Free defragging tool, also a version that only defrags when your screensavers running. defragging machines is always good for them. Also worth looking at their other free system cleaning apps.
• 3.       Teracopy; Free software that replaces windows copy function with something that works. gives accurate timeframes and claims to be faster. on the whole I have found it a lot more reliable.
• 4.       Windows Live Mail; free download for windows, less fuss than outlook and allows for all your email accounts to filter through one program. great for those of us with too many email address. also see Mozilla Thunderbird.
• 5.       Handbrake; free dvd ripping software, with a little tweaking can produce high quality rips.

AE Quick Tip - Null Objects

Soooo I've been a bit lax with this project, this will change in the new year.

first up a quick tip when working in After Effects with many text/solid layers being parented to Null objects. as far as I can work out the default colour picker lets you define the colours for video/music/still layer but doesn't differentiate between null/text or solid layers. usually the null objects are controlling the other layers in one way or another and there for finding them quickly to make changes is useful, naming them differently helps (unlike my image below) but I've started also changing the colour by clicking on box and selecting any one from the drop down list helps me instantly distinguish from a sea of red layers.

thats all for now. see you all in the new year.

General Errors in Encore

Quick tip for anyone building dvd’s in encore. It is a picky little bitch, it is always good to use an external encoder like adobe media encoder or episode (mac) to pre-render files into mpeg2 format instead of using the transcoder in Encore. Also render the sound files separately where you can, the quality is better sometimes. If you’re getting a general error when you try to build and burn the projects, it is sometimes because one of the  sound or video files has been encoded differently to the others. Encore won’t tell you which one, because its helpful like that.

Settings I’ve found useful are for video:

and for sound

at the end of the day it really depends on how much your trying to squeeze into a shiny disc. I hear dvd studio pro is easier but I have never been able to use it.

Jason

A few freeking awesome artists:

http://john-nevarez.blogspot.com/search?q=paul+felix

Those environments are mind blowing

http://paperwalker.blogspot.com/

Just found him today-kind of oldschool style, just really well done

http://creaturebox.com/

And my favorite of the moment-their book is stunning!

-D

Cross platform helper

http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

Found this for PC, will allow you to read Mac formatted external hard drives. goodbye FAT32 and your stupid file limit.

Jason

brushes /vectors

anyone got any good sites for brushes / vectors for photoshop illustrator?

dany carlyle

edit detector after effects

Hi Maggots - 

for anyone working with After Effects and large chunks of footage with scene changes 

Tom Sellick is the man for you - well magnum pi-the script

http://aescripts.com/magnum-the-edit-detector/

this is a script that detects edits in footage and automatically cuts em up for you 

freeing you up to watch old re-runs of Magnum P.I while wearing hawian shirts and drinking pina colada's

p.s kris twitch is just a phone call away

Dany Carlyle