Need two things in Shake 4.1

Thanks.

Here is a link to the manufacturer's page...
http://www.miglia.com/products/video/evolutiontv/index.html

"You are kind of asking a $30,000 watch to tell you if the sun's going to come up tomorrow."

That's essentially the same response I get to every post I have here. It turns out again and again I'm trying to push either the software or the media beyond its means.

I own Final Cut Pro 5.0, but was hoping to do this entirely in Shake, I suppose that's not possible. I was told when zooming in on footage I would get better quality with Shake than Final Cut Pro 5 though.

Thanks for your help so far.

Any word on distorting the proportion of elements of the picture, say in a transformation scene? Again I want to refer to the analogy with the car in a driveway doubling in size while the driveway itself doesn't become larger, leaving the size of the car to overlap the surface of the driveway.

I didn't mean I was intentionally trying to push the software beyond it's means. Its just a tendency I have to expect more from something high-end stuff like Shake or Final Cut Pro than it can actually accomplish. I have to face the fact that Shake isn't much more than a compositor and FCP not much more than an editing suite. Though in the case of Shake there is a little bit more there, and that's what I intend to focus on here.

Are there any other programs that would be good for warping elements of a video. After Effects? Discreet Combustion? Re:Map? Autodesk Toxik? Photoshop CS 2?

Perhaps software that exists solely to warp these elements?

Sorry if I ****** you off there. It wasn't my intention. I don't have a chip on my shoulder about these programs at all. I'm just not as educated about these things, and apologize if my ignorance has made you angry or impatient with my ever persisting incompetence.

The source material is not something I filmed but a preview from an animated show whose particular episode hasn't been released on DVD yet. So the source material has to be VHS because that was how I recorded it at the time. I don't see the point of transferring it to DVD from VHS, it will be the same quality, right?

Anyway, thank you for the tip on rotoscoping, I will do that. I suppose there are other programs that would be better for warping, I can't locate any in particular, but you don't seem to want to give that information since I suppose its not Shake-related and you think I'm just here to slam the software, which I'm not. As I said before, I'm ignorant to what this stuff is truly capable of, but do not dislike it.

None the less, I appreciate your help so far, and apologize if my ill-planning has upset you, I'm sure you have people who, in writing clear and more concise questions deserve your answers more. No sarcasm here. Thank you for your help so far, I'll just keep googling 'warp effects'. I don't want any bad blood between us here so again, I apologize. Sorry.

Thank you. I wasn't even aware the word they blanked out was considered a curse word. Sorry about that. What I meant to say, without using a word that evidently was vulgar (I didn't know it was), 'I evidently made you angry. Sorry.'

Final Cut Pro 5 (eBay $250)
Shake 4.1 (eBay $195)

I paid for these programs after seeing something on www.ytmnd.com. They take footage from tv shows, commercials, movies and splice together footage, inserting characters from different franchises together and such. Its pretty nifty stuff if you avoid the occassional dirty punchline.

I just bought the Apple Pro Training Series book for Shake. Thanks for your help so far. And sorry, in the same sense that until recently I didn't know you could use rotoscoping to help emulate the shallow depth of field of a 35mm camera you could use the warp feature to warp a picture for a transformation scene. Its less of a matter of my ignorance as far as the manual as it is the definition of the term itself, warp. For example thinking that when someone uses rotoscoping they're gonna go for a Scanner Darkly look to their film. Its not necessarily true. I suppose I should of wikipedia'ed the term 'warp' and see how it is defined by the people who put together the Shake or FCP program.

I'll try to avoid these forums until I survey every manual I can get my hands on for this software. Thanks for your help, have a nice day.

I admit there's more things I'm trying to do here, but in regards to this particular example its just a starting point for a larger project. I'm trying to cut together a Simpsons clip that will be a little less than five minutes long. It would take warping and rotoscoping together different sources, some available on high def source (like DVD) and others only lower (VHS or limewire download).

I was hoping I could get around having to re-draw some of the material. If I have to I can get a hold of an inexpensive version of Toon Boom Studio 3.0, (an XP version which means I'll be exporting my animation through Parallel Desktop, which would still be cheaper than buying the Mac OS X Version). But if I can avoid having to redraw a lot of the material I will obviously. And then there is the matter of the accuracy of the rotoscoping. I was hoping I wouldn't have to get a copy of Ultimatte AdvantEdge to further insure the accuracy of the rotoscope. But Shake may pull that off fine anyway, I'll see.

But essentially, now I know better what I have to do since your earlier explanation, I'll be taking characters from one source, let's say one episode and once they're rotoscoped placing them in the context of a scene from another source (another episode) I'll be warping if I can really achieve the proportion of certain elements of the scene and, if not, redrawing them in Toon Boom and exporting those animations to Shake (boy that's a lot of work). There's not just the matter of the changing of size but other characteristics of a character, which will probably mean redrawing some material.

I realize I'm being vague on a couple of points here, but I'm more explaining this for the sake of explanation than for you to come up with further solutions for my problems. 'One step at a time' I say. As much as I enjoy reading, technical writing bores me to tears so maybe I'll just get a tutorial dvd from www.thegnomonworkshop.com instead.

So this is what you have told me so far.

Rotoscope the elements for which I wish to change.

Warp these elements once they're rotoscoped.

I can either export the clips into Toon Boom and edit the material manually (redrawing it) or I can animate something separately in Toon Boom and export that to Shake.

I realize that given I'm talking about software other than Shake it may be falling out of the realm of your expertise, so just so you know Toon Boom Studio is essentially a lower level version of the program studio use to draw and animate cartoons (think Maya but only two dimensional).

There's no need for you to respond at this point, unless you want to. I've had enough explained to me that I can assume you know, I'm not sure what your expertise is as far as what lies outside the realm of this particular software, and what I'm doing may seem impossible or downright weird. I'm not really asking for an explaination anymore, you've given me a point to start off at and from there its really up to what I can get from either the people who designed the Parallel Desktop software or Toon Boom software to know what those can and cannot do. Or maybe I can use the Quick Paint feature on Shake. I'll have to look into that too.

So thank you. You've gotten me started. It was much appreciated.