Compositing tip #1 (Mac only)

[Paolo Ciccone]

Here is something that I learned recently.
AfterEffects is still PowerPC only but I use an Intel-based MacBookPro. While the MBP is a great machine, it runs PPC apps slower than my old 1.67Ghz Powerbook. I could use the PB to run Adobe software but the problem is, I work with two Lacie firewire disks attached to my MBP all the time and I don't particularly like to disconnect the disks just to render a composite with the PowerBook.
Mac OS to the rescue.
You can share your hard disks and mount them from another machine and they will look in the finder exactly like they are physically connected to the "client" machine. There none of the C: D: E: nonsense that plaugues Windows.
In this way I can create my composite intereactively using my MBP. Then I close AfterEffects, and re-launch it from the PowerBook and let it run happily in PowerPC heaven while I continue my editing in FCP Intel-native on my MBP. In addition to this I made the network connection between the machines by using a Firewire cable so it's many times faster than by using WiFi and even faster than Ethernet cable. Here is how it's done.

- Connect a Firewire (400 or 800) cable between the two machines.
- Go to System preferences on the MBP. Click on Network. Enable "Built-in Firewire".
- In the config panel for the FW network drop down the "Configure IPv4" list and select "Manually".
- In the IP address type an IP address of your choosing. If your normal Wifi network starts with 192.168... then use 10.0.0.2 for the FW network and for the MBP. If your WiFi network uses 10.0.0.x the use 192.168.0.2 for the FW network.
- Click on "Apply now".
- Go to the PowerBook. Do the same but this time use 10.0.0.3 or 192.168.0.3 for the address.
- In the MBP System Preference click on "Sharing". Enable "Personal File sharing"
- In the PowerBook click on the Finder. Press "Cmd-K" and type afp://10.0.0.2 or afp://192.168.0.2 for the name of the server. This will bring up a window for the login and another one for selecting what disk, on the server, you want to use. At this point I select both, yes you can select multiple disks with one operation, just hold the Cmd key and click on all disk that you want, and confirm.
- You will see that the disks, in my case they are called "MovieBin" and "Marv" are now listed in the sidebar of Finder. At this point any AfterEffect project that you created from the server machine will load in the client machine just fine, the paths are exactly the same and so all references to layers and footage resolve in the same way on both machines.
- Start a new render queue and enjoy working on two machines at the same time :)

[Jonathan Ames]

I don't even know what he's talking about but it sounds right and that's what it's all about; spreading the education around. Everyone needs a Paolo. Seriously, I couldn't be prouyder to be associated with this group of guys. Paolo, Mike, Scott, Da-Iry, Isabella and the rest. Thanks.

[Paolo Ciccone]

Thank you Jonathan. More tips are gonna come, as a matter of fact I was thinkign that we should have an episode about what I'm doing right now. As you know I had to do some chromakey work and it turns out that I had to setup and process in the neighborhood of 85 video clips in chromakey. This takes some serious time just to setup and I found a great workflow that simplifies the operations. We should feature it.

[David Simpson]

In summary, the old macs which used, a powerpc processor, ran the adobe software in a highly optimized way. Since the new macs changed to using intel processors, the adobe software has not yet been updated or optimized. So it can be faster to finish a project that requires adobe software on an older powerpc mac. Of course it depends on the speed of your old mac.

Paolo provides the details on how to create firewire network so that an external firewire hard drive can be shared by both the intel and powerpc mac at the same time without having to disconnect the drive from one computer and reconnect to the other.

Great tip!

I look forward to hearing about your chromakey workflow!

Keep em comin!!

[Paolo Ciccone]

Thanks David.
I will get to it asap. Right now I'm in editing hell :)

[Meryem Ersoz]

awesome tip, paolo. thanks! we can totally use this, instead of fighting over out 1 TB hard drive set-ups....i had a feeling that there should be a way to do this, but i couldn't figure it out....