Can You Legally Use H.264 for Professional Video?

In the context of the Flash - HTML5 controversy, Jan Ozer has been comparing the Ogg and h.264 codecs recently -- see Google Closes On2 acquision - Better check your wallet and Ogg, MPEG-LA and Submarine Patents -- and warns against the cost of encoding and storage for multiple codecs.

[Update: ReadWriteWeb summarizes some of Ozer's benchmarks in Does HTML5 Really Beat Flash? The Surprising Results of New Tests]

Now, Larry Jordan and Philip Hodgetts have dealt with a related issue -- Can You Legally Use H.264 for Professional Video?

You can listen to their discussion on Digital Production Buzz, of March 4 2010, plus Larry has provided a summary on his blog:

"Note: This is not legal advice - for that, see your lawyer. However, this is our understanding of the problem, with a link to learn more. A license fee for H.264 use is probably required for professional use if ALL the following conditions are all met:

1. The video program must be encoded using the H.264 codec. (Other codecs are not covered by this license agreement.)
2. You sell the program. (If no money changes hands, no license fee is required.)
3. The program is sold to the ultimate end user. (If you are compressing files for use by someone else, say, digital dailies, no license fee is due.)
4. These programs must be in excess of 12 minutes. (Shorter programs do not require a license fee.)

If required, the license fee is very small: $0.02 per disc sold or about 2% of gross revenue, whichever is smaller."

Zoom in and enhance

While most of us have seen Let's Enhance, a rerun of The Simpsons provides another algorithm for now:

An Alphabet Soup of Fake Text Particles

Lester Banks noted a new 65-minute After Effects tutorial by Quba Michalski, Tutorial: Alphabet Soup (Fake Text Particles). Quba says:

"Rather than using Trapcode Particular (which many of you may not have installed) or CC Particle World (which really could use an update to its coordinate system) the project fakes particle simulation through use of text animators. This quite lengthy tutorial is derived from another Video Bits project I created a while ago."

Alphabet Soup Tutorial Preview from Quba Michalski on Vimeo.

SF Cutters March 11: Red Giant sneak peek & more

SF Cutters -- brought to you originally by the Option key in Final Cut -- is having their 10th Anniversary meeting is this week on Thursday March 11th. The meeting is at Adobe is at 601 Townsend at 7th in San Francisco.

This meeting is free but please sign up for access and for better food planning. Here's the current agenda:

• STUMP THE GURUS With Kevin Monahan, Jesse Spencer, Karl Soule, Sean Safreed
• Karl Soule: Adobe Evangelist on The Making of AVATAR and Adobe Production Premium & a sneak peak of the new Mercury Playback Engine
• Sean Safreed: Redgiant Software - More Grinder & Sneak Peaks of New Releases
• Chris Fenwick: Slice Editorial - Organize your FCP Project - Save your sanity and Improve your Business
• Raffle, which includes CS4 Adobe Production Premium, DigiEffects Mega Suite, NAB Post Production World Pass, and more!
  

3D Ball Dispersion with CC Ball Action

Andrew Kramer has a new After Effects tutorial on Video Copilot, 3D Ball Dispersion:

"In this tutorial we will learn a technique to offset the animation of the CC Ball Action effect to create a cool transition. This effect uses only built-in plug-in and offers creative flexibility for a variety of looks. The project file also includes a script for offsetting the layers by 1 frame to make the process easier. The tutorial is about 25 minutes but the time will fly by!"

The built-in CC Ball Action filter "transforms the source layer into an array of balls. You can rotate and twist the array around a specified axis and scatter the array in all directions." Ball Action is a very old filter that hasn't been upgraded beyond support for the AE comp camera, but using the Brighten Twist control makes things interesting beyond the basics described by the intro by Brian Maffitt from an old Total Training video at Toolfarm.

Other tutorials can be found around the net, including Jumbotrons in After Effects, Harry Frank's Rippling Circles, Sound Reacting 3D Waveform without 3rd Party Plugins from Satya Meka, and Give Your Type Some Ball Action from Adam at AETuts.

Exploring the Aux System in Trapcode Particular

Harry Frank has an After Effects tutorial on Red Giant TV exploring the Aux System in Trapcode Particular, Episode 38: Creating a Music to Light Effect:

"In this episode of Red Giant TV, Harry Frank shows you how to re-create the Music-to-Light effect (seen last season on Heroes), using Trapcode Particular 2. He'll also use Mojo to alter the color, and Knoll 3D Flare to add to the effect."

Episode 38: Creating a Music to Light Effect from Red Giant Software on Vimeo.

The 12 basic principles of animation for After Effects

AE Tuts Premium ($9 /month or less) is featuring an After Effects tutorial series by Bryan Clark on applying the Disney system of 12 Basic Principles of Animation. Here's a sample:

Wikipedia has a decent article on the 12 basic principles of animation, "a set of principles of animation introduced by the Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation." I'm just excited because I found a paperback version in a used bookstore for $4 this last weekend.

If you don't have John Lasseter's seminal 1987 SIGGRAPH paper based on The Illusion of Life, there's a decent scanned copy available: Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation.

Fuel Your Motionography finished a 3-part explanation in October with examples from recent works; see Principles of Animation for Motionographers – Part 3 of 3. Also, in the recent Lynda.com training series After Effects CS4 Beyond the Basics, Chad Perkins explores techniques for animation according to several of these principles.