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Topic: Hitfilm 4 VS Adobe After Effects

Okay, so there are a few things I would like to know.

First of all, which is better, Hitfilm 4 or Adobe After Effects? I know lots of people use AE, but I don't really see it as being a lot better than Hitfilm 4 (bear in mind I will mainly be using either for lightsabers, lasers, explosions, gunfire, masking, compositing, green screen and maybe colour correction (I believe you can do the last one on dragonframe? If not then colour correction is definitely something else that I will need to be able to do). And do many of you use rotoscoping? I'm not sure that would be something that I would want, although I am pretty sure both do rotoscoping. I am also interested to hear about any other potentially useful features for animating that I haven't mentioned.

Secondly, (if I was to get Hitfilm 4) what exactly do you get with Hitfilm 4 Express, and what does Hitfilm 4 Pro offer in addition to that? Seeing as there is a free version and a £250 version, I would like to know if it would be necessary to get the paid for version, or whether to just get the free one. I need to know in at least 2-3 weeks at the latest, but I will be very grateful if someone could answer these problems of mine for me ASAP. Thanks in advance mini/smile

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Re: Hitfilm 4 VS Adobe After Effects

There are 2 main points I'll hit: that HF4 Express is free and is both a compositor and editor.
First, HF4 is free. This means you can download it and give it a shot. If it doesn't meet all your needs, then download a trial version of AE and Premiere Pro and see if that fits.
Additionally, HF4 is a two-in-one program, making for a streamlined workflow (no need to get a separate editor).
As for functionality, both programs should be able to do everything you listed. I personally preferred AE, since it has a greater number of effects and several are more advanced than Hitfilm (like 3d motion tracking and effects). However, HF4 is extremely versatile and includes a number of pre-created effects (like gunfire, explosions, etc). You can also do masking, time-remapping, chroma- and luma-keying, color correction is a breeze, and overall, it's done everything I need it to.
Between HF4 and the Pro version, I think there are more plugins included in the Pro version and a little more versatility. However, for the aforementioned tasks, the free version would work fine.
One final thing: whichever program you choose, there will be a learning curve, so be ready to spend some time practicing and learning the program...online tutorials are definitely one of the most useful tools for this.

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Re: Hitfilm 4 VS Adobe After Effects

Okay, thank you very much for the help! You mentioned Premiere Pro, and I have heard that quite a number of people use it, however, I am not quite sure what it is used for (I have dragonframe at the moment, is it just adobe's version of that?) It would be good to know. Oh, and I am well aware that it will take some time to master either programmes, however having recently bought dragonframe the online tutorials have indeed helped out a lot, especially the one that was done by asapanimation mini/wink

If anyone else wants to add their thoughts/opinions, you are very welcome to mini/smile

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Dragon Brick Studios's Website

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Re: Hitfilm 4 VS Adobe After Effects

Premiere Pro is an editing software. After shooting with DragonFrame, that's where you'd assemble the shots to create the story, add some sound, etc. And from there, you can send some shots to After Effects for the compositing.
I haven't trying Hitfilm in depth, so I can't tell you a lot about it, but I'm pretty sure After Effects has more features than it.
Maybe it's just features that you won't need, I don't know.
After Effects has been around for a long time, so there is a lot of tutorial out there to do pretty much anything you can think of. That's a strong advantage it has. (Though I guess most of the tutorials could be transposed to Hitfilm, if you know the softwares well enough.)

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Re: Hitfilm 4 VS Adobe After Effects

Okay. I still don't think I'll be needing Adobe Premiere Pro right now, but thanks for letting me know. I may even get it at some point in the future mini/smile

From the reviews I've seen, it looks like Hitfilm is easier to navigate around than AE anyway, so hopefully, that wouldn't be too big of an issue. However, as you have pointed out, one of my big concerns is that a lot of the features AE offers I will never use. I am thinking of downloading Hitfilm 4 Express for the moment, and if it has all that I need then I will leave it at that, otherwise, I will look into getting either Hitfilm 4 Pro or AE. However, as I mentioned last time, I am open to anybody else's views mini/smile  I will post again when I have tried out Hitfilm 4 Express mini/smile

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