There is an after effects one over at cgtalk but I don't know about combustion. we could use an AE one here!

You also need some sort of 3d Tracking software, like Matchmover. This will allow you to gather data from your video footage that can be duplicated in a 3d program so that the 3D camera will match the one used to take the video. This is very important or the bear will not properly "fit" into the scene. Lighting becomes very critical in the 3d world as well. When you see on the making of documentaries in a scene where there is going to be 3d stuff added later, they will hold up a shiny globe and a camera will take a picture of it. This will pinpoint the locations of the realworld lights and their colors. This image is then taken into a program that calculates the contrast and colors within the picture and then spits out data that will be used to create a lighting scheme within the 3d program that will replicate the real world lighting. You can download a program(freeware) that will take jpeg images that were shot of of a chrome globe and do the calculations of the lighting. I know that it can import into Maya. I can't remember what it is called, you can look for it on the web under "HDRI lighting".

Avid edit systems seem to be the industry standard, Apples' Final Cut Pro is right up there as well, Premiere is more geared to consumers and hobbiests (sp?). I use Avid for my contract work because of its stability and features, but I like how premiere works on some specific tasks, so I use both. After effects is a lower end compositing software, the big boys use Houdini or Shake, but After effects is pretty affordable and pretty good too. I would like to try out Premiere Pro and see what's new.

The original question was posted in the Maya forum. Someone apparently moved it here, where it belongs.

Where would this Animation Gallery be?

Combustion and After Effects are used mainly for compositing work but can be used to video edit as well but have more limitations than a program like Avid or Premiere when it comes to assembling a video, like the sound issue mentioned by nemirc.

Attached Link: http://cube.phlatt.net/forums/spiraloid/index.php

Try finding pro's here. One of the guys who worked on Gollum is a moderator. These guys know their stuff.

This is in response to your post under "Demo Reel Intro" But I thought I'd copy it here as well. I used Avid DV Express 3.5 to edit the images as well as the sound. It can do unlimited layers of sound but you will be able to only hear 8 of them at a time. You just do a mixdown. There were around 19 or 20 tracks of sound. I used Cool Edit to manipulate the sound effects. I would reccommend using Adobe Premiere or Vegas video to help you assemble the project They tend to be a little more user friendly. Avid can do alot but takes a bit of time to get the hang of.

Where were you six months ago when I started the project? I am currently doing a complete playblast, low poly, etc as part for my next project as part of the previsualization process. 8 months ago I never even heard of Maya, Previz? what the hell was that? I guess the school likes for us to take the hard road before they show us a better way. Sure helps you appreciate going through the previz process better than if we hadn't learned the hard way.

Thanks for your comments Nemirc, I agree with most of your sentiments, and I want to fix alot of what I percieve as weaknesses but the whole project was so heavy on my machine that tweaking it was a long and laborius process. Rendering times were horrendous and the thought of going back and working on this again..... shudder. It was my first project and I am proud of it despite the blemishes, a face only a mother could love. I am going to cut the whole thing down to about 45 seconds for the actual intro and then offer the whole thing as an extra on my DVD demo.

Thanks for the comments everyone. I am taking the course at New Media Campus in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It is a private school with a 10 month course. It finishes at the end of June.

Yeah, I agree with you, I wanted to put extra stuff in it like other vehicles, etc, but I had my hands full trying to deal with the main cars and they were chugging my computer as it was. I agree about the car landing, I didn't like the camera move to the bomb loader but my render times were hitting 6-8 hrs. per frame and the thought of re-rendering even just a few frames made me sick. I started the animation about 2 months after seeing Maya the first time and by the end I wanted to do the whole thing over. I didn't set up the scene propely, I didn't know how to render in layers, just about everything I did I did the hard way. But that's over and done with and now I'm working on my next project wich is 3d and live action combined. here is a pic of a Robot(1/3 modeled) that will be in it. All of the inspiration came from Blade Runner.

Having just completed a short 3d animation I was simply amazed at what you were able to do with Poser as your main tool. What other programs did you use? The story was pretty good. I could see a lot of influences from video games, portions looked like they were cut scenes from one. Was this intentional? My connection was pretty lousy had to go lowband but what I could see was great. I especially like the chase through the city. I set my animation in a city and found it challenging to work with. I am not familiar that well with Poser. I think of poser as a program to create organic characters that you then export to other 3d apps. What exactly did you do within poser? and what did you do in other programs? Good work, your voice even sounded like Ewan McGregor's version of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Look forward to your next project. If you need help with it let me know, Maybe I can lend a hand.

There was a freeware program called Icarus, it was by a university in the UK that did what you are talking about. They have since sold the software to a company and now you have to pay for it. It is still called Icarus, though.

Maya can do this to a degree. If you scan in the pattern then cv curve it and then use the make cloth functions, you can make pretty much any design there is. (some tweaking is required)