Remember all those render droplet apps I was always going on about? Forget about them. I haven’t told any of them yet, but their services are no longer required. Each app performed it’s job perfectly well, but I am all about teamwork here, and there is no “Q” in team. . .

Which has nothing to do with RenderQ, the latest update to the render droplet apps; which not only combines the functionality of MayaRender, AERender, NukeRender, and all of their Q counterparts, it does them all one better by using a little bit of intelligence. RenderQ is a drag and drop render queue app that will send Maya, After Effects, Nuke, C4D, and Shake renders to Terminal and queue them up for easy and efficient local rendering. It is now very easy to set preferences for the version of each app you are using, as well as enabling and disabling additional flags for each filetype. RenderQ will also automatically detect the filetype and submit the job accordingly.

Also included is RenderQ maitre d’ to pause and resume renders and will also show which render engine is currently active and the last job submitted to the queue.

Demo:

QuickTime Version 1280×800 (92MB)

iPhone Version

Support for more apps could very well be coming in the future. A $0-25 donation is customary. I prefer to keep this sort of thing on the honor system rather than setting up some sort of direct cost. If you use this tool at a facility I suppose a site license will cost you $0-$1000.

Download: RenderQ download page…

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. One thing I didn’t mention in the demo is that there is also a simple app included to reset the RenderQ preferences. It is quite possible there could be a few little bugs or improvements that could be made so don’t be afraid to contact me. Also, this app is free but feel free to donate, as many hours of work were put into it.

[andoru.labs]

AEae. . .

. . . and AERender have both been updated for After Effects CS5. I worked night and day to make this happen, changing the 4 to a 5 took a good 2 mins out of my life. Once again more time was spent on the new icons. But I must. . .

Download: AEaeCS5 (165KB .zip)

Log:
-2010.5.1: basic functionality

Download: AERenderCS5 (748KB .zip)

Log:
-2010.5.1: basic functionality

I have tested both with no problems but as usual, if there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, these apps are free but feel free to donate if you have the means.

COMING SOON:

“Q” versions of all the render droplet apps! With a slight adjustment to the scripts, I have found a way to allow a simple but effective queuing system to all the droplets. Will be available soon. . .

And for the record, RotoBrush is cool and all, but the addition of the FreeForm plugin is HUGE for anyone doing Matte Paintings, nearly all of the bicubic cards (3D point manipulation) functionality of Nuke and the camera controls from Maya equal a 3D workspace that is finally enjoyable to use. Bravo CS5, Bravo. And don’t even get me started about photoshop.

[andoru.labs]

Here is a quick demo showing the workflow for using the different render droplets on my site. PLUS! A very thorough demo and explanation of using Apple’s Qmaster application that is part of Final Cut Studio for rendering with Maya, After Effects, and Nuke, and some detail on how it works and what it is doing.

A lot of the Qmaster info and initial motivation for the different render droplets comes from Hugo Guerra’s post on vfxtalk.com.

The vimeo version of the demo is kind of low resolution so check out the QuickTime below if you want to see more detail:

QuickTime Version 1152×720 (93MB)

iPhone Version

Again, if there are questions, definitely check out the Qmaster documentation or contact me at: andoruLABS.support

Here are links to the aerender docs, maya docs, and nuke user guide.

EDIT: A lovely commenter named David did some very thorough testing of the render droplet and Qmaster setup and posted his findings in the comments.

[andoru.labs]

Just like the MayaRender app, but for After Effects. A quick and easy way to launch AE renders without using the resources necessary to load up the After Effects UI and load each preview frame into memory. Plus this gives you the ability to launch multiple renders at once if you so choose.

Essentially just another way to render in the background (inspired by Lloyd Alvarez’s great BG Render script on aescripts.com), but without ever having to open AE. Render speeds should also be slightly quicker this way as well since no resources are used by the app and only the render engine.

Download: AERenderCS5 (748KB .zip)

Download: AERenderCS4 (268KB .zip)
-Based on code originally developed by Dustin & Cody Beltram.

I had a few people contact me about a version of this for CS3 so I went ahead and put one together:

Download: AERenderCS3 (.zip)

Log:
-2010.3.18 – Updated scripts to include “-sound ON” flag to enable AE render completion sound.
-2010.3.20 – Updated CS4 and CS3 AERenderFlags scripts so flags are entered in the proper syntax. (If you downloaded before March 20, 2010 please download the latest version available on the site)
-2010.5.01 – Updated for CS5

Demo:

Here is a quick demo of the AERender & AEae apps (both available in the “labs” section of this site.

QuickTime Version 960×600 (27MB)

iPhone Version

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support.

[andoru.LABS]

Just like my MayaMaya app, but for After Effects. It simply opens up another instance of After Effects so you can have multiple projects open at once.

Unfortunately you cannot copy and paste directly from instance to instance, but there are many other reasons this can prove to be very useful.

AEae_v1.1 now supports drag and drop! You can either launch the application normally and choose how many instances you would like to open, or you can drop project files on the app to automatically open them in different instances of After Effects. This version also includes preferences, if you would like to reset the preferences, delete the “com.andorulabs.AEae*” file located in your “/User/Library/Preferences” directory.

Download: AEae download page. . .

Featured on Motionographer.com!

If you have issues, questions, or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support

[andoru.LABS]

720p

Just trying out a technique using the iPhone to capture some handheld camera data and use it in a comp. Even with only 640×480 pixels and an envelope with hand drawn tracker markers it still works very well.

Section of the iPhone camera track:

Watch it on an iPhone

This is a fantastic way to take the “perfect” out of the CG camera without messing with the CG methods of doing it. Randomization does not equal human, the way a human moves while holding a camera, large or small, is very far from random. Should be fairly simple to move data like this from application to application once a good track is put together.

Essentially the poorest, least efficient, laziest man’s version of James Cameron’s SimulCam without any of the benefits, except the human feel.

(Vimeo. . . I just can’t deal with Flash in my life anymore, I will still upload to you for continuity’s sake, but I want iPhone viewable embeds!)

And animators need some frame by frame action damn it!