Paolo Ciccone
November 1st, 2006, 10:39 AM
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 :)
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 :)