After Effects isn't the only game in town. That is why I think the proposed title for the forum, or group of forums, is most appropriate: Compositing and special effects.

with apple selling shake for $499 and cheapie crossgrades from FCP to full Studio, including Motion, i think you're gonna be seeing a sudden influx of more users of these other apps...and a lot more questions....

I agree. I'm one who just bought Shake 4.1! I'm not entirely new to composting or DVFX and I think this suggestion is a good one.

Just wanted to chime in as another board member that whole heartly agrees with the idea of having a Compositing/Visual Effects (maybe even include motion graphics) board.

There are many many questions peppered all over a number of forums regarding compositing and visual effects. These questions don't always fall into the various NLE buckets we have already, they are difficult to hunt down and find when simlar questions appear again later (in a different forum than the older thread containing an answer :p ) and those of us with with a strong interest, focus and experience in these areas have no way to subscribe or monitor a central location that might contain directly useful information or questions related to our field.

There are many many low cost alternatives, and also specialized techniques for Photoshop. Would be great to have a forum here to discuss them. :)

Here are just a few examples from the first page of hits from a basic search on the word "keying". Feel free to let me know if you need more examples on other effects related subjects. :)

Sony HVR-A1 Board
Open DV Board
Alternative Imaging Board
HVX200 Board
XL2 Board
Indie Production Board
Another from the Indie Board
HD / HDV Editing Board

Hmmm... gears... turning... mind... thinking... description would be Compositing and Special Effects?

For many people, "Special Effects" describes on set/in-camera effect (explosions, camera tricks, etc.) ... and Visual Effects are in post.

How about dodging that whole thing with something more general:
"Digital Compositing and Effects"

Digital Postproduction?

Title
 

The name has to be broad enough to cover several areas, 3D, compositing, DVFX. But it needs to be narrow enough so that it doesn't end up as a catch all for doing something easily accomplished in Vegas, FCP or Premier.

Agreed. (Which is part of why I avoided software specific boards in my examples post above.)

This discussions of this board seem to be geared towards Comp & Effects related tools and techniques that are not specific to an application that has it's own board here already.

I think Digital Post gets a little too broad, since things like DVD Authoring and/or web encoding fall under that umbrella. Besides the fact that these areas already have a board here, they would be outside the intended focus of the board we're talking about here (as far as I can tell anyway).

"Digital Compositing & Effects" is narrow enough to focus on post production effects, while also being broad enough to include 3D and even motion graphics. :)

I think this is a great idea. While there are compositing forums out there on the web they are the sort of places that most video users would never bother to check out. Those forums tend to be for a specific application as well. With more and more indy producers trying out sci-fi it would be great to have a forum on effects from other indies point of view. Besides now that Shake was just dropped to $499.00 you can bet there are going to be a butt load of indy producers getting into compositing and effects.

Great forum name!

Ok... So what do you all recommend for the PC, on the low to free end?

What type of effects do you want to create?
What tools do you already have?

How close to "free" does something need to be to qualify as "low"?
$500? $300? $100? $50?

Another important consideration is how much time you have/want to invest into the tool. There are some really powerful free tools out there, but they can have steep learning curves.