Right now, for animating I use three different programs
Animator DV, Monkeyjam, and Honestech claymation studio. Soon I will ditch HCS.
For filming I use (Sigh) a Cisco VT Webcam. It is probably the worst webcam ever... Well... Maybe. (Soon I'll get the Logitech Quickcam pro 9000, thankfully.)
For Lighting I use a tripod lamp.
For editing I use a few different programs.
Windows Movie Maker, and Ulead Video Studio.
I      pretty much all of the things I use except Animator DV, monkeyjam, Windows movie maker, and the tripod lamp.. I am so glad I am upgrading.

Here's what comes to mind for me.  As you can see, it is mostly freeware.  I'm quite impressed by some of the setups you guys have at your disposal, I guess I'm too cheap to invest much money on software.

Word / OpenOffice Writer - I write an outline of the events, then follow this as a guideline while writing the script.

Canon CameraWindow - The remote capture software that came with my Powershot A620, I use this to control the camera remotely and capture images to my hard drive via USB.  I sequence the images afterward in Videomach or Virtualdub.

MLCad, LeoCad - For films involving CG work, I build LDraw models in MLCad, and usually export them to a 3D format in LeoCad.  Sometimes I plan out models before trying to build them physically in MLCad as well.

Axogon Composer - I use Axogon for editing, 2D visual effects, and compositing work.  It's great for assembling layers of a shot once all the masks have been created elsewhere.  I created the animated faces for my films thus far in Axogon.

Carrara 6 Pro - For any CG animation/rendering effects.  I also plan on using Carrara for some vector-based mouth animation work in my current project, it allows for specific, predefined mouth shapes which will make it faster than Axogon.

CompositeLab Pro - Another compositing program, I use it mostly for color correcting/grading, and color keying.

VirtualDub - This program is good for resizing and cropping video, but there are also a host of filters included and available on the web from 3rd party websites that are useful for creating various effects and color adjustments.

VideoMach - I use one of the older, free versions, sometimes for sequencing images or resequencing the order of frames, and also for cropping video.

Photoshop Elements - I got this free with a printer, it's a stripped-down version of Photoshop.  I use it for matte-painting work and occasionally frame-by-frame adjustments or compositing.

The GIMP - There are a lot of good plugins that I can't get for PS Elements, such as a 'focal/lense blur,' which I used quite a bit in Unrenewable to create realistically out-of-focus CG backdrops.

Sqirlz Water Reflections - I used this in Unrenewable for some of the rain particle effects, and also for the water in a few of the matte paintings.  (Anything closer up had more technically correct animated water created in Carrara.)

Audacity - I record dialog with Audacity, I also use it for some adjustments and trimming from time to time.

Goldwave - I use the old, free version for cleaning up and altering sounds, and also for mixing music in the final audio for my films.

MixCraft - A fairly recent addition, I used this to write the music for Unrenewable and plan to use it more in the future.  The music for "The Oven" was composed in Finale Notepad, a free program.

VLC - I use VLC for compressing my videos, I've recently taken to MPEG Streamclip as well, and for HD uploads to YouTube, the only freeware I've had success with is Windows Movie Maker.

With Carrara 6 Pro, CompositeLab, and Mixcraft being the non-freeware here, my total software expenses come to about $300.  Which is less than the price of Carrara on its own really, but I bought it with a student discount during a sale period so I got a really good deal on it, and I got a student discount on Mixcraft as well.

-Sméagol

I've found several really good programs for filmmaking, and as such I don't use a great variety of software. Here's a list of everything I use:

Adobe Master Collection CS4 - This is quite expensive, but I think it's a great investment considering all that it comes with, and upgrading (which I did from CS3) is even cheaper. Of the programs that come with this, I definitely use After Effects the most, for compositing and most visual effects work excluding 3D animation. I use Photoshop extensively too, and edit the final cut of the film in Premiere. At times I've also done some audio work and voice recording in Soundbooth. The integration available through the different programs can save a lot of time; for instance, it's possible to import AE compositions into Premiere without having to render them out into a separate file. This, combined with After Effects' ability to easily import frame sequences, has led to my doing away with AVIs for the shots, saving gigabytes of hard disk space.

Celtx - All my writing is done in this. I don't use most of the features, but it's still quite a bit easier than using Word or something else.

Carrara 5 Pro - For the most part, any 3D CGI in my films is done in this. Though at times there are features I wish Carrara had, the ease of use and fast rendering definitely make it worth any extra work I have to put in. I also haven't had a chance to get the latest version, so there are no doubt improvements I'm missing out on.

Maya 2008 - Occasionally I employ Maya for something that I can't easily do in After Effects or Carrara, such as the explosion in Pierre & Luigi. Nonetheless, it can be very confusing at times due to the complexity of all the features.

MLCAD and LeoCAD - I use these for model building and conversion, respectively. They're far from perfect, but there aren't really any other good programs for doing this.

Last edited by Nick Durron (January 1, 2009 (07:26pm))

Aeternal Films

this thread strangly reminds me of... this thread. http://www.bricksinmotion.com/forums/to … -software/

click me for my YouTube!

Canon Camera Window: I use it for capture with my powershot A640.
After effect : incrustation, special effects.
Premiere pro : cutting.
Photoshop elements : matte-painting, compositing.

edit : ... and effectlab pro for additional effects, flare, muzzle flash.

Last edited by zwan (January 2, 2009 (04:29am))

Boinx Istopmotion: Frame capture

Apple Final Cut: Editing and post

Fxhome Effects Lab Pro: Special effects

For a while I was using Imovie for editing but, thankfully, those days are over.

Anasazi SMA and AnimatorDV - Animating

Sony Vegas 8.0 pro TRIAL (because I can't seem to find the serial number for the real deal)

That's really all I use, although I do have some other useful programs such as Sqirlz Water Reflections

I did this in about 5 mins.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?oztjwg1tumy

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