Animator James Lee on dropping Adobe and switching to Linux

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Hey everyone!

A few weeks ago I saw this video by James Lee, and I forgot to post it here.

If you aren’t familiar, James Lee is an Australian animator who has been somewhat popular on Youtube. He’s probably most famous for a collaboration he did with streamer Cr1TiKaL, but I have watched several of his videos before and he’s very funny. Also, his animations have a very unique and striking art style that I really like.

As a small warning, most of his videos have swear words. It personally doesn’t bother me, but if you don’t like that kind of thing that just be aware.

A few years ago he had uploaded a video in which he dramatized the abusive relationship Adobe has with artists.

Anyway, 3 weeks ago he posted a video about his move to Linux Mint, and talked about the software he is now using to make his videos. While I know not every person who uses Adobe products will be able or willing to make this move, I think the video is a great starting place for someone who wants to.

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The thing that Adobe is famous for is the Postscript page description language.
Postscript is the ancestor of pdf. Adobe still make pdf readers, but there are lots of open source alternatives.

Sorry, I dont want to hijack your topic…
I know nothing about animation or the software used for it, but I think we all appreciate stories about moving from closed shop software to Linux.

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Wow @Akatama! Loved it!. He made some great points, especially about technology made by and for “humans.”

I am not a digital artist other than to create business images for advertisement, but kudos to those using the software Davinci Resolve that a famous animator endorses on Linux.

Thanks for sharing!

Sheila

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No problem! I thought people around here would like this.

I have heard that DaVinci Resolve is actually used in-industry. However, I am not a digital artist at all so I didn’t know anything about it. Interesting to hear a bit when he talked about the differences between it and Adobe products. But as he said, it seems like if you can get used to those differences, it can be beneficial to your workflow. Well, that’s like any tool right? If you learn to use it well and it fits your use case, then it will be better than using the wrong tool or using the right tool in a lazy way.

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Jim Carey v2.0 is absolutely right!
Most of the tools he mentioned I don’t know; I know however Davinci Resolve :sunglasses:

I wouldn’t consider myself as artist, but to compare Adobe Premier vs. Davinci Resolve:

Premiere costs $23 / month. To run it you need Windows (licence purchased once about $140, either paid in the price of the hardware as OEM, or an additional cost after a hardware purchase without OS).

This sums up to $692 for 2 years.

Davinci has a free version, which is limited, but still very capable. Assume, you need the “pro” features, you need to purchase Davinci studio (yes for Linux too), that costs $299 (if you find a better deal, then this can be much less :grin: ).
One time purchase, the licence will work for forever. Even better, major upgrades are eligible too, so if you ever bought Davinci, you can have today the version 19 completely legally licenced. (This is not promised to be the case for forever, but Blackmagic still offers this)
(I myself bought a licence for v17, and can use it with v18).
Davinci is crossplatform, not tied to Windows :smiley:

So using Davinci on Linux (the OS is free :smiley: ) the cost sums up to $299 for 2 years. How does that compare to premiere’s $692?

As for hardware, both programs need a capable hardware, a 10 years old netbook won’t work. So we have to pay for the hardware.

According to some talking with “colleagues” (other guys in the same business) with my hardware (i7-8700/16GB RAM/RX6600XT) I can mostly easily do what the others do using Windows on much newer and higher spec CPU (i9 something), 32GB RAM, and some cutting edge nvidia card - no need for more details, just say that the hardware there costs at least 3 times of my computer).

What I cannot do is to download an After effects template and create a fancy title using it.
But I have Fusion integrated into Resolve, and there are free and paid templates for that too.

So if we can omit After effects (I can :sunglasses: ) Davinci is quite a powerful alternative, using it as the base of the workflow saves a noticeable cost, especially doing it on Linux!

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Don’t forget about Autodesk (3DStudio Max, for example), they also have overpriced software.

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Sorry too radical for my liking

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Almost every Windows based software is overpriced.

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Yeah. I know. It’s not going to happen in real life but it is my most wishful thinking.

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You should never wish poor health or worse on any one, you would not like that on yourself.

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Our capitalist system rewards greed.
Greed will thrive until we cease rewarding it.
A good start would be to limit profits and incomes.

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I think @Skywalker71 did not mean those bad things to people, but corporations, which I believe makes a difference.

As for Adobe and MS I see the problem in lack of competition: where there’s no competition,there’s no progress. There’s just rotting.

As I see MS and Adobe act very much like they don’t have competitors.
They can put basically anything down their users throat.
That’s bad, and that’s going to change only via real competition. They have to loose a noticeable number of users in favour of something else. Say MS looses 35% of its market in favor of Linux. Can you imagine how would that feel to MS? Like the end of the world :smiley:
That would not be the case for the Programmer Joe working for MS, he will be fine, maybe just looking for a new job. :wink:
The same applies to Adobe. If Blackmagic would seduce a number of its users, Adobe would have to start to compete again. that would change its nature in completely, as it could not afford this behavior which it does currently.
So yes, at a first glance the bad whishes towards MS, Adobe are too radical, but I kind of understand.
We all detest the total control and monitoring of people that China does with its citizens. But most of us happily accept the ambition for a very similar or even the same level of control from Google and Facebook.
After all what’s the difference?
So we need the rebels, who stand up sounding the alarm for us.
Or we will be just the pigs in the warm sty getting to eat every day and unconciously waiting for the butcher.

What if they change? For the better maybe?
(No, I don’t see that happening currently, but can they change? Is it possible?
If they do, do would you still whish their their disappearance?)

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My personal thoughts are that this site should not accept this type if discussion or suggestion.

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I second that. I do not want to talk about topics that stir up ill feeling.

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I have flagged the entry

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Yes, the thing has some political overtone, which is poisoning these days, we all are too much divided, and when it comes to politics, different opnion quickly gets “enemy” opinion.
So if that entry gets removed, please remove my reactions too, and I promise I keep my inner rebel in silence.

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As an alternative for that Blender is proved to work very well.
I don’t use it myself, but a pal has a greenbox studio, he uses Blender (sadly on Windows) to create realistic virtual 3D backgrounds for his clients.

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I’ve yet to follow the rabbit hole of links the original post will take me down - fascinating stuff…

As for Autodesk - one of their major products - used by major studios - “Maya” runs on Linux (it was originally a UNIX product that Silicon Graphics bought) - they also have a surface painting/sculpting tool call Mudbox that runs on Linux too…

But - Blender is the “goto” and a heap of professional stuff is done on it now - unlike 15 years ago… Was visionary of the (Dutch I think?) owners of Blender to opensource it… I’ve tried my hand at it from time to time… I even paid someone $450 for 3 days of training in Blender - but it vanished when I didn’t put it into practise - shame - story of my life… paid for some online Linux certification courses but never finished them…

I’ve been a hobbyist in 3D graphics and rendering for some 30+ years (started with POVRay and also 3D Studio [not Max - I’m talking about the DOS application]). Nearly 5 years ago - was going to start doing POVRay again - but spent WAAAY too much time trying to compile the raytracer on Solaris Sparc and gave up…

Also did a bunch of stuff at Uni in Autodesk Animator - another DOS program that was rather “neat” (digital “CEL” animation)…

Also - as for Adobe - I think they’re reprehensible in their current extortionist model - it’s ghastly - I’d jump ship if I was a user… But they were great back in the day - they ported both Photoshop and Premiere to several UNIX platforms (like IRIX and Solaris), I installed both several times on IRIX and have several CDs of mips32 and mips64 “warez” (Photoshop, Premiere and another top shelf 3D platform called “Lightwave” [originally developed for Amiga]).

Oh - nearly forgot - back in my MS-DOS days - I used a product (I paid for) “DeluxePaint Animation” which was an IBM-PC port of Amiga DeluxePaint - but geared to VGA / Pixel animation…

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I hope they do not delete the whole topic.
The original topic is fine. The discussion drifted.

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No just the offending item should be removed before it is spread.