Lately I’ve been looking at the Bauhaus Mirage site and downloaded the fully-functional, 30-day trial version. So far it looks to be extremely versatile, if a bit pricey.
I was wondering if any ZBCentral members are users (or know any other people who are users) and what experience they’ve had with the software and the Bauhaus people? … Anything on the learning curve, quality of finished output, specific types of work done, etc?
Thanks, Sven
I am exactly in the same situation as you, Sven. Anyone?
Thanks for the replies everyone,
I’ve looked at other 2d-animation demos and they all seem pretty good for doing “digital” cel frame animation… features vary of course, but in general they all do that task well.
Mirage seems to have highly capable 2d cel animation tools, too, but it also claims to have powerful editing and advanced post-production capabilities: chroma-key compositing, titling, traveling masks, built-in scripting language, time-code generation, temporal photoshop filter usage, and all sorts of other whiz-bang FX stuff. It also claims to have many output format options including interfaces to all major digital-video cards, generation of .AVI and other standard video-file types, Flash vector-based output, etc. and the list goes on and on…
Frankly I don’t know very much about Post Production process or technology, but I’m interested in the fact that so much of all that seems to be included in the Mirage package and I wondered if the final product approaches professional quality output or if it is more on the hobbiest level.
For an animation package that includes all that, the price doesn’t seem to be too bad - which takes me back to my original question - If someone has used Mirage in production, how hard was it to learn, what commercial projects have you used it for and what was the quality of the final product?
Sven
In the Mirage May newsletter, they announce a $200.00 price drop for June so the package is now $695.00, still a tidy sum, but a little more tempting. I’m still in the middle of my 30 day trial period so have a little while yet before I decide.
By the way, the 30 day trial lets you download the complete Mirage package, without any watermarks or feature restrictions, so you get a real sense what it’s like to use it. Of course there is the learning curve to contend with… and there is lots there to learn before you do anything useful.
Sven
hey Sven,
How is their manual? and do they have lots of tutorials and such to lessen that curve? How intuitive or not do you find it so far?
etc etc.
wow, i’m a little surprised to find a mirage thread in the zbrush forum. i’ve recently begun using mirage to do storyboards for a feature development project and am loving it. it is a very user friendly program that gets deeper the more you get into it. i’m not very well versed in it’s fx stack, post effects, etc. but i can speak to it’s 2d capabilities. i have experience with 2d animation, i’ve been doing short and long form animation since 92 and find this to be a very natural transition into the digital way of working. the drawing tools are top notch. by that i mean it literally wipes the floor with photoshop,painter and alias sketchbookpro, when it comes to getting natural strokes that look and work like the way you draw with paper and pen,brush.
importing drawings(roughs) into a timeline to do storyboards is easier than photoshop. i found that my knowledge with traditional animation allowed me to figure out what i wanted this program to do so you may find it easier or harder depending on what skills you currenlty have. it won’t teach you to animate, just assist you in it. as far as i can tell this program has been a dream to work with and i can imagine taking a project from boards to timed animatic to rough animation. if i wanted to clean up the animation i would opt for photoshop if you want a super clean line. mirage could do clean lines but control is a bit lacking in this department unless you could live with a scratchy look ( like pencil–a-la “rescuers” style) or you could always print it out to paper and clean on a light table.
i’ve been told it can do pans with truck ins via the “key framer” but i haven’t had the chance to test it out yet. i’m currently on the storyboard phase(rough) of a project.
i introduced this program to folks at pixar while working there and they went and purchased 4(5?) copies of the program straight away to check it out.
the learning curve depends on how good you are with learning computer programs. it’s not a toy, don’t expect it to be dead simple. waitaminute, what am i thinking? i’m in the zbrush forum and you guys and gals are no slouches, the zbrush interface is really intimidating to me,more than the mirage one so that’s where i’m coming from.
the basic tools are very straight forward so anyone can get going pretty quickly. just be aware that you will,as with any deep program, be required to peek into the manual to check out where tools reside and how they work or don’t work. i found the folks at the bauhause forum to be very helpful whenever i posted a question. if you get the program for it’s 2d animation capabilities, make sure to check out the “animation toolbar” a fantastically useful tool.
also the “custom toobar” or “custom panel” should be on your top priority to set up as this will put all the tools you want in an easy to access location.
i’ve bought the shuttlepro v2 by contour design to work with this program and it makes things even easier (but not a requirement–i just love gadjets)
one thing i must stress is that you won’t feel it’s full power unless you’re working with a cintiq tablet(wacom).
still with me? a little known fact is that if you have any cintiq or intous tablet you can get a 50% discount from bauhaussoftware. that makes mirage come in at about $450.00.
although intuos owners can get the discount, i don’t recommend it unless you are reeeeaaaaallllllly good with drawing while looking at the screen(not your hand) if you’re like me, get a cintiq, preferably one that pivots and tilts. a fifteen or seventeen inch ciniq, while useable(hey, folks at pixar are using the 15 incher for all their digital boards) are just no comparison to the 18 and 21 inchers for their size and pivot(rotate) features.
for the budget concious, there is another 15 inch “screen tablet” (pl500?) made by another company and i’ve read on cgtalk forums that they can be bought for about 300 bucks total, includes shipping and tax, pc users only.
that’s the way to go if you can’t get the dough for the extra hardware. you can save up to get the 21, or used 18 inch cintiq later. 
the mirage discount is via the WACOM website. navigate to “cintiq” or “intuos” priviledges and scroll down until you find ----mirage. you will need the serial # from the tablet.
i believe i’ve said all i can think of but feel free to ask questions and i’ll try to answer them. if you have any effects questions i’m afraid i’m not qualified to answer and the bauhaus forum would be a better place.
two of my favorite programs i’ve found just recently…mirage and zbrush!!!
i found the manual to be “kinda” helpful. not the best and not awful. i had to post some questions on their forum to clarify for a few things. they do have tutorials on the site so i would recommend checking them out.
i learned basic to intermediate ways of putting animation and boards together while working on a job (i think my photoshop and 2d animation background helped). found a few frustrating things but just learned to live with them while hoping for upgrades in the future. i would say my work has overall been made easier and faster as a result of using mirage.
Hi Meta,
Your posting was a pleasant surprise this morning. I’m almost at the end of my 30 day Mirage trial and I’ve concluded that it’s a really terrific piece of software. (Like anything else, good or bad depends on what job it is you’re trying to do.)
In depth exploration of the various capabilities of Mirage would have meant a rather lengthy investment in learning the interface and getting inside the Mirage programmer’s heads to see what challenges they felt they were solving for Mirage users. I wasn’t ready or able to commit to that. After seeing how deep the software was I limited myself to quick forays in the manual and modest animation experiments and out-putting files.
SO. I’ve pretty much decided TO INVEST IN THE PACKAGE. When I do, I’ll learn what I need to know by working on several simple, self-designed projects. The question I still have to decide is WHEN I’ll get it. The Cintiq discount is good to know about, but I couldn’t justify the investment in the tablet (maybe later), so I’ll be deciding before the end of June (when the $200.00 discount ends) if I’m going to buy sooner, or put it off until later.
The ELEMENT scripting language:
One VERY interesting thing about Mirage is the fact that it includes a script language named ELEMENT that seems extremely sophisticated and powerful (along with an SDK cd.) After seeing the range of plug-ins and custom tool sets already existing for Mirage, I’m speculating on the possibility of making my own tool sets that could be integrated with some of my ZBRUSH ZSCRIPTING efforts to generate some hybrid ZBrush / Mirage animation - I’m visualizing something rather different from standard 3d keyframing animation, something more focused on the 2.5d strengths of ZBrush - a “painterly” approach that, for the moment, appears to be totally unexplored.
I’ve registered at the Bauhaus Mirage website and I’ll have to spend a little time on the forum there to see what’s going on. I’ve exchanged several emails with Dan Kraus and the folks at Bauhaus and they seem to be an enthusiastic crew, proud of their product (a lot like the Pixologic people).
Anyway, thank you for your lengthy and informative user-views on Mirage. They were helpful and much appreciated. In the future, I’ll be posting in this thread with further personal reactions if and when I finally make the Mirage plunge.
Sven
Meta & Sven,
I’d just like to say thanks for the interesting info, and please post more on your experiences in due course. ZBrush & Mirage, eh? All sounds fascinating.
Regards,
hybrid zbrush and mirage? :eek:
i looked at the chapter on elements just now and it’s greek to me. your knowledge far surpasses mine. i look forward to what lies ahead.
After the 30day Mirage trial expired I’d decided I would buy the package, not sure when. An email arrived today with a 24 hour offering: The commercial package is available for $350.00 (printed manual purchase separate).
So I ordered it. The one day sale expired on June 15th.
After I get up to speed on Mirage I’ll post my experiences with the software here. (Metalusion, thanks again for your input - it helped push me over the edge )
Sven
ha! i was just going to post the link for you. you beat me to it. welcome aboard!
I realize this is an old post but I was wondering how you are doing with Mirage. I see studio pro is out. I have beeen wanting this program for awhile along with the LE1600 tablet PC.
have one question, does it play well with other 3d apps or is it lightwave friendly only?
I’ve been working with Mirage quite a bit lately and feel quite up to speed. The small community of Mirage users (small compared to ZBCentral) is very helpful as are the people at Bauhaus.
Mirage is fairly powerful, especially for those interested in paperless 2D animation. I can’t say much about how well it plays with other 3d packages since I’ve only used renders exported from ZBrush (which is pretty much like using any other source image materials.) Mirage also has a way of doing some things that takes getting used to. For instance, any imported image larger than the dimensions of the sequence you are working on is automatically cropped. It took me a while to understand how to make a scrolling background which involves the use of the versatile “keyframer” gadget that lets you animate a cropping window copied from the source image or animation. On the other hand, the Mirage environment and toolset are excellent. Infinite layers, lots of image-processing tools and user-created or Mirage bonus plugins available for download.
Mirage Pro is really nothing more than the standard Mirage 1.5 bundled with BOM (board-0-matic2)- an advanced storyboarding tool, and Animator’s Toolbar - a collection of custom buttons that streamline layer house-keeping and frame management for standard 2D animation.
For anyone who had previously decided that Mirage was too costly, the price has recently been dropped to $395.00. They still offer a 30-day free-trial which gives you fully functional access to the package, no restrictions. If you then order it they mail you the installation kit (which includes the USB dongle and software, but also contains the SDK docs and a digital version of the manual on a second disk.)
The Mirage Website has lots of good info and tutorials as well as examples of work done by users. It is also host to a Mirage forum community with some very good 2D animators who participate daily and a backlog of answers to all kinds of practical production and technical questions.
Sven
Many thanks, best of luck.
:rolleyes: