Stand Alone Vs. Plug-In

[Jbrennick]

I'm just starting out with Silhouette Roto and from what I see it looks great. I noticed there is the standalone and the plug-in. Is there any pro's or cons in using one over the other? I'm sure they both work great, but I was just wondering if I should lean towards one or the other. Thanks for your help.

[jbills]

If you're using AE or FCP, the plugin probably makes the most sense. it's no different from the standalone - you'll see when you demo it that it just launches silhouette in a seperate window. you do your work, close it and the results show up right away in your host app.

the shake plugin is a little more complicated - hopefully there will be render node pricing, etc available soon that make the plugin an easier decision.

the standalone works great - and offers floating point accuracy on the paint side, which is nice if you primarily work with cineon or EXR (although EXR support is a little flakey). it's very easy to set up silhouette on a linux box and have a dedicated roto/paint station without costly comping licenses.

I'm not sure if the AE plugin is float capable now, since AE 7 supports higher bit depths. Paul or marco could answer that one.

[marcop]

Yes, Silhouette for AE 7 version is now float.

[orphanage]

I've got both, Stand Alone and the AE plugin for AE7, and have had better luck with the Stand Alone in regards to reliable performance - playback and cache seem to be more stable. Not sure if this is due to AE's GUI sharing the cycles and ram. Both are great, but if I had to choose, I'd go for the Stand Alone.

[Jbrennick]

I was assuming that the standalone would probably be a little better due to the fact that AE is utilizing background tasks while you are in the Silhouette app. But after working with it more so I cant seem to find a difference. So am I correct in assuming then the paint as well is 32-bit?

[jbills]

yep. as marco said.

"float" is another word for 32 bit.

if you're working with AE, go with the plugin - trust me. The standalone doesn't export masks to AE. bg processes are secondary to that.