In this week’s fxpodcast we discuss linear workflow. We geek out with 3D guru Master Zap of Mental Images about linear compositing workflow: separating fact from fiction, and discuss just how viable it is to set up a correct linear pipeline.
Why is linear compositing valuable?
Feature film compositing is nearly always ‘linear’ ironically – given the files are normally log ( ! ) but in the world of video and HD often multipass compositing and compositing is often done incorrectly leading to a series of hacks, fudges, and workarounds to make images look right. Zap and Mike discuss the issue and flag ways to set up a correct pipeline.
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Stu Maschwitz is mentioned in the podcast and has posted about the podcast on his ProLost blog
http://prolost.com/blog/2009/9/30/passing-the-linear-torch.html
Thanks for the very informative discussion. I been researching a lot about this issue ever since I saw Stu’s post sometime back last year. Though I haven’t been able to put this into practice at where I work because of the common scenarios mentioned in this discussion.
Anyway here are few couple of links which I found very interesting and helped me to get my head around this issue.
Very simple and easy to understand workflow
http://www.djx.com.au/blog/2008/09/13/linear-workflow-and-gamma/
Conversion between “linear floating point” and the more common “sRGB bytes” workflow by Bill Spitzak developed for Digital Domain
http://mysite.verizon.net/spitzak/conversion/calibrate.html
Can we call this linear workspace “gamma 1”? I think it sounds cool and futuristic and it avoids the confusion of linear vs non-linear editing and people calling gamma 2.2 linear. Since non-linear editing has become common place I think the word linear has gotten a negative connotation.
Thanks, very informative and to the point.