Workstation specs and C4

[rose]

Hello there
I’m setting up a (budget) workstation to do compositing work for a low budget independent feature. Shots will consist of bluescreen (probably 16mm film), little bit of tracking, some roto, animation and 35mm stills compositing.

I have only worked on SD res before (on CW3 and AFX) and have no real idea of working time for 2K files. Am currently breaking down the shotlist to estimate work times, render times, backup times, and anything else i can possibly think of …

can anyone shed any light on what i can expect (without really know shot durations, i know) as far as the following specs and Combustion 4?

Lets say the bluescreen shots are 20 seconds duration: what would be a realistic render time? ram preview time? Does Combustion handle 2K res files ok? Is this system (below) going to be able to handle 2K working files?

are there any better (comparably priced) solutions to this one, and are any of these specs likely to cause heartache?

Computer
single Opteron 275 (dual-core) CPU
Tyan K8WE Motherboard
4Gigs RAM
Quadro FX3400 Video Card
Raidcore BC4852 SATA RAID with 8x WD320gig

HD monitoring via Decklink HD Pro > HDLink > Apple 23″ Cinema Display

ANY ASSISTANCE ON THIS WOULD BE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED
Rose D (Sydney Australia)

[kuban]

First of all, you can’t see real black on an LCD monitor for filmwork. Altough Apple Cinemadisplay is one of the best LCD’s I’ve seen, it is not a replacement for CRT yet.

And if you are planning to connect via DVI, why do you buy a video card? Just use the DVI output of your VGA card. You will pay extra $3k to the video hardware, why?

I strongly suggest you to look to playback solution here:
http://www.thepixelfarm.co.uk/products/products.aspx?PID=32

And I would go for a good DLP instead of LCD monitor, with PFplay, but you have to prepare a 3D LUT for your projector. All the film will be done HD, also editing? I suggest you to do so, or your effects shots might seem different with other shots.

[rose]

” First of all, you can’t see real black on an LCD monitor for filmwork. Altough Apple Cinemadisplay is one of the best LCD’s I’ve seen, it is not a replacement for CRT yet.

Just use the DVI output of your VGA card. You will pay extra $3k to the video hardware, why?”

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All the film will be done HD, also editing? I suggest you to do so, or your effects shots might seem different with other shots.
_________________
Kuban Altan
Sinefekt

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thankyou kuban: i was starting to come to the conclusion i’d be wasting money on the LCD monitor and card, so thnks for confirming, also i think the most this system could handle would be HD res, which would make my life a lot easier, so yes, i think HD is the only option for me here…

have you heard of working at smaller HD size (is there a uniform standard? 1280?) to make the compositing end more manageable but without losing quality at 35mm film record stage? (this is one option suggested by post house and sounds logical to me: is there anything i should be aware of with this?)

thanks for your help on this
r

[Anonymous]

junglerose wrote:

” First of all, you can’t see real black on an LCD monitor for filmwork. Altough Apple Cinemadisplay is one of the best LCD’s I’ve seen, it is not a replacement for CRT yet.

Just use the DVI output of your VGA card. You will pay extra $3k to the video hardware, why?”

---

All the film will be done HD, also editing? I suggest you to do so, or your effects shots might seem different with other shots.
_________________
Kuban Altan
Sinefekt

---

thankyou kuban: i was starting to come to the conclusion i’d be wasting money on the LCD monitor and card, so thnks for confirming, also i think the most this system could handle would be HD res, which would make my life a lot easier, so yes, i think HD is the only option for me here…

have you heard of working at smaller HD size (is there a uniform standard? 1280?) to make the compositing end more manageable but without losing quality at 35mm film record stage? (this is one option suggested by post house and sounds logical to me: is there anything i should be aware of with this?)

thanks for your help on this
r

Working in lower than 1920×1080 is defiently acceptable when shooting on 16mm, since the resolution of the 16mm negative is proberly not much more than 1,5K … anyway it’s not a big win on rendertime compare to HD. so it’s much a question on the rest of the workflow … how and to what is the film scanned ?… if the rest of the film is run through a DI project in full HD – you’ll proberly be better to follow that … you could then work with proxys for quick previews.

As kuban says you REALLY need to have a prober calibrated displaying device and consider technoligy like Truelight or Cinespace…. maybe the post house can help you fit in there colour profile – and maybe help you calibrate a CRT monitor or a DLP.

Just to convince you that it’s possible – alot of VFX for featurefilm here in Denmark was done in combustion (by a company called Gearless) in HD … so it should defiently be okay for you to do … If you’re doing alot of shots, you should consider a small renderfarm!

[rose]

______________________________
Working in lower than 1920×1080 is defiently acceptable when shooting on 16mm, since the resolution of the 16mm negative is proberly not much more than 1,5K … anyway it’s not a big win on rendertime compare to HD. so it’s much a question on the rest of the workflow … how and to what is the film scanned ?… if the rest of the film is run through a DI project in full HD – you’ll proberly be better to follow that … you could then work with proxys for quick previews.
________________________________
the rest of the film is sourced from varying SD archival material: some of the background plates might end up being HD (4:2:2 locations) so i think this is why the post house is suggesting slightly smaller HD files: there wouldnt be much point in working at full size for this stuff?
havent had much luck with proxies at high res (C3) but maybe C4 is better?
____________________________________

As kuban says you REALLY need to have a prober calibrated displaying device and consider technoligy like Truelight or Cinespace…. maybe the post house can help you fit in there colour profile – and maybe help you calibrate a CRT monitor or a DLP.
________________________
i definitely want to get the monitor calibrated professionally if possible: i’ve used LUTs in C3 before and wondered if there is a better (more reliable) way to do it: rather than having to manually apply every time you open the application?
i will ask the telecine/post house if they can assist.

Just to convince you that it’s possible – alot of VFX for featurefilm here in Denmark was done in combustion (by a company called Gearless) in HD … so it should defiently be okay for you to do … If you’re doing alot of shots, you should consider a small renderfarm!

this is good to hear: and am cobbling together a renderfarm as well
thanks for your help

[kuban]

junglerose wrote:

i definitely want to get the monitor calibrated professionally if possible: i’ve used LUTs in C3 before and wondered if there is a better (more reliable) way to do it: rather than having to manually apply every time you open the application?
i will ask the telecine/post house if they can assist.

3D LUTs are much more precise when compared to 1D LUTs. But as far as I know combustion doesnt have such a feature yet? So you have to have a hardware solution for 3D LUTs. Such as truelight. But that’s going to cost more than all your other equipments. Those devices should be around US$30k…

[rose]

hello again

i’ve heard of truelight but way out of my budget range unfortunately…
do you know anything about Cinespace by Rising Sun (Adelaide)? Cant seem to find much info on it, wondering if that is made for combustion and if its an option: have heard its been developed for shake and toxic? for my budget i think i’ll have to stick with 1D option…

thks r

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