[Sinan]

@pawek22 23924 wrote:

Hi fxguide,

Im currently in a process of changing my work environment. I was working on Inferno for last 4 years. Now i decided to try freelance so I wont have access to online station, I have to find other ways to do some tasks. My main compositing tool will be Digital Fusion. Now the main problem i need to solve is the best workflow to input footage (EDL) from digital beta deck.
I was thinking of one of blackmagic cards for that. Any of you had any experience with those ?
Other thing to solve is a painter, fusion got one but its a vector based, and i really used to Inferno paint tool. I was wondering if there is a software that got a painter like that. Those might be simple questions but i was for a long deep into big studio pipeline and used Inferno for 99% of my job .

Thanks in advance, Paul

The same with me, I just got used to it so much. I only know the FFI way.
I should tell you a little difference between inferno and blackmagic video input. There is no chroma filtering in that video card, when converting from YUV_4:2:2 to RGB image. This filtering is a very good feature with DIVO on good old onyx2. You would need this filter when doing I/O with digibeta, since it is a single link device. A small test: just create a red text over blue background, you will see the aliasing in chroma.

However it should be possible to do chroma filtering, in a software way, with almost any compositing package. But other than this little problem, decklink is amazing for the price, if you just plan to use it as your I/O device.

[Sinan]

Art director: I am sending you a document from photoshop, what should be the dpi setting?
Me: There is no dpi in video, just send…
Art director: I am sending you a 300dpi document, that would be good quality.
Me: But…We just need 720×576 pixels….
Art director: What is pixel? (However it is better today, more and more clients are used to the term “pixel”, thanks to digital cameras)

Then, I receive a 100MB document for using a logo in a PAL frame! It is ok for todays PCs, but it was a nightmare on 32MB ram PCs, to open 100MB documents.

[Sinan]

Great post Mehmet,
I also explained to people time to time, that 10bit log is not a bad thing. Especially when compositing, it causes lots of trouble, convert to lin, comp layers, back to log… Seems to have lots of trouble, and it seems that, they hate it. But log is a very efficient way of representing the film in a digital environment. If you ask me, even digital display devices should work that way (Ofcourse when they have the contrast ratio of 35mm positive) Everything in computer world is linear images, with crt gamma now. That is just because it was the easiest way to implement a ramdac. Maybe even gfx card manufacturers should think about using log space in terms of signals. That will solve the banding issue in 24 bit RGB. Even 8 bit log would be a better thing.

I know, the linear approach was quick solution for 320×200 CGA 4 color displays in 1980s, but now, everybody watches film from their computers. Plays photo realistic games with the PC. And now there are some newer type displays, which have really good contrast ratio.

Maybe, now it is the time for computer gfx world, to think more about log images…

[Sinan]

@rohit 24040 wrote:

12-bit packed = 36bits per pixel and 12-bit unpacked = 48bits per pixel…i think … 🙂

From a practical point of view: If you use packed mode, you will need less storage. If you used unpacked you will need more storage. However, packed mode will need lots of cpu resource to pack/unpack the data when doing disk I/O. So in higher resolutions, packed mode might not be able to playback in realtime, depending on hardware configuration. So that is a balance, speed vs. storage space…

[Sinan]

@rohit 23982 wrote:

shake would be awesome! and rhythmbox would be killer!

I always have the idea for a workstation: “Install 1 big/main app to it, and keep it that way.”. I really can’t think of a flame box, that people use like their windows pc. I’m afraid of installations conflicting each other. Autodesk has custom DKU for linux. That is the technical reason.

And another thing: when I start to browse web from the flame box, that might hurt my concentration to work.

So, I will keep my linux box with flame only.

[Sinan]

@marcelo_cunha 23965 wrote:

Well, if you have an Inferno on Onyx350, bought 1,5 year ago at about 800k$, it really is a bad thing…

Come on, nobody could have paid that much for an inferno in the last few years… And it is the software license, not the hardware. Now think that, you upgrade your onyx350 hardware for around $60k, to a much faster model.
And I heard that, 2008 is going to be the last version that will work on sgi!

[Sinan]

@rohit 23878 wrote:

>>> ive done a 6min music video [PAL] without any issues., 1 CC,. 1 CW, 1 3 layer action and 1 RSZ.

Wooow, thats impressive. I can’t wait for the upgrade…

[Sinan]

@Timor 23880 wrote:

maybe you could elaborate a bit about your workflow, we have mainly hd-cam and hd-sr projects so i would love to hear somethink about perfomance, etc…

I have tested 2K, 10bit log dpx images, in realtime primary grading. It can even work with some simple secondaries. But for the current 960×720 procect, I can work at least 50fps!, with primary in, 2-3 secondaries with vignettes, and a primary out without any proxies.

I have also tested 2K images with 1K proxies, it was also very fast. But I haven’t tested or finished any 2K projects on color yet. However we plan to do so in near future.

[Sinan]

Hi Timor,
I work with 3Dlut that I generated in finaltouch (.mga) format. It is 16x16x16 cube. The project was shot on an hdv camera, and edited with edius software on windows. I got the project on edius, and exported each reel in .tga format from edius. Then I converted .tga sequences to 8bit dpx files. This conversion is just for compatibility with color, not LUTs applied. I just wanted to get rid of quicktime workflow, because I saw some gamma issues with quicktime encodings and I can’t risk my images!

The source images were in 960×720 non-square pixel, 16:9 aspect ratio. But I haven’t done any resize in color, I don’t want to filter my images. I have adjusted HV scale of the crt, to preview the correct aspect ratio. The aspect ratio resize is done the analog way 🙂

Then I use my primary in, as the lin2log converter. I just setup an input curve for each of my shots, then I start to grade in log space. I use float numbers internally in color, and output log 10 bit cineon files to arrilaser. I use cineon, because dpx format endianness is not compatible with our irix inferno systems, but cineon works. However I would like to use dpx format, if it were compatible with inferno.

By the way, some additional detail. I don’t use proxy. I don’t use Kona video. I use dual displays mode of color software. I use 1 lcd for gui, 1 crt for preview. I use the scopes window on crt monitor. I just scaled up to crop window bar! So I preview my client, an overscan full screen image.

Hope these details clears your questions. I would like to share experiences with color.

[Sinan]

@brianH 23866 wrote:

I’ll second Rohit’s opinion. I got burned VERY hard by the batch timeline / segmentFX in 9.2, but had great success with them last week in 2007sp4. I finished a 4-minute 720p video with segmentFX on just about every shot using the batch timeline and it worked great. Give it a shot…you won’t be disappointed!

We are at v9.2 now, so that’s why I haven’t seen it yet. But if you say it works, very good… We will have the new versions in a few weeks, so I can’t wait to use segmentFX.

By the way, a few(many?) questions?
– With basic batch setups for each segment (say, a CC, and a 1 layer action node in SD resoulution), how many cuts work on the batch timeline, without any bugs?

– If the batch nodes become complex, what is the dragging interactivity? What I want to know is, does it load the batch setups from disk each time you go to next shot, or does it hold the setups in ram?

[Sinan]

I wish that segment FX works for real jobs. I really want to use that feature, but it is impossible to use with current versions, because of bugs.

[Sinan]

@adolff 23721 wrote:

3d particle system! 3ds max or maya ?
modular keyer ! master keyer ?
expressions! after effects ?
batch? do u need it die hard? if yes, then shake is in for u !
warping and morphing! for warping sapphire warp spark and morphing ( timewarp motion estimation, cheap alternative) elastic reality! after effects
action ! dve !
cheers
adolff

When you work like this, you will be in big trouble, when it comes to revisions, and client attended creative sessions! You will have to tell the client: I did the bg animation in Aftereffects, let’s change the animation curves in there, then change the background color in smoke, then increase the amount of particles in Max. Client won’t be able to see everything together
.
But with inferno, I finish most of the shots in one (sometimes huge) batch setup. I even name my nodes, sometimes take notes for some of the complex nodes. When I finish my job for a commercial, I only have 20-30 batch setups + revisions of them. My naming convention is something like this:

s01_comp
s01_comp_rev1
s01_comp_rev2
…
…

s02_comp
…
ps_comp_v1 (I’m almost sure that I will make some other versions of the packshot)
ps_comp_v2
…

I know this doesn’t seem to be very process efficient way, but I don’t want to keep duplicate data. I want to keep track of the revision history, etc… When I work on desktop, I loose track. I almost never work like this: first CC, then add some sparks, comp in action, CC the comp again, add some sparks for final. No, that’s not my way. I always want to edit any step, and see what final result looks like! So I want all my processes in one huge batch setup. That setup takes the source, computes the comp.

Again, this might not be the best way of finishing, but that’s the way I like to work. Smoke won’t allow me to work like this 🙁

[Sinan]

@sinancg 23712 wrote:

Are there any other files and setups that can be accessed from autodesk?

These are the direct links to videos for inferno:
http://download.autodesk.com/us/flame_training/Flame_2007_EXT1_Update_Training/index.html
http://download.autodesk.com/us/flame_training/Flame_2007_Getting_Started_Tutorials/index.html
http://download.autodesk.com/us/flame_training/1/player/index.html
http://download.autodesk.com/us/inferno/video/MPX1_IFF/index.html
http://www.autodesk.com/media/Smoke_Fire/NAB_2006_Master_Series/

This if the index for inferno materials:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=8260649&linkID=9241976

[Sinan]

@newone 23714 wrote:

mpixls,
I agree. Ironically enough though. technicolor called me about an opening.. finishing trailers….on the Inferno!!!! Other houses I have talked with mostly use Inferno. That is why I questioned my initial knee-jerk answer to my friends question.

Until linux machines arrived, most of the infernos were running on onyx2 or onyx350, and most of the smokes were running on octanes. So even if the software capabilities of smoke might be even better for trailers, the hardware performance of infernos would win over octanes.

But with the arrival of linux boxes, this problem became obsolete. If you ask my opinion, smoke itself is a good start. But maybe your friend should ask for a flame/smoke combo. That does cost only a little more than a flame only setup. Maybe even start with a smoke only, and add a flame license on the same box later…

[Sinan]

@rohit 23658 wrote:

ive seen that a few times with the milo rigs..ive also seen one destroy an arri 435 🙂

It is like a car, you have to know how to drive it. If you don’t drive it carefully, you can easily crash it.

Here is a good way to integrate your CG moves with Milo shoots. It works inside Maya.

Developers website:
http://www.iktrix.com/

[Author]

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