Fxguide sat down this week with Discreet’s Maurice Patel to discuss the latest developments regarding the company’s editing products. Smoke has now overtaken Fire as the most visibly successful editing tool in the family. It is well priced and with both the new IBM Linux version and Tezro dual HD realtime configuration, the range of hardware platforms is expanding. The announcement last week of Smoke version 6.0 shows that the product has greatly expanded
FXG: Can you tell us what Discreet announced this week for Smoke?
MP: Discreet is gearing up for one of its biggest tradeshows ever this IBC including:
- fire 6 & smoke 6
- smoke SD on LINUX
- Discreet Master Keyer
- SGI CXFS SAN & Maximum Throughput infrastructure sparks partners
- Plus a some surprises reserved for the show
FXG: Will discreet products be showing on tezro at IBC?
MP: Yes, we will have 4 Tezros on show at IBC There will be 1 in the private sales suites with smoke and flame, 1 used for the smoke pod, 1 used for the flame pod and 1 used for the main the theatre?
FXG: What is in the new fire and smoke verison 6 software?
MP:There are 5 key areas of improvement in the version 6 release of fire and smoke:
- Mixed resolution architecture
- Real-time 10-bit uncompressed RGB HD editing
- Advanced creative tools (Color Warper, Master Keyer, 3D warping, soft resize etc…)
- Improved workflow capabilities (OMF, EDL, Archiving, Library improvements)
- Choice of platforms (featuring the industry’s first Linux based online editing and finishing solution).
FXG: Can you be more specific about what the details of the editing features?
MP: Editdesk now supports multiple (mixed) resolution, bit depth and frame rate clips. This is equivalent to mixed resolution bins as well as mixed resolution source and record monitors. It allows clients to interactively browse any type of media in any format and edit it into their timeline. Different resolutions can now be visually seen on the editdesk, without the need for textual cues. At a glance the artist can see 4:3 and 16:9 media and can quickly access information concerning the exact format and frame rate of the media
Unlink/Relink tool – Unlink the media from the meta-data and relink new media. This can be used to switch from online to offline resolutions or even to fix problems like a malfunctioning VTR. You can now unlink your file, recapture, and relink without redoing the timeline.
New Soft Resize soft effect – As part of the mixed resolution support you can convert quickly and efficiently between formats using this effect – Ideal for pan and scan editing.
Multiple views for soft resize pan and scan.
Interchangeable views depending on your preference for editing.
FXG: And the Timesmear – we first saw in toxik?
MP: A visual timeline that shows a sample from every frame to provide a visual cue useful for checking continuity and finding specific regions of the timeline This can be “stretched” to any duration.
The Editing Timesmear feature previously only seen in Alpha Toxik versions
FXG: Where is toxik?
MP:Toxik is still on track but will not be shown publicly at IBC.
FXG:You mentioned new effects tools in Smoke/Fire V6.0?
MP: Yes, Master Keyer. Designed from the ground up, Discreet’s most advanced and most interactive Keyer yet – specifically designed for dealing with complex issues including shadows, transparencies and heavy spill.
FXG: What is Master Keyer? Will it replace the MK?
MP: The Master Keyer combines sophisticated keying technology with an intuitive, simple to use interface. Designed to make complex keying tasks simpler, the Master Keyer extends the already robust Keying tools in fire 6 and smoke 6 giving them the most advanced keying and compositing capabilities of any editing system today. The Master Keyer features sophisticated three dimensional color isolation technology designed to facilitate the keying of poorly set up effects shoots including such challenges as badly lit green/bluescreens, HDCAM compression or film grain, spill, transparent objects, shadows and fine edge detail
Another major advantage to the Discreet Master Keyer is its highly intuitive user interface designed to eliminate the painstaking tweaking of large number of widgets and controls typical of most other keyers. Instead, the Master Keyer allows you to work directly on the images themselves. Simply by clicking on different areas of the image, the Keyer will interactively determine the optimal parameters for improving the key and, based on the region you have selected, activate the relevant controls to improve the quality of the key. The controls appear directly under the pen (or mouse) cursor so the artist/editor can immediately start fine tuning the key. The Master Keyer integrates tools like Degrain and the Colour Warper for improved workflow and productivity
FXG: How does it work?
MP: Selecting a region of the image determines the color to be keyed and automatically calculates the best keying parameter information based on the selected source.
There is an option for automatic spill removal. Traditionally, spill suppression would have to be done with bezier curve manipulation, In the Master Keyer, fire/smoke will automatically compute excellent results, and only minor tweaking is needed with slider controls in spill, matte and blending area’s.
New blend algorithms help to simplify the process of compositing the foreground (keyed image) over the background. This process is accomplished by adjusting the foreground and background weighting using more intuitive on screen sliders than the more traditional bezier curve tweaking of the previous Keyer
Three “patch level” support (similar to garbage masks but with color information, in an RGB bounding box) for precision matte extraction that intelligently calculates the users intent, by analyzing if the matte is black, white or edge based.
A new degrain algorithm is designed to clean grain from footage and facilitate matte extraction while conserving edge detail. This new tool can be used to automatically analyze and degrain the source image used to calculate the matte.
Master Keyer is fully integrated into the traditional Keyer, so familiarity and productivity with original toolsets are maintained (IE, erode, shrink, color curves, matte curves and garbage mask) and therefore it does not replace the Modular Keyer but augments it.
The new Master Keyer (Ed: Get it – the master key to unlock any… – see the Matrix Reloaded!)
FXG: Can you list the other improvements?
MP: Gmask advanced gradient feature. Users can define in their garbage masks, what areas are effected with more or less softness, and can apply localized gradients to an area
Unified GMask & Keyer animation channel. GMask and Keyer are now in the same tool, making it easier to manipulate both in context
Soft effect editor. You can now apply soft effects to multiple clips, all at once
Color Warper. 3 ball color corrector for precise color manipulations. In the color corrector module, you can now access color warper. You can work in shadow, midtone and highlights in 3 ball environment, isolate 3 colors, warp color, color match and use luma curves.
3D warping. Extended bicubic deformations in DVE allows regions of an image layer to be warped in 3 dimensions.
Advanced 3D capabilities & Soft Axis. FBX data import allows editors to import 3D models and data (camera. lights, textures) from a variety of 3D applications including 3ds max and Maya. Camera data can be exported
FXG: For sometime now flame and inferno have had mixed resolution, which is a huge plus for those products, how does that now work in smoke and fire?
MP: We now have Multi-resolution workflow. In the same project, work with multiple resolutions. No need for multiple partitions or different timelines – a huge time saver and workflow enhancer.
Mixed resolution timeline. Edit multiple resolutions and frame-rates into the same timeline. Clips will auto-adjust to master settings
8- (all systems), 10- and 12-bit media resolutions (fire and smoke HD/Octane2 and Tezro). Better quality media support – the only editor with support for 12-bit media on the market !
10-bit I/O (fire and smoke HD/Tezro). You can set your timelines to automatically capture at 10 bit, even with a 8-bit HDCAM deck.
Proxy processing. Processing speeds workflow and decision making by allowing faster experimentation and preview – especially when working with 2K film and HDTV images
Improved intelligent proxy utilization. Proxies can now be set to follow guidelines to improve efficiency and reduce wasted disk space. (e.g. create proxy only for media at resolutions higher than 720×486).
Advanced and automatic META data associated with files.
Plus in editing we have EDL improvements. More functions within the EDL editor improve conforming and now allow you to capture only a proxy file or to auto eject a tape, Multi-tape and 720p archiving with today’s ever moreincreasing amounts of data associated you can now archive your projects across multiple video tapes including D5 HDCAM and 720p tapes. We haveIntegrated OMF – you no longer run scripts – import OMF compositions directly into the system and 24 bit audio with up to 32 realtime audio track playback.
The New Extended Bicubics now in Smoke
FXG: What has the response been to burn?
Response to burn has been very good. Beta sites have all given fairly good reviews and sales have already started to come in. We have only just started shipping so it’s a bit early to say what the response will be but every indication seems to be that it is a powerful and cost effective productivity tool.