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Reconform from Folder Reset all My Grades?
So here’s my issue – I’ll start with the workflow that led up to this.
I’m grading a 3 part short film – shot on Epic. Offline done with prores proxies. Just to make my machine run faster (I have no red rocket) – I did a first pass at the grade on the proxies. Not the highest quality, but good enough for a starting point. In my media pool, I have a folder of the proxies, and a folder of the R3D files. So my plan was to grade with the proxies till I got close, then “reconform from folder” to the R3D media, double check my grades, do any last tweaks, and render out. This seemed to work fine for part 1. No issues swapping in and out from proxy file to R3d as I worked.
Got the xml for part 2, graded with the proxies, then went to reconform to the R3Ds… everything reconnected perfectly – all clips in the right places, etc. But all my grades were gone. In fact, if I jumped over to the color tab, you could see my grade, and then it would disappear as it processed the frame. Strangely, when I “reconform from folder” back to the proxies, the grades reappear, just as I left them. What’s going on? Am I doing something wrong in my workflow? Why would the R3D clips reconform perfectly, but drop the grade? Super frustrating, and I don’t really want to have to use color trace to transfer grades over from a proxy session to a r3d session. I like the ability to pop back and forth and work quickly with the proxies, and then double check with the r3D….
Furthermore, it’s now happening to the session for part 1. If reconform that session to the r3d files, it’s not taking in the grade from the proxies… but when I reconform back, the grade are there again. Something has clearly happened in Resolve….
Any thoughts? Am I just an idiot? What am I missing?
Drew Kimball
Principal
//Braintrust Creative//
braintrustcreative.com -
10 Replies
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I think that you have both the proxies and R3Ds in the master timeline and that Resolve is keeping the clips distinct from each other even though they share identical timecode and reel numbers. When you reconform from folders, you point your timeline to different clips in the master session which link up correctly, but those R3D clips on the master session don’t share grades with the proxies.
I’m not sure how you could create a relationship between those clips in the master session- i think it’s intentionally designed to keep that from happening so that projects with conflicts will keep distinct grades on the conflicting files in the master session.
KC
Prehistoric Digital
PhD Grading Suite -
I’ve got similar problem, but when reconforming vfx shots from R3D to DPX. The grade is left intact, but has no result, like it is turned off. But if i grab the still from R3D shot, reconform it to DPX and apply the same grade it works well. I think it happens, when you reconform to different kind of media.
So you can try trace your timeline, and manually apply your grades after reconform. Maybe there is a better way to do this, but i don’t found it yet.Andrew Shtern
Editor/Colorist
The Coffeepost @Kiev, UA -
Kevin is right,
The grades you did are bound to the file or clips in the master session,
adding R3Ds with same name, reel number and timecode won’t inherit the proxy grades.
As far as resolve is concerned these are just new files in the master session.To make this work in the past, I’ve deleted the media (in your case the proxy files) and replaced with
other files with the same name. We do this’ll the time with VFX shots. As long as the replacement file has EXACTLY the same name, reel number and timecode, this should work.Remove the proxy files from the media pool only, not the MASTER session,
add the R3D files and go to the conform page, everything should magically appear.See how that goes,
oh…. make a copy of your project before messing with it.. 🙂 -
This makes sense. I guess I always assumed that grades were attached to just reel and timecode, and not the master session. I think what I’ll need to do is remove the R3d media from the media pool (taking it out of the master session) – then remove the proxy footage, THEN add back the r3d media.
I guess the only alternative is if there is a way to have different source clips share the same remote grade, or if there’s a way to have clips in the media pool but not in the master session. Don’t know if either of those is possible. I do then wish there was a way to make the “real time proxy” feature use a different source altogether, not just a lo res version of the same clip. The issue I have is more an issue of debayering in real time than grading in real time.
Drew Kimball
Principal
//Braintrust Creative//
braintrustcreative.com -
Hi,
Exact same problem here. Except there doesn’t seem to be a solution.
– I get an EDL out of Avid.
– I add the R3Ds to Media Pool.
– Import the EDL. works.
– then instead of grading the slow R3D (no rocket card either), I render in “source mode” to ProRes 444.Grade offline ProRes444:
– I create a new “offline” project
– Add prores444 to media pool
– Import EDL.
– I grade.Transfer back to online R3D:
– I switch back to online project
– ColorTrace to take grades from offline
– Grades are transferred “erratically”e.g. if I have two clips from the same reel (same R3D file “xxx.R3D”, but two small reel files for Prores “xxx – V1-002.mov” and “xxx – V1-004.mov”), then only the first grade is transferred by colortrace.
It’s like colortrace would need to create a new version for the second clip (from the same reel/R3D file), but it can’t.
Am I missing something? Anybody managed to ColorTrace from “source mode-rendered” media files?
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about your problem, Drew, with switch between offline & R3Ds:
Did you try “change parent directory” on the media pool files? If there is a 1 to 1 correspondence between your offline proxies “xxx.mov” and the online “xxx.R3D”, then it should work
it basically just switches the source file of a clip, keeping everything, grades, versions etc. – it does NOT create a new clip in the master timeline
when I got the opportunity to test that, I’ll post my results
Drew, how did you do it with your project? could you transfer the grades?
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There is an easy workaround for this color trace issue. Basically in the new project uses R3D, switch your time to local grades using “Batch Copy/Batch Unlink”. Now when you color trace, it will copy the grades to the local version, and hence it should work as you expect.
Remember that your grades are now scored with local timeline, so if you want to transfer your grades to a new timeline, you can’t rely on the source file re-link provided by the Master Session, so you will have to use Colortrace.
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managed to have an Epic workflow grading in Resolve without a redrocket card
basically it’s “grading the same MXF generated in RedCine-X used by Avid”, then switching to the R3D for the render/to check the grade on highest res
very simple:
– import the MXF in media pool with “get reel name from embedded source clip” (gets it from inside the MXF’s tape name, not the file name)
– import EDL
– grade
– remove the MXF from the media pool
– add the R3D to the media pool
– all the grades, versions and “current version” are maintained in the timeline which now links to the R3D.hope this helps
D.ps: you can switch back and forth between MXF and R3D as long as you don’t forget to delete the MXFs *BEFORE* adding the R3D, and deleting the R3D *BEFORE* adding back the MXF. otherwise Resolve notices that they are different clips, and you get double clips R3D/MXF in the master timeline (from this point, the solution is simply to remove the MXF or the R3D “from the media and from the master timeline” – it’s an option in the media pool)
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hi david ,
even if i quite don’t understand why you guys at the end of the process switch to the R3D just ro render … i mean the all advantage of the R3D is to grade the Raw that give more latitude and ISO and white balance settings … i don’t really see the point of grade a Locked primary on a MXF and than replace with R3D only for render (unless you doing it to export 4K files or if you have very big blow up (zoom)
anyway , 1 question :
the mxf that you replace with the R3D : are both same length ? I am wondering if trimmed R3D (that cover enough TC would do the Trick ..)
thanks
g
Davinci Resolve Control Surface
MacPro
Cubix desktop 4
2 Red Rockets
GTX470+GTX470+GTX285
24GB RAM
HP Dreamcolor
Panasonic 58PF Plasma -
hi gabriele
– Trimmed R3D won’t relink in Resolve: the R3D and MXF have to be exactly the same start & end TC, otherwise Resolve will not “relink the offline clips in the master session to the new files” – it will create other clips in the master timeline, so they won’t share the grades
– it is true that one good thing about grading R3Ds is to be able to change their “digital development”. although:
1) switching MXF/R3D is real fast, so we do it all the time to check & grade, not just for render
2) changing development settings is only useful for “stressed environment images” – ie with strong highlights, stark contrasts etc. -> most of the grades will start with the “basic development” chosen at shoot time
3) we shoot in Stereo 3D, so grading R3Ds in real time would require double rocket cards – we might rent/buy them later, but for now, MXF/R3D switching is a good solution so we can both grade the real thing (R3Ds) and see the result in realtime (MXFs – except for those shots we modified the R3D development settings for in Resolve)
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