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Hate and Love
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[Oliver Peters] “LOL. You’re either joking or channeling your inner Aindreas. It is, of course “cross dissolve” in FCPX.
“I know Oliver. ; ) The persistent idea around here that I somehow think X is *perfect* is silly. I’ve always seen and noted it’s flaws. It’s just that I much prefer going through life enjoying things that work for me, rather than spend too much time focused on the aspects of things that are imperfect.
Oddly, my Mom, (who passed away 2 years ago just shy of her 101st birthday!) once mentioned that she had read that like me, Teddy Roosevelt had survived an somewhat rare case of western equine encephalitis as a young man (don’t go river-tubing during mosquito season!) and afterwards, speculated that the nasty fever might have somehow messed with his brain chemistry to give him an overly positive outlook on life. (BULLY!) True or pure rumor-based medical BS, I haven’t a clue – but I do know that I tend to find it boring to spend too much time focused on the negative in things unless they REALLY bug me. Probably just a personality flaw in my case!
By the way, it also looks like the contracts are all but signed and I will be spending that week shooting in FL in mid February that i mentioned to you. (Thanks for that local crew referral, I REALLY appreciate it!) I know Florida is a BIG state and Orlando is a ways from the Ft. Myers area where our team will be shooing, but who knows – maybe the fates will rear up and I can buy you dinner – either in your neck of the woods – or at NAB this year by way of saying thanks for the help.
I’ll keep in touch as the dates gets closer.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Walter Soyka] “That’s funny; a dissolve is just “over””
I hope you won’t mind me pointing out that this is a bit of an over-simplification, even as regards the most common implementations of the dissolve in the applications we are familiar with. Certainly Over is one way of doing it and is probably what most people think of as what’s happening, but it’s far from being the only way.
The way I see it, a dissolve requires three things: a) a blending operation to determine how the pixels of the two overlapping layers interact; b) a means of handling the alpha channels of the two images, if present; and c) one or two sets of animation curves that determine the rate of the transition.
This being the case, it’s not difficult to see that there are a huge number of ways in which a dissolve could be implemented. For example, any of the commonly used blend modes will yield workable results and allow for many different looks but clearly one could devise custom blend modes for even more complex results. FCP X offers a pretty wide range of these kinds of options, some better-looking than others. Obviously how the pixels are blended will greatly impact on which appear more persistent than others – in fact the blending operation will have a greater impact than the animation curve a lot of the time.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “I hope you won’t mind me pointing out that this is a bit of an over-simplification, even as regards the most common implementations of the dissolve in the applications we are familiar with.”
Not in the least! It is an oversimplification. But here’s why I did it:
[Simon Ubsdell] “The way I see it, a dissolve requires three things: a) a blending operation to determine how the pixels of the two overlapping layers interact; b) a means of handling the alpha channels of the two images, if present; and c) one or two sets of animation curves that determine the rate of the transition.”
A) Other blends are possible, but a standard video cross-dissolve blends normally by convention.
B) In Oliver’s example, alpha is always 1 so I (over)simplified.
C) The animation curve is an input to the dissolve calculation, and is relevant to the result, but is irrelevant to the actual operation.
The idea I was responding to was the idea that GPU processing was somehow causing inferior results. The point I was trying to make was that it’s just math, and the naive case for a dissolve as above is one of the simplest operations possible. It can’t be stripped down or approximated with a simpler method to run faster or on a different device.
[Simon Ubsdell] “Obviously how the pixels are blended will greatly impact on which appear more persistent than others – in fact the blending operation will have a greater impact than the animation curve a lot of the time.”
Not just the blending operation, but the blending operands.
I think the issue Oliver has is that even if FCPX is doing the exact same blending that FCP7 was, it’s doing them on linearized sources instead of gamma-encoded ones. That would give those persistent highlights.
It’s the same math, but with different numbers, so you get different results.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “Not just the blending operation, but the blending operands.”
Yes, very much so.
I wasn’t disagreeing with your excellent analysis – just pointing out that Over is not the only known dissolve blending operation. But yes, your simplification made sense in the overall context of the discussion.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
To Oversimplify or Not: The Debate
I owe you a response to the original idea of the thread. I think I derailed this one a bit.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “I think I derailed this one a bit.
“Derailing is great – I love derailing. That’s where all the great ideas come from.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Alan Okey] “Smoke doesn’t have multicam editing, but in terms of integration of editing and effects, I’d argue that it’s far ahead of the Adobe CC suite.”
Smoke certainly blurs the line between editorial tool and finishing tool, but lack of multicam is a big deal for a lot of productions and it’s not like the workflow between After Effects and Premiere Pro is really awful, is it?
[Alan Okey] “In terms of audio, Resolve has the edge because it now supports VST plugins right within the app, including custom plugin GUIs.”
Umm, we supported VST in Premiere Pro 1.0 circa 2003. Yes, I’m the Adobe guy, but you really have to put some facts out there to convince me that Resolve is more powerful when it comes to audio.
Dennis – Adobe guy
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[Dennis Radeke] “Umm, we supported VST in Premiere Pro 1.0 circa 2003. Yes, I’m the Adobe guy, but you really have to put some facts out there to convince me that Resolve is more powerful when it comes to audio. “
I meant that between Smoke and Resolve, Resolve has the upper hand in audio. I wasn’t comparing Resolve to PP. And from what I’ve read, audio was a sore point in Resolve prior to v12.
Regarding multicam, of course it’s a big deal to certain types of editing, which is why I mentioned it. I primarily do promos and finishing, so for me, Smoke is ideal. I’m not bashing PP/AE, but for my needs, Smoke is the ideal tool. For any non FX-heavy finishing, I like Resolve even better due to its superior color grading toolset and rendering speed.
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[Alan Okey] “Resolve and Smoke come to mind.”
Smoke is great for promos but as you mentioned, no multicam; neither is very good for audio, so I stand by my statement that Ppro has the most complete set of tools under one “roof” – for maximum usage in the widest number of situations it’s tough to beat. On the other hand not everyone is looking for a unified work space. If I’m cutting for broadcast in an Avid environment where the audio is getting mixed on Pro Tools and the video is getting graded on Resolve while my graphics are being done by the GFX department, I could care less about any of this so YMMV.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf
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