Prerender dynamic linking?

[Alex Udell]

Had discussed this a while back, but what if you pre-render and set proxy in AE?

then in PPro the dynamic linked file which is pointing to the AE Comp should just be seeing the proxy through that path.

PPro might still require a render, but essentially it’s re-rendering a t flattened file at that point so it ought to be pretty quick…

Alex

[Tim Kolb]

Alex makes a good suggestion, though I think FCP will need a video file that it can read for the project to really work in FCP. I don’t know if there would be a way for FCP to see even a proxy video file through the dynamic linked comp that is what PPro considers to be the “asset”.

…I always reserve the right to be horribly wrong, so if I am, someone chime in…

How many shots are there? Is each “instance” on your PPro timeline a separate AE comp?

If you are simply headed to. FCP to use Color as a finishing pass…would simply outputting a DPX frame sequence be out of the question?

I take it you’re in PPro on a Mac with FCP installed?

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Weston Jones]

Greetings,

Thanks for the responses. I think alex’s suggestion is a good one for speeding up render time, however 1) it would be a very annoying process to individually create proxy’s for all of my shots in AE (over 100). Partially my fault because my comps weren’t very organized in AE. Also, this process would still not allow to send an XML to FCP because it’s still referring to dynamic linking files (as you said).

I’m not exactly sure about the DPX workflow, not familiar with this process.

Either way we finished the project. Essentially it was a total cluster f*uck. 🙂 We ended up splitting up the project and rendering on 4 different computers. Took a long time, probably total 80-100 hours for 20 minutes, and crashed a lot (the FX work was not very complicated, a key and a few layers, some minor animation). The final video files we took into FCP and recut each shot with the razor blade to send to Color. Ran into some audio sync problems here, had to trip each shot a frame (ohh yah vay!)

Basically I would urge others to not use dynamic linking on 4k R3D files. I don’t think the technology can handle such a large/uncompressed video file. Transcoding to pro res would have been better for sure.

In the future I would instead edit the sequence in PPro or FCP, and then import the sequence into AE. Precompose each clip in AE sequence to work on individually. Then just export out of AE.

Dynamic linking is cool, just doesn’t quite seem up to par yet. Thanks for the help!

[Tim Kolb]

Regarding Dynamic Link:

I think what is “up to par” is a moving target. Computer hardware seems to be catching up to Adobe’s capabilities about three years after release…as I mentioned in another thread.

RED footage is a special case as it is not only the massive pixel count, but contrary to what you said about RED footage…it is aggressively compreessed. Just doing the decode, and then the de-bayer process on RED footage for simple playback is beyond the reach of most, even relatively powerful, computers.

And…since RED footage (like all RAW image media) is so unprocessed coming in, there is some work for the software to do. When you combine this with the fact that you have RED footage that has been through a compositing process in RGB (in AE…and what color management setup you use in AE in this scenario could make quite a diffrence as well…), and is then dynamic linked to a PPro timeline that is running not in RGB, but is Y’CbCr…you’ve got some serious compression and color conversion acrobatics happening there…

While I’d agree with you that Dynamic Link used the way you did it in this scenario probably wasn’t the most elegant approach, I think the fact that RED footage at 4K stresses most “off-the-shelf” production pipelines from any manufacturer definitely adds a layer of challenges for the hardware alone…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Weston Jones]

Thanks a bunch for the info Tim! Haha I had no idea about the color conversions, that explains a lot.

Yeah we were unprepared to deal with the RED files and didn’t really know what we were getting into…hopefully this helps someone else before they fumble through it like we did!

In general, could anyone suggest what is their preferred post process whn having to do FX work? There are probably other threads on it but perhaps it’s OK to reiterate here.
From what I’ve learned here:

1)Tanscode footage to intermediate format
2)Cut scenes in FCP or PPro sequence
3)Import above sequence into AE
4)Precompose each layer (shot) in the resulting AE sequence and work on FX
5)Export sequence and combine with audio mix/color work in FCP or Ppro

(the last step seems wonky to me, as coming out of AE I have one video file. I guess I could export each layer? XML?)

Or perhaps just bring in a stero mix and do final exports out of AE?

Thanks!

[Alex Udell]

Ben…

my apologies…

I read this too quick…I totally missed the FCP part….

sorry…

Alex

[Tim Kolb]

It sort of depends where you’re most comfortable doing each thing…

Going backwards…I happen to think that PPro’s audio capabilities are more advanced, though they are also more complex, than FCP for work on the video editing timeline. Just the abiility to take the audio tracks sub-frame increment to audio samples for super-precise edits and sfx placement is probably worth the price of admission alone.

How you edit and transcode becomes a matter of preference also…

With RED footage (or any RAW footage…PPro and CineForm were editing RAW natively back when the Silicon Imaging 2K…the “Slumdog” camera was out more than a year before the RED was in prototype), you have the capability to do the primary color correction on the timeline, either with CINEX somewhat remotely, or with the interface to the RED decoder in PPro, and there is no image degradation at that stage. My personal approach is usually to keep motion RAW in its RAW form as long as possible.

Also, I think that footage entering post FX should have a considerable color adjustment in context with surrounding material already on it in my opinion. At least that way the image that you start with as the source doesn’t have so far to go when you do the final pass. After effects work has been done, duplicating the grade that was done on adjoining material post-effects-manipulation can be a pain, or impractical…or even impossible.

As far as ProRes is concerned…it’s a great codec and if you’re going to do additional editing in Final Cut, it’s great. However, I think at the time being that Color can’t even load ProRes without FCP frame serving it…can it? I’d need to look back at an FCS workflow doc…

However, I think that Color DOES load DPX frame sequences directly (it did when it was Final Touch)…AND with all that 4K RAW goodness, PPro can save out DPX files that can actually maintain palette values that are “out of range” or would be traditionally beyond clip…having all that extra dynamic range when you get to Color might have a positive effect on the process…

You’d have to test it as I don’t even know if Color understands the “out-of-range” values concept with DPX files…or if it even handles it in the same way.

…but it might be interesting to explore.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,