[Declan Smith]

Hi

Time remapping will not get passed in the final cut xml as this is a premiere implementation. Scaling of clips should work ok, but the frameBlend attribute is not in the DTD so I wouldn’t expect this to work either.

One very quick and dirty test is to export the FCP xml, then start a new blank premiere project and import the xml. Then open the sequence up and see what has broken.

For your time remapped clips, one approach is to nest each time remapped clip into it’s own sequence (right click the clip and select nest). Then open up media encoder, load the project and select all the nested clips for encoding. Encode all those clips to new files, import them back into your project and replace the nested sequence clips with the newly rendered clips (with the time remapping burnt in).

Now when you export, your time remapped clips are just like any other. I’m assuming that your director want’s to be able to edit (hence sending over xml) so this would preclude the time remapped clips from further editing.

If your director just wants to see the film, then you could just render out the timeline for him/her to view only.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

The way I would tackle this is to use an expression on the source of a text object. If I have understood your requirement, you want a counter to countdown 1 year for each real second, with an output that includes: years:months:days:hours:minutes:seconds.

As a starter for 10, alt/option click the stopwatch of a text layers source attribute and paste the code in below. I have skewed the figures to read zero for all fields except the years right at the beginning of the animation.

Years is set to 93 as per your initial post. To alter the speed of the counter, you can change the time factor variable (i.e. divide time by some number for slower, or multiply it to speed it up).


function decrementNumber(num, leading, modulus) {
num="" + Math.floor(num-((timefactor % 1) *num)) % modulus;
while (num.length < leading) num='0'+num;
return num;

}

// Variables
years=93;
months=12;
days=364;
hours=24*days;
minutes=60*hours;
seconds=60*minutes;
timefactor=time;

// Calculations
years="" + Math.floor(years-timefactor);
while (years.length < 2) years='0' + years;

months=decrementNumber(months,2, 12 );
days=decrementNumber(days,2, 28 );
hours=decrementNumber(hours,2, 24 );
minutes=decrementNumber(minutes,2, 60 );
seconds=decrementNumber(minutes,2, 60 );

counter="" + years + ":" + months + ":" + days + ":" + hours + ":" + minutes +":" + seconds

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Perfect, this solved it for me.

Many Thanks

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

The Atomos Samurai recorder allows you to record from the HD-SDI directly into ProRes 422 (or Avid DNxHD) and will also accept an analog line in signal which it will encode simultaneously into the ProRes file. So for the XL H1, you would feed the video signal from HD-SDI into the recorder and take the audio from the RCA sockets into the line in.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon XLH1 / Canon 7D / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Having switched a few years ago from Vegas pro to final cut pro and then final cut pro to premiere pro, I still have very good memories of Vegas pro and still think it has features that are just as good if not better. If it hadn’t been for me switching platforms I wouldn’t have switched I don’t think. I don’t think in all that switching that I really gained much, so I would take a good look at what you are doing and what you are hoping to achieve by switching, because it can be a costly process. For me I had to because I switched from PC to Mac, but I have alot of respect for Vegas, particularly how it deals with audio.

Another thing to note is that premiere pro, in the next fee weeks, becomes rental software. You pay a monthly subscription. Stop paying Adobe and you can no longer edit or access your projects, but whilst you are paying, you can sit on the bleeding edge and get all the latest fixes and updates.

Premiere pro is extremely good at dealing with any media. You can almost throw anything on the timeline and it works, which saves a bit of time, and premiere pro integrates nicely with the other adobe products like after effects.

If you are already up to speed with Vegas Pro, do not need to collaborate with other premiere pro users or integrate with the other Adobe products, then it’s probably not worth switching, but which tool is the right one for you is a personal choice. For me, as I have effectively switched three times, I now view them like cars in that they are all basically the same, I can hop in and out of different ones and they all have things I both like and dislike, but I never buy a car because it’s shiny.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon 7D / Canon XL2 / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

The expression as supplied generates random numbers that do not repeat. If you limit the numbers that you want the expression to return from 1-15, then by definition, you can only evaluate this 15 times before you will have to repeat a value.

So I am now not entirely sure what problem you are trying to solve.

If you want to limit the numbers that are generated to between 1-15 then you will need some additional mechanism to ensure they don’t repeat, i.e. holding the value for a number of frames, or changing the value based on a keyframe.

In order to specify your own values, I have added both min and max values, just set these to what you want. The for loop creates the array. (currently I have set min=1 max=15)

I have provided you two Options below.

Option 1 – Expression will repeat every max frames.
Just change the value of the interval (current set to 10)

Option 2 – Expression will pick a value based on the keyframe index. In other words you add keyframes where you want the value to change. Note that your maximum number of keyframes is determined by your ‘max’ value you specified. Uncomment the lines specified

function shuffle(o){
// Shuffle based on original code by Jonas Raoni Soares Silva
// https://jsfromhell.com/array/shuffle [v1.0]
seedRandom(1, timeless = true);
for(var j, x, i = o.length; i; j = parseInt(random() * i), x = o[--i], o[i] = o[j], o[j] = x);
return o;
}
//max=timeToFrames(t = thisComp.duration + thisComp.displayStartTime, fps = 1.0 / thisComp.frameDuration, isDuration = false);
min=1
max=3
numarray=[];
for (i = min; i <=max; i++) {
numarray.push(i);
}
numarray=shuffle(numarray);

// Option 1 - Will change value every 'interval' number of frames (but will repeat every 'max' * 'interval' frames
ttf=timeToFrames(t = time + thisComp.displayStartTime, fps = 1.0 / thisComp.frameDuration, isDuration = false);
interval=10;
numarray[Math.floor((ttf/interval) % max)];

// Option 2 - Will select based on keyframe position (uncomment the next four lines
//n = 0;
//n = nearestKey(time).index;
//if (key(n).time > time) n--;
//numarray[n % max];


Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon 7D / Canon XL2 / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Try this.

This will create an array of consecutive numbers starting at zero going up to the length of your composition (in frames). The array is then randomly shuffled (shuffle routine courtesy of google) but with the random number seed being the same each time, so that each frame creates the same random sort order. The number returned from array is chosen by using the current frame number.

To see this work, put it on the source property of a text object.

You can use the numbers in the array as you wish, scale them whatever. Also, if you want them to hold for a number of frames, then just change how you extract the number from the array. i.e. if you want to hold a particular number for 5 frames, then change the last line to read something like:
numarray(Math.floor(ttf/5))

But the essence of the code below is that it generates a random number that doesn’t repeat.

function shuffle(o){
// Shuffle based on original code by Jonas Raoni Soares Silva
//https://jsfromhell.com/array/shuffle [v1.0]
seedRandom(1, timeless = true);
for(var j, x, i = o.length; i; j = parseInt(random() * i), x = o[--i], o[i] = o[j], o[j] = x);
return o;
}
max=timeToFrames(t = thisComp.duration + thisComp.displayStartTime, fps = 1.0 / thisComp.frameDuration, isDuration = false);
numarray=[];
for (i = 0; i <max; i++) {
numarray.push(i);
}
numarray=shuffle(numarray);
ttf=timeToFrames(t = time + thisComp.displayStartTime, fps = 1.0 / thisComp.frameDuration, isDuration = false);
numarray[ttf];


Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon 7D / Canon XL2 / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

I am in the process of putting together a tutorial for expression driven gears that I have used on a recent project with a gear design element also. You create a cog by simply selecting how many teeth, and what the source is for rotating it.

If you want to change the shape of the teeth, the cog design element allows you to do this. Subsequent gears can be linked to the main gear and they will automatically orient and mesh to the parent gear and rotate accordingly., and placed anywhere around the parent cog. Very simple to use ad very flexible, BUT, I have not done the tutorial as yet, I won’t have time until after Tuesday.

If this will be of use, and within your timescales, then let me know and I will knock up a quick guide mid week and post a sample project.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon 7D / Canon XL2 / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Update:

Your suggestion of using Orient world was absolutely spot on 100%. Created the new camera & solid, selected it as a ground plane within Orient world, clicked apply and all my existing objects and lights etc are now exactly how I wanted them.

What’s slightly ironic is that I went to purchase the plugin and realised I already had it!! Very much a ‘wood for the trees’ moment.

Thanks for your help, that simple suggestion has saved me hours of work.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon 7D / Canon XL2 / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”

[Declan Smith]

Yes quite! I will have a look at the script, but if there is no quick solution I may as well reposition the 12 layers to the new camera / 3D space. This came from working on one part of the project in the absence of the other, so was just curious of there was a magic ‘align 3D space’ option. The orient world script definitely looks useful though.

Declan Smith
https://www.madpanic.tv
After Effects CS6/ FCS3 / Canon 7D / Canon XL2 / Reason / Cubase

“it’s either binary or it’s not”