[Jonathon Lee]

Hey David,

I basically wanted the same thing you mentioned in your post. I have set up a Smoke + Resolve system. It’s great, except for the Kona 3 card thing. I have a BMD card in my system so Smoke will not output via SDI in this set up. The great thing now is that Resolve 8 supports the Avid MC Color panel. So, you can use the same panel in Resolve and Smoke.

My work around for the monitor situtation is this. I have a BMD HD-Link that I feed HD-SDI RGB 10-bit from the Decklink. I’m using an HP Dreamcolor. The Decklink feeds the Dreamcolor via the HD Link via sdi.. this is how I get proper 10-bit into the display.

Now for smoke. I feed the Dreamcolor DVI from an Nvidia Card… In smoke you can use a second desktop monitor as the “broadcast” monitor. If you have a Quadro 4000 and use a displayport connection to a dreamcolor you can get 30-bit 10bpc color form the desktop. You can then set the HP to do rec709 or P3.

Until BMD supports the K3 or Smoke supports the Decklink you’ll need to do this. Otherwise you will have to try and install a Decklink and a K3 in the same system.. .which I would not recommend and it may also just not work.

Anyhow, Smoke + Resolve + Adobe CS 5.5 + Mocha Pro + MC + FCP 7 is the best/cheapest way to “do it all”… I also have maya and pro tools… best one-man-band in a box for the money.

I’m a tool whore though… this could obviously be scaled way back… Smoke + Resolve is all you really need.

The thing that is so amazing about Resolve is the CUDA support. It’s amazing for rendering. Just try rendering out a DPX sequence in After Effects to Pro Res HQ with a matte and a scale… you’ll see.

I use Resolve for many things other then just color… although it is such a great color tool.

As far as color in Smoke… it’s good, even powerful. But doing an entire feature… it is possible. However, for grading a feature you are better off in Resolve. Try it… It’s the UI in Resolve. It’s hard to explain why Resolve would be “faster”. Color grading in Smoke is sort of like doing a color job in Avid DS… you can do it, but it’s not ideal.

There’s no loosing with Resolve. It’s too good a deal to not just have it.

– Jonathon

[Jonathon Lee]

Funny, sad, true.

[Jonathon Lee]

Yes, eventually they will actually go to 10-bit log. There were dynamic range issues with some of the footage so different segments will be companded differently then others. It’s funny what a piece of film can do (or is capable of doing!).

[Jonathon Lee]

Unfortunately they are 16-bit log, not 16-bit linear. I know, it is unusual.

[Jonathon Lee]

Annotation Edit makes a special varialble rate QT file that you first need to open in QT Pro 7. You then need to save it out as a Pro Res 4444 (or another codec that creates a proper alpha channel).

It’s actually a really cool program and very reasonable in price. It does many different formats.

As far as the 10-bit issue and rendering. As far as I know, FCP 7 cannot process 10-bit RGB unscaled video data. You can do 10-bit YCBCR, but not 10-bit RGB. So, you will be left with a color shift due to the color space conversions. This is why Resolve v8 is so great. AND, the Resolve v8 will render this out FASTER then anything else due to the CUDA acceleration. In After Effects 5 on OS X and in Avid DS (on win 7) the renders are at about 4-5 FPS for HD 10b RGB or 2k DCI 10b RGB. Resolve did it faster then real time.

So, install another HD in your Resolve and install v8. Just clone the startup HD, rename it and install v8. This way you can finish your v7 show. Or if you have another machine on your network install Resolve there and do the render on that system. Even if you only have a single CUDA GPU on the second machine it will still render faster then AE or DS.

– Jonathon

[Jonathon Lee]

I have an update to this… I was mistaken when I said you need to render out a separate alpha pass. You can actually use a Pro Res 4444 file with alpha… and you can “add it to its self” as a Matte. I just tried this on a show and it worked!

[Jonathon Lee]

Hey Nick,

OK… so I’ve been developing a work flow for this for Resolve 8… there are some issues currently due to lack of “still” image support and lack of support for embedded alpha channel. That said here is a quick Resolve 8 workflow…

You will need…

1) Quick Time w/alpha

or

2) Image sequence w/alpha (TIFF, png)

Using After Effects or the like…

– Render out separate alpha channel
– Import image sequence into media pool (not the alpha channel files)
– add video track that is above the base layer
– add the alpha channel as Matte to the “subs” clip (this is done by selecting the main clip in the Media Pool, then navigating to the “alpha clip” and right clicking on the alpha clip and selecting “add as Matte”
– drop subs clip onto the new video track
– select the clip in the timeline on the Color page
– on the Node window right click into the window (not on the node) and select Add Alpha Output
– drag connect the “alpha channel” output from the node to the alpha channel output port on the node page
– right click on node and select the “Add Matt” pulldown submenu and select the alpha channel that you associated with node in the Browse tab

If all is good you will see your subs composited on the image.

Using the simple add function may not work if you are using drop shadows or outlines.

This is really rough, I’m working on refining it. I’m using Annotation Edit to generate subs and CC’s. Once still’s are supported I have an awesome XLM workflow.

If you are not on v8. Use an Avid DS if you have that. You could also use Smoke. I have both here and I prefer using the DS as it is a little simpler. FCP may give you issues with colorspace if you are running RGB 10-bit. I tried to use it and it was problematic with 10-bit RGB material.

I’ll be creating some tutorials for creating subs for HD and digital cinema, but that is a little ways off.

I had to figure this out on my own and it was a PIA.

best,

Jonathon

[Jonathon Lee]

Great idea… if it’s a CUDA pig you could turn it on or off… and to add a super nerd request… add the ultra scope and also add a logging mode! So you could generate a report… have it rip through your timeline, then spit out a text file. Make a leader or tek scope unnecessary.

– Jonathon

[Jonathon Lee]

That’s what I’ve heard… boo!

[Jonathon Lee]

Yes, you are right! Just found that… bottom of the pref pane.. indicates that “ref present” or something like that.

thank you!

– Jonathon