[Jon Bagge]

I have a somewhat similar system, so I may be able to help. I have a Dell Precision T7500 with 3x 450GB SAS drives on the same controller.
RAID5 in this setup isn’t really that useful. I’ve set it up with:
c: single disk, 450gb (system, applications)
d: 2way stripe, 900gb (data, media)

You should probably aim for the same. And if you add a 4th drive you can either add a new partition as a temp/render/scratch disk, or make d: a 3way stripe.

To change this you will have to go into the Perc 6/i controller setup when you boot your machine. This means deleting your current raid5 setup. So you should backup your current c: partition onto an external drive so you can restore it after you’ve finished changing your setup. You can use somthing like Acronis True Image for that.

If you have a Precision workstation (you didn’t say) with the full service warranty you should be able to phone Dell for support. Their workstation support is excellent.

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Jon Bagge
Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

– RAM – OWC’s 8gb sticks x3 24gb or x4 32gb config (not sure if a specific # or distribution between sides effects certain apps?)

The 8 memory slots are split with 4 per processor unit, so you’ll need the same amount of sticks on each side. So that means at least 4 sticks, and you can’t have odd amounts.
Go for as much memory as you can afford, with 24GB absolutely minimum.

I have 48Gb with 8 cores and AE is happily using all of it.

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Jon Bagge
Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

Compositing is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it!

(my apologies to Tom Lehrer)

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Jon Bagge
Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

I think you guys might be heading the wrong way. What I think is happening here is the difference between FCP working in YUV space and AE working in RGB space.
In FCP black/white is 16-235 (per colour channel in 8-bit. In 10-bit the numbers are different but that doesn’t matter here). Overbright areas are 236-255.

Most cameras that I work with shoot overbright whites, and during colour correction I bring them down to 100% (235), which is what the OP is trying to do and which every editor should do anyway.

The problem is the method you use to move over into After Effects. Typically this involves conversion to RGB space, so 16-235 is remapped into 0-255, thus clipping away all the overbright areas and leading to the OP’s problem.

I’ve found a way around this problem myself, and although I use Avid+AE I’m sure you can make it work for FCP too.

1) You need to export a QT from FCP that regains the YUV space. I assume a normal Prores QT should do this. (I export from Avid with the ‘601’ box ticked)

2) In AE turn on Color Calibration and set the working color space to SDTV (601) or HDTV (709) PAL/NTSC. (for SD or HD) Use 16-bit internal processing.

3) In the interpret footage dialogue for each clip make sure the colour space is set correctly to 601 or 709 depending on your footage. In AE they’re called SDTV / HDTV (Rec 709), and there are TWO versions: normal or 16-235. Make sure you Don’t use 16-235.

Your footage should now look milky in the composition window since black/white is now 16-235, but your superbrights are intact. You can check this by appying a ‘levels’ effect. You’ll find the blacks are at 16 (or 2047 in 16-bit) and the whites at 255 (32767).

Now colour correct, making sure to stretch the black down to 0 as well as fix the white in whatever way you chose.

You can fix the blacks by applying a ‘levels’ effect and set the input black to 16 (2047 in 16-bit), or you can simply fix everything by whatever your favorite colour correctin method is.

I hope this is of any use to you.

Good luck!

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Jon Bagge
Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

That’ll do it!! thanks guys–that’s great. I just have to make sure I set the light w/ ‘barndoors’ mask BEHIND the cam, as to not see it in my frame- SWEET!

If I remember correctly you can set the barndoor layers to ‘shadow only’. That will make them invisible to the camera but they will still cast shadows. Thus you can have them in front of the camera without causing a problem.

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Jon Bagge
Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

If all you’re using is FCS and After effects, go with ATI. AE doesn’t use CUDA and is not very picky about graphics card. If you use Premiere however it becomes trickier.

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Jon Bagge
Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to achieve here, but why is it a problem to do the track again? Tracking isn’t usually that time consuming.

In any case you can apply rotation key frames to rotate your tracked object without distracting your tracking.

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Jon Bagge
Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

After effects practically doesn’t use the graphics card at all, so no reason to worry about that. Premier does, but you’ll need CS5 to take advantage of CUDA. Also multiple card aren’t supported, so you’ll have to disable one of your cards anyway.
I haven’t heard of any professional application yet that can use more than 1 card.

What you should aim for is lots and lots of memory and a fast CPU. And some fast hard drives.

You gaming rig may be ok, but I believe many gaming rigs don’t have enough memory slots. You’ll want 6 slots at the very least. That way you can get 24Gb using 4Gb memory cards which aren’t too expensive. Or 12Gb with the option of expanding.

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Jon Bagge
Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

I can’t see why not. CS3 and 4 are pretty similar.

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Jon Bagge
Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[Jon Bagge]

As an alternative to adding noise/grain, you could try to add some smoke/fog in the background. It might suit quite well the style you’ve used.

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Jon Bagge
Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects