[Keith Mcgregor]

Thanks for digging in and trying it out. I decided I would find some models that worked and hand them off to the students. I tried of the duplicating the layer (group) but our video cards are so last year it crashes every time. I even tried it on my machine with 22 gig ram and it still crashes so I guess I need the super cuda vid cards, which I won’t be getting. Good thing we won’t be in photoshop 3d for too many classes (just 2) and off to Blender and Maya we go.

Thanks again for trying!
-Keith

Reality? What did you make it?

[Keith Mcgregor]

Hey thanks for the reply. Textures I understand that’s not what I’m having a problem with. It’s assigning materials to meshes. Formats are .3DS, .OBJ and the google sketch up format.

I am trying to instruct students on how to get a handle on 3d and we started with photoshop since it’s really basic 3d, before we get into Blender and Maya. So we download models from Archive3d.net, and just grab any one of them. Opens in Photoshop just fine (except the pieces are all jumbled and not even near each other) and meshes are separated but all use the same material, so one would naturally assume you could just assign 1 material to the cushion (I grabbed some random armchair model) and apply its own material to it, and then assign a different material to all the wood parts, but nada, it assigns it to all the meshes and I see no choice to assign a new material. It makes absolutely no sense that there is no option to assign a different material to each mesh, or am I missing something? I am trying to go through the help files and the classroom in a book but I don’t even see the option to put a material on a mesh, and I’m not talking a material preset but an altogether new material. It should be as easy as right clicking on it and choose new material I would think. I know it’s not going to work like Maya or any other 3d program so I expect a lot of differences but…?

Some files come in just fine with separate materials on each mesh, but for those that don’t I just wanted to know how to remedy such a situation when the students will undoubtedly find themselves in that scenario. I know some models are badly put together and that can’t be helped on our end but such a simple option should be there.
Thanks a lot for your help.

-Keith

File link: 6282_chairamadein100713.3ds.zip

Reality? What did you make it?

[Keith Mcgregor]

“A Common Gamma Correction Scenario
One of the most common situations that requires you to change the Gamma Level property of a clip is when you are rendering an RGB clip within a Y′CBCR sequence. Final Cut Pro uses QuickTime to import RGB media and always assumes that RGB media (except Apple ProRes 4444) has a gamma of 1.8. When Final Cut Pro renders these clips in a Y′CBCR sequence, the gamma is adjusted by a factor of 1.22 to match the 2.2 gamma compensation required for Y′CBCR.

The problem with this default behavior is that RGB files are not always created with a gamma of 1.8, even on Mac computers. In this case, you can adjust the gamma level of your imported RGB clips accordingly.”

From FCP help files @:
https://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/usermanual/index.html#chapter=85%26section=8%26tasks=true

And a fun little thread with some possible solutions?
https://forums.adobe.com/message/4481713

Hope this starts you on your journey.
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

Sure can, but you’ll want to let your superiors know the more ram you can have per processor the better. As far as graphics go, it doesn’t need anything as you install the AErender on the server which doesn’t need the UI, nor will you need any extra licensing. It’ll just need to be started, and when it works try to leave it alone. Things can get quirky if you are trying to use the same cluster for AE, Maya or other 3D programs at the same time. The only recommendation I would give is look into render managers, as that’s where you’ll get the control for it. If you are good at coding, this’ll be a no-brainer for you. I’m sure the info you get while researching this will yield some good render managers out there that work for the different software on the same farm. Happy farming!
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

What did you choose as your side layer?
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

They are pasted wherever your current time indicator is, so if you have the duration then it should be an easy matter of placing the current time indicator minus the duration.
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

Seems like it’s just a standard dvd setting. In media encoder (because that’s what you should use or compressor if you are on mac) just choose the mpeg2 format and, under the video tab, change the bit rate encoding to cbr then increase the bit rate to 7 and you should be good to go.
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

When rendering from AE I usually bump it up to 16 for better blurs, gradations and such. But if it’s on the source video, then it’s the limitations of the camera or codec it records to, or a combination of both. But with video, light very carefully on the low end cameras. I tend to over light and bring down in camera so as to have the most information, being careful not to overexpose the highlights. Yes you shoot at a higher f-stop but you don’t loose info in the shadows.
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

If you are doing this as 2 layers: shoot her and a backplate video.

AE:
for closeups you could use the optics compensation to distort the background plate, and use a transparent copy for the foreground but try to get more of the highlights from it, not so much the full colors. Kinda like a maximum in Photoshop? For the sphere use ccsphere and use the backplate as the reflection and render full and reduce transparency as desired.

Maya:
Use a sphere in Maya with refractions turned on and use the backplate as the reflected environment. Or use 3 planes with a portion of the backplate on each to get the distortion on the sides. Then render out a pass for reflection and shadows, and comp it!

Do a test first though.
More info could be used as this sounds like a per shot basis for the ideal solution.
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

For this don’t follow any recommended settings to bring back the lusture. Use levels to increase the contrast. Change the gamma slider to bring down the lightness. Use a saturation to increase the sat. Use crunchy settings to get ypour core. Place that on top of your original footage and color it to something away from the green. Place that comp into a new one and key from there. It’s just seeing the spill and wanting to key it out, with a ‘color mask’ on what you want to keep you’ll get better results. Add some screen softness to it and you should be fine. With this screen grab (it’s jpeg huh?) it’s blocky but you get the idea.
-Keith
screenshot2012-08-28at2.36.33pm.png