[Matt Slocum]

Yeah John, I think you’re right. I was thinking that would be it, but I was hoping it would be a setting. I thought they claimed they fixed this with the new Position Subframe, but I guess it doesn’t work with grids.

Thanks.

[Matt Slocum]

[Matt Slocum]

The XYZ Positions, XYZ Rotation and XYZ Size are linked to a null that is animating over 20 frames. It is moving about 1000 pixels and rotating 180 degrees.

[Matt Slocum]

I tried increasing the Particles/sec up really high, but that doesn’t help. Increasing the frames per second on the comp helps some, but I guess I’m going to have to do the animation over a lot more frames and then speed it up to make the lines smooth. I thought I read that they fixed this with Particular 2?

[Matt Slocum]

Maybe, I was playing around with that a little. I might end up making a custom particle, but I wanted more controls of animating line proximity without scaling the custom particle. It seems like the grid emitter is exactly what I want, but it seems broken, or I’m doing something wrong. That is why I was also wondering if it had to do with my trial license.

[Matt Slocum]

Same problem here. I get orange flashes while rendering. It is a somewhat complex project. I’ve tried rendering the project in Motion and FCP. It seems to do it on different frames each time, and sometimes its fine. Last night I left it to render overnight and when I came back FCP and Motion had crashed and the render had a lot of orange. I think I’m going to render out each group and then try re-compositing. It seems to get confused with to much complexity…very frustrating.

~Matt

[Matt Slocum]

Thanks for all the input so far. This is what it looks like we’re going to do.

We decided we wanted more people on the final shot, so we will be compositing the group with other shots with the same people wearing different clothes to make it look like a very large group. So we are going to shoot on a large greenscreen. We are going to put a slight (1/8 or less) magenta on their backs for rim light. The purpose is not spill correction, but to give a cleaner color separation on the edge. It will be slight enough to not be noticed by the eye, just the camera/keyer. Don’t know if it will really make a difference, but it makes the gapher and producer feel better.

Yes, the people are going to be carrying gray cards with another color on the back.

~Matt

[Matt Slocum]

It will probably be a very light 1/4 magenta or something. There will be several full body shots so the talent will come in direct contact with the green. I’ve read where someone else warned against using magenta with Ultimatte. I was just going to use Motion’s and/or After Effects’ built in keyers.

~Matt

[Matt Slocum]

Thanks,
I think I’ll be sticking with Plan A, shooting over green. Just talked to my lighting guy, and we’re going to use magenta rim lights to offset the spill.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and good turkey.

~Matt

[Matt Slocum]

Andy,
That’s interesting. I’m glad you’re not having problems. Maybe you could help us figure out a better workflow. Maybe I’m using the transfer software incorrectly?

What I know so far (or at least seems true):
1. Only a problem for Leopard (I’m running Mac OS 10.5.5)
2. Only a problem for Intel Macs (I have a 2×3.2 GHz Quad-Core intel Xeon)
3. It seems to be only XDCAM HD

People have reported that turning off thumbnails helps. That makes me think it has to do with the codec getting data confused while looking up a lot of files. The fragmentation thing confuses me a lot because file lookups are done only on the OS level. It makes me think that a memory location gets corrupted by another piece of code if it doesn’t get the data fast enough, that is why I was thinking multi-thread isues. (I only know enough to ask questions)

I am using a dual fiber channel RAID.

Anyone can feel free to give corrections or additions.

I have not worked on an XDCAM HD project in a couple weeks, so I have not been able to test some people’s recommendations. I have been using mainly HDV and ProRes with no problems. I’m still very interested because I have a project on the near horizon that will be XDCAM HD again. I’m not ruling out that it could be a configuration problem on my end.

Sorry for the long post.

PS. I have a AJA Kona LHe

~Matt