[Miranda Raimondi]

Thank you Rafael. Thank you to all who contributed to this thread.

Miranda Raimondi

Samples of my collaborative work with Dr. Samuel Pellman are available for viewing at http://www.vimeo.com.

Please search ‘Samuel Pellman’ or ‘Miranda Raimondi’ in vimeo.com’s search function in order to view those samples.

[Miranda Raimondi]

Yes, we are getting somewhere.

[Miranda Raimondi]

Hi Andy,

Thank you so much for your timely reply. I apologize for not being able to offer the same courtesy… my internet has been amiss, or remiss.

Much in keeping with the theme of this thread, that theme being related to the relative normality of FCP’s inner and outer workings, and those who preside by those workings, I must confess that I am no stranger to playing the ‘abbie’ in the ‘ab’normal of Frankesteinian screen plays. Those who are still working in 2d mediums are still, after all, playing with magic lanterns and negotiating the frontiers of perception and illusion.

But I digress…

Back to FCP and to those graphic attributes:

Your advice is well taken and many of your assessments are, I believe, right on target. I do have to wonder whether, rather than dropping down to a lower resolution, those graphic attributes, and their lack thereof, aren’t a result of the way that FCP blends frames according to different rendering and playback pathways.

It would seem entirely plausible to me that accessing the sequence’s sequence settings might send FCP’s frame blending (and possibly other rendering and playback) functions down another (and possibly more default or preset) pathway where processes may, for example, revert from software computational channels to hardware computational channels, and where those graphic attributes are, in this example, results of how FCP’s software interpolates frame blending as opposed to how FCP’s hardware handles frame blending.

While the hypothesis that drops in resolution are responsible for FCP’s display or non-display of those graphic attributes is quite a mature guess, I would hesitate to support that hypothesis given that experiments with FCP’s de-interlacing functions (including that of shifting fields, and the various degrees of flicker filter that are available, and even the various blurs that are available do nothing to either hide (when the attributes are in view) or reveal (when the attributes are absent from view) those graphic attributes.

There seems to be an all or nothing kind of shift to the graphic attributes’ display, which would suggest to me that a ‘processing’, as opposed to an ‘aesthetic’, shift is occurring and is determining what is and is not displayed on the computer monitor irregardless of whether the material has been rendered or not, or whether the material is actively being played back or not, no less in real time (RT) or not. Those graphic attributes, I’ve found, are sometimes (but not always) capable of prevailing even after being rendered, yet they taken on a different caliber. They lose their 3 dimensionality pre- and post-rendering, which, as you say, is to be expected (holograms are not exactly pertinent to this specific question, yet).

Thanks again,
Cheers,

Miranda

Oh, and well put, about those attributes ‘appearing to disappear’. I like that.
Houdini surely makes a cameo in this Frankenstein mix… and maybe Watson too (the late, of course).

Miranda Raimondi

Samples of my collaborative work with Dr. Samuel Pellman are available for viewing at http://www.vimeo.com.

Please search ‘Samuel Pellman’ or ‘Miranda Raimondi’ in vimeo.com’s search function in order to view those samples.

[Miranda Raimondi]

Hi Rafael,

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, the source material is dv material, and it is interlaced. Though I can address this with my collaborator in the future, for now, I really should continue to work with the material that I have.

I am coming across many strange, and interesting, though frustrating, idiosyncrasies with the source material that I am working with.

For instance, when I alter the speed of the dv tracks to 33%, the desired graphic attributes remain in the canvas and can be displayed and played back even after the dv track has been rendered.

Nevertheless it is as if rendering ‘flattens’ those desired graphic attributes. Whereas more than one field (and the graphic attributes in those fields) were visible prior to rendering, rendering seems to reduce those fields, and the graphic attributes within those fields, into a single 2-dimensional layer. In other words, prior to rendering, the desired graphic attributes were being displayed in a kind of 3-dimensional layering that was very much akin to the kind of human perception of superimposition that occurs when two objects occupy the same line of vision but are separated in space, thus making the object that is closer to the observer, in z-space, appear to occlude the object that is farther from the viewer, in z-space. Upon being rendered the image seems to lose both its 3-dimensionality and the independence of its composite ‘objects’, which I have been describing as ‘graphic attributes’. After rendering, those objects appear to occupy the same z-space.

As I also mentioned in the attached pdf document, merely opening the sequence attributes seems to cause final cut pro to reinterpret the source material as if it were rendering the source material. Strange.

Thank you in advance,
I will continue to learn more about what is going on.
I will update you of my findings provided that you are still interested.

Miranda

Miranda Raimondi

Samples of my collaborative work with Dr. Samuel Pellman are available for viewing at http://www.vimeo.com.

Please search ‘Samuel Pellman’ or ‘Miranda Raimondi’ in vimeo.com’s search function in order to view those samples.

[Miranda Raimondi]

Hi Andy,

Thank you for your patience:

The details about the RT rating, the sequence settings and the format settings are available in the following pdf attached in the file below:

1705_pursuingthedesiredgraphicattributes.pdf.zip

The pdf includes the visual results of viewing the graphic in canvas window that displays at a setting of 100%, 99% and 400%. All views successfully display the graphic (as seen as pixelated and sometimes interlaced black and grey dots) – those desired graphical attributes are chroma key artifacts.

Thank you for your comments about proper viewing of an image on an output monitor or I/O device. Unfortunately I do not have that capability at this time.

Thanks again,
Miranda

Miranda Raimondi

Samples of my collaborative work with Dr. Samuel Pellman are available for viewing at http://www.vimeo.com.

Please search ‘Samuel Pellman’ or ‘Miranda Raimondi’ in vimeo.com’s search function in order to view those samples.

[Miranda Raimondi]

Hello Rafael, Andy and Kent,

Thank you for your timely and thoughtful replies.

Yes, the question is broad, and I suppose that I was wanting to get as close to the source code as possible without actually asking someone to reveal FCP’s source code.

The question, perhaps, should have been accompanied with some context for why, exactly, I am asking about the theory and mechanics of rendering in FCP. That context would have been, and eventually will be, submitted as a targetable question, that has real world applications to an issue that I am encountering with some of my editing.

Briefly stated, the footage that I am working with has some graphic attributes that can sometimes be seen with the still and moving playhead in both the viewer and the canvas windows. I say sometimes because rendering the footage, I guess -and this is where I begin to theorize-, ‘recompresses?’ the footage in such a way so as to banish those graphic attributes which are the very object of what I want to work with and display in the rendered, finished piece.

I would understand more about what was going on if rendering was the only action that hid or banished, overwrote or counteracted those graphic attributes.

However, whenever I view FCP’s sequence properties or sequence settings it is as if final cut pro gets ‘reminded’ to ‘reinterpret’ the footage in such a way as to also hide those coveted graphic attributes. Sometimes those attributes go m.i.a. without any user prompting, which is even more perplexing to me, but which also tells me that the disappearing act may have something to do with how many computing and processing resources are available to FCP at any point in time.

I ask the question about rendering because I want to know whether FCP is somehow recompressing or rewriting frames as if it were rendering those frames for real-time playback purposes. If so, what would it be, about that real-time progression, or any playback, whether timebound or still, that would hide such graphic attributes?

Would it be the interaction between playback frame rate and interlacing? But that would not explain why still frames would seize to show those attributes.
Does the scenario that I describe have to do with sampling rates of Luma, Color and Alpha channels?
With refreshed, or more active, gamma corrections?
Is the alpha or luma channel simply reinterpreted differently before and after the graphic attributes go m.i.a.?
Does the scenario that I describe have to do with the render controls, ie) frame blending?
Does the scenario that I describe have to do with yet other sequence setting specifications, like the codec that is chosen? The field dominance that is employed? The sequence’s, the codec’s and the original source material’s editing timebase?

I am trying to identify the cause of the graphic attribute’s disappearance. I ask these questions about rendering because I wonder whether a new frame is being generated from the source material as if FCP was pre-rendering the material for still or moving playback purposes.

I want to know which calculation that FCP is performing (with and without prompting) that is responsible for the graphic attribute’s disappearance. What sort of refresh is occurring to make that graphic attribute disappear?

Though I have thoroughly described the context for my question about the theory and mechanics of rendering, another question still stands:

Why, ultimately, would there be visual disparities between rendered and unrendered frames even if those new, rendered frames were recompressed versions of the unrendered frames. Shouldn’t such frames be translated with 100% fidelity? Or are pixels, the pixels that I want, dropped in that recompression or refresh? Could I avoid this by working in an uncompressed codec?

I will also compose and post a follow-up inquiry for the specific scenario that I describe. That follow-up inquiry will appear as another thread and, if approved, will be searchable with the following subject line: “Graphic attribute’s unprompted disappearing act’. Please feel free to post your answers in either thread if you have any inklings as to what may be going on.

Thank you so much,
Miranda

[Miranda Raimondi]

Hello,

Do any of you know, superficially, how this kind of effect is created within the canvas window? That is to say, are underlying hardware and/or software malfunctions, altering the chroma and/or alpha input/output values within the canvas window?

Your comments, ideas and insights are much appreciated.

Thank you,
Miranda