[Ryan Gilmore]

I’ve done some more testing. Although I don’t quite understand the source of the error, I believe I have figured out a fix for it.

I tested 2 slugs, each 10 seconds long with different frame rates, and ran them through a loop and set the IO points of each frame. I checked each frame to see which frames came back wrong. What I found was:

test_25fps_1280x720.mov : error on frames 211,209,207,205,203,201
test_29fps_1024x576.mov : error on frames 251,244,242,122,121,61
These errors weren’t random. Whenever I tried to set an in or out point on these frames it would ALWAYS round down 1 frame (I was wrong before about 50% of the frames being off, it’s actually less than 3%).

My best guess is that there’s some precision error because there’s a calculation going somewhere involving large floating point numbers. I can’t confirm it, nor do I really understand how to fix that. But I did figure out I could test the in and out points after setting them, and if it didn’t match expectations I could reset the point by adding the duration of half a frame (in seconds). A full frame would just repeat the error, but half a frame would get Premiere to round up to the correct frame.

This is the main part of my code:

/*---------------------------------------------------*/
function fixAnyFrameErrors (clip, inFrame, outFrame, fps, halfFrame)
/*---------------------------------------------------*/
{
var inSecSet = clip.getInPoint().seconds;
var inFrameSet = secondsToFrames (inSecSet, fps);
var outSecSet = clip.getOutPoint().seconds;
var outFrameSet = secondsToFrames (outSecSet, fps);

if ( parseFloat(inFrame) != parseFloat(inFrameSet) ) {
clip.setInPoint( secIn + halfFrame );
}

if ( parseFloat(outFrame) != parseFloat(outFrameSet) ) {
clip.setOutPoint( secOut + halfFrame );
}
}

/*---------------------------------------------------*/

var tps = 254016000000; // 2.54016e11 ticks per second (Premiere Pro constant)

var projItems = app.project.rootItem.children;
var clip = projItems[2];
clip.addMetadata();
var fps = clip.getFootageInterpretation().frameRate;
var tpf = clip.videoInPoint.frame_rate;
var frameDuration = tpf / tps; // in seconds
var halfFrame = (frameDuration * 0.5);

var inFrame = 201;
var outFrame = 211;

var secIn = framesToSeconds (inFrame, fps);
var secOut = framesToSeconds (outFrame, fps);

clip.setInPoint ( secIn );
clip.setOutPoint( secOut );

fixAnyFrameErrors (clip, inFrame, outFrame, fps, halfFrame);

[Ryan Gilmore]

Thanks so much for posting this solution. Was driving me nuts!

[Ryan Gilmore]

I’ve tried it with multi-processing on and off. I’m going to try and turn off the effects and try a second pass, and maybe flatten the 3D elements as a pre-render.

Why can’t Adobe include smarter automatic rendering settings? Doing this all manually reminds me of assigning amounts of RAM to programs in Mac Classic.

[Ryan Gilmore]

My project is 1920 x 818. There are some Tiff sequences at that size, mixed with a few 3D planes in After Effects’s 3D space. I am using a few third party plugs…Optical Flares and Out of Focus.

I’m rendering out to a Quicktime movie.

It has a hard time rendering that first frame, sometimes it makes it, often it chokes on it.

[Ryan Gilmore]

My question was not how to work with RED files natively in CS3. I’m already aware that one can’t. My question is what file format would be best to convert to so that color information is retained and I can do effects work on it, and go eventually go back to film resolution?

[Ryan Gilmore]

The film is shot digitally on a RED camera. What should be the format I ask them to convert to so I can work with the footage in AE CS3? The final destination will be film stock to by viewed in cinemas.

[Ryan Gilmore]

Thanks for the confirmation. Do you know what kind of DPX I should request? Or am I safer asking for TIFFs?

[Ryan Gilmore]

Thanks to some direct help from Mr. Ebberts with the 3D rotations, I now have a script to share that will bake the AE camera. It shouldn’t matter what rotation methods and parenting the original camera has, as it translates all of that into a free camera with only position, rotation, and zoom parameters.

All you have to do is set your work area, highlight your camera, and it will make a copy of it with all the keyframes baked.

There are a number of advantages. Sometimes there is a need to export an AE camera to a 3D app, and baking the camera usually helps you avoid certain problems before you export. Also, there is an advantage to seeing the camera motion path on a free camera that’s invisible on a parented one. And, this script could easily be adapted to remove parenting or auto-orientation on any layer.

https://www.urbanspaceman.net/shared/AEscripts/AECameraBake.jsx

(ps. there is no error checking in the script, so if you don’t highlight the camera it just quits at the moment)