Terence Curren
Forum Replies Created
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I understand, that’s because Avid doesn’t have a proper way of doing that natively. You can do it with 3D warp, but you can’t cut a custom matte. This is a long standing problem.
If you have Boris Continuum Complete, which came free with MC up to V5.5, then you can do something close with the custom masking.
As for doing it in Avid natively, if the matte doesn’t need to animate, you can create on in Photoshop, then import it as a RT matte key and then cut in your video fill inside the matte key on V2.
Bottom line is there are ways to skin the cat in Avid, but they aren’t as intuitive as in some other programs. Avid makes a great editor, not so great in the compositing department.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
Avid deals with the effects structure different than other systems. It is always looking from the top of the timeline down. So any single input effect you apply to V3 will affect V2 and 1. Color correction is a good example.
If you apply a multi input effect, like a key, then it doesn’t affect the lower tracks, just the track you have assigned it to. You can tell this by “stepping” inside the effect. A single input effect only has a V1 inside it. This means the effect only applies to what is on the V1 track inside it. Multi input effects have multiple layers of video inside.
You can nest Video tracks inside of a track, and then you can effect these tracks independently of the lower tracks on the main timeline. SO for your example, you would place the animatte effect (multi input) on V2 for example. Now step inside and you will have a blank V1 (which allows the video from lower down your timeline to flow through, and a V2 with the video you are keying. If you apply an effect to that V2 video that is nested, it will be affected, but the video flowing through on the blank V1 will not.
So you would place your 3D warp inside the animatte effect and you can adjust it all day without affecting the lower tracks. If you want to see how your adjustments on a nested effect affects the entire composite, then you can double-click on the effect while in effects mode and it will open the nested tracks in the main timeline and you can then select the nested effect and adjust it.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
You need to turn on the “track control panel” which you will find under the hamburger menu on the lower left corner of your timeline. Then you will see what looks like a little power button on the right and clicking that turns on and off your track (grayed out).
You can also solo and mute with the little squares on the track control and add real time effects.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
Two other options. one is to us the paint effect on the greenscreen shot and paint out the problem areas with a matching green sampled from your scree.
The second is to use the crop in Spectramatte assuming nothing in the foreground passes over the the area that has the shipped paint.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
If you plan to do a lot of color correction in Avid, then you want the Symphony. But the original post was about using daVinci with Avid and once the same cards are supported by both Avid and daVinci that should make a one workstation universe available.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
[Shane Ross] “I though Sebsky’s Tools was gone. Glad to know they are still around.”
They are gone but you can still find places to download it.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
You would make a batch list of each of your bins in FCP, then use the sebsky tool to convert to ALE (Avid Log Exchange) which imports into Avid creating the same clips in their respective bins. The following is from their help file:
fcp2ale
fcp2ale converts batch lists exported from FCP into ALE Shot logs that can be imported in to Avid.
fcp2ale requires the following columns to be present in the FCP batch list you want to convert:
Name
Media Start
Media End
Tracks
Reel
Type
The following columns do not have to be present in the FCP batch list, but they will be translated if they are:
fcp2ale reads batch lists from FCP 2, FCP 3 and FCP 4.
To convert an FCP batch list to an ALE shot log follow these steps:Export the batch list from FCP. Remember to include at least the required fields. You can either export a single bin or all the bins in a project. Refer to your FCP manual for further instructions.
In Sebsky Tools, choose fcp2ale, either by selecting menu item fcp2ale in the Tools menu, or by clicking the fcp2ale icon in the toolbar.
Select the FCP batch list. In the option below the file browser, you can choose to convert only Clips, Clips & Subclips or subclips only, to the new ALE shot log.
Click Convert. Sebsky Tools will present a save panel for each bin in the FCP batch list and save the new ALE shot logs.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
The good news is that Avid has promoted that they are going to open up to third party hardware and Blackmagic was one of the companies mentioned.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
Actually Facilis’ Terrablock has had Unity style sharing for a few years now. We use it daily and it is indistinguishable from Unity in Media Composer.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
Sebsky tools is a free utility that allows you to transfer the clips to Avid. Sequences need either Automatic Duck or BorisFX’s transfer utility, both purchased software.
Here is a link that is still active for downloading Sebsky Tools:
https://www.askincstudios.com/zz_misc_files/stuff//SebskyTools.zip
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca