In terms of feature sets, it seems like a few more things are needed to make this a full-fledged compositor... (so one doesn't have to leverage AE/Nuke/etc.).
In particular:
- 3d projector
- 3d tracker
- scene to point cloud (or even automated 2d to 3d conversion??)
- particle system
These things seem to be standard elsewhere... For us, it seems sort of crucial to add that. We think that not having to round trip is a really great edge of Smoke, and the integration between CFX and the time-line is very well done! However, then there's so many things missing compared to other packages. And those are the type of features that can really create more complex scenes and really speed up the work.
Also check out the new context-aware patch/move/paste tools in Photoshop. That would be a great addition to the paint module. CS6 has a timeline now and offers a lot more in terms of paint. Esp. if one can apply context moves to the entire motion sequence with auto-paint (that's something where PS CS6 still lags).
I am investigating best practice workflows for a feature length project shot on 2 Red Epic cameras and editing was done in Final Cut. I need to grade and finish the movie along with many other finishing requests like screen replacements, set clean up involving tracking and many other common DI requests and fixes. I use Resolve for most Grading but since there are so many FX shots that need work I was contemplating keeping everything in Smoke so I can make adjustments to the grade and FX in context of the whole edit.
Is this advisable for a 90 + min edit with Red footage? It might be doable but is it feasible meaning would performance be very sluggish? I have a 2009 Mac Pro, 24 GB RAM, 8TB RAID, RedRocket and Quadro 4000 card.
Would I be best off having the editor break the movie up into 10 - 12 minute sequences and then import each XML as its own sequence into one Smoke project?
If I import the Red footage at half res, because of performance, I am only using half of the info in the file. I have a RedRocket so should I import full res 4K to get maximum quality? Then let Smoke do a resize to 2K which is the final deliverable format? I figured that might be best for doing resizes and for sharpness.
If I work with proxies would all of my tracking and paint work be valid when I switch back to the 4K version for final render?
Is the load text "feature" not working in pre2? What Im trying to achieve:
Toolbar (the new tab) -> text/input: none -> Load -> roll down menu to "text file" -> roll down menu to "UTF-8" -> click the text file i've created using TextEdit = nothing happens.
Have i missed something very obvious or is it broken?
In TextEdit i choose to make the text "plain" so i can save it as a UTF-8 but during the load of the textfile smoke "tells me" "Cannot open"
To hide the top menu bar and use the application in full screen, you must specify this setting in the Smoke Setup utility, which is found in the Smoke 2013 folder. In the Smoke Setup utility, under the General tab, set the Menu Bar option to no. When you hide the top menu bar, certain options, exclusive to the top menu bar appear at the bottom right of the screen. You must restart Smoke after making the change for it to take effect.
why but it feels to much more like a real application again! Hadnt realised just how much I disliked menu bars until now.Now how do I create some color bars?
I am trying to paint out a logo on a bottle with the clone paint tool, then have what I have painted over track/scale as the bottle zooms in during the shot. I think I am supposed to be using the Gmask to get the geometry of the track done (as I can do this with a matte if I want that to cover the logo with a blur or gradient or something else), but I am uncertain how to link the Gmask track node to the paint node in the correct way.
I have a clip where I have to remove a ring from a finger. I thought about using paint. But I might have to exchange that clip for a different color grade. Now, when I load paint again (from history) all the strokes I made are gone (I didn't work with autopaint). And I also can't exchange clips in history view. So what are my best options?
Smoke 2012 SAP2 SP4 and Smoke 2013 SP2 (Smoke Classic Keyboard Shortcuts) Mac Pro 4,1 OS X 10.6.7 12 GB RAM NVIDIA Quadro 4000 14 TB RAID (Areca)
My main usage of Desktop paint is partially sharpening important parts of the picture that the focus puller unfortunately missed. I would love to see sharpening added to the tools in CFX Paint. Blur is there already, should not be the hardest thing to implement.
I'm in paint module (desktop tool) then i want to use autopaint combined with tracking. The problem i only can get single tracker inside the stabilize module. Am i really limited to use only 1 tracker ?
in paint module, when i do the 'wipe' , i only can wipe the single/current frame. I can't find the setting to wipe the whole clip. am i allowed to wipe the whole clip using a single click ?
I have a paint node with several sources for revealing. I´d like to see these sources for example to set the slip within paint. The documentation says F1 F1 but that doesn´t work. Is this a bug or are there alternative ways of seeing that source?
On the new smoke for mac however, I am getting luma shifts after doing a lot of reveal/cloning backgrounds etc.
This does not happen all the time, and not consistently, I find if I paint for a while and go back and forth, the image becomes much darker, not always the entire clip, sometimes just the frame I'm painting.
I was wanting to try out the clone tool to paint out a fly in some footage I have, but I can't get the clone tool to grab a sample region. I hold down ctrl and click where I want to sample from, but the green circle doesn't appear. I can do it by manually offsetting it with the x and Y position, but I'd like to do it with my pen.
I'm doing painting (clone brush). The problem after I finish I realize that i only paint single frame (current frame). I want to extend the duration of the stroke , how to do this? do i have to redo all the paint using autopaint? is this the best way I can do?
I have a number of clips that were soft imported, then used in the paint module to remove some blemishes. I have since done a 'store local copy' on the original clips.
The painted clip still has the 'soft' indicator. How do I update the painted clip?
Is there a way to go into the history of the painted clip and replace the soft import with the local copy? Do I 'store local copy' on the painted clip?
When I use Paint module with Graphics menu, I get bad edges randomly on the image in action. The default setting of Anti-aliasing in paint module is 4 now, and I have tried to change the value from 4 to 1, 1 to 4. the only differences are the amount of, position of bad edges.
I also tried to check the "Divide" function in the media-list, but it gets from specific colour to white. I only want to take the bad edges away from the image.
I know that the AJA Kona 3 card has 2 outputs. Can Smoke send one eye to one channel and the other eye to the other of the Kona 3 card? Dual Stream output is what I am really getting at.
Is there any way that Smoke can see/output sub-blacks and super whites? Can't find any way of seeing them on my scope, Smoke just clamps everything. It won't even see anything below zero in order for me to make a correction on it, everything seems to be clamped on import. I'm using ProRes HQ footage.
What is the best plugin to do spline warps in smoke?(need something like the distort in flame) I notice revisionfx don't make a warper for smoke on mac.
I am experimenting with Smoke 2013 pre-trial and I am having issues with importing images and video with alpha channels.
1. If I have a layered Photoshop file or png with an alpha channel (a still frame lower third), I see that I can import it as a multi layered clip, but what is the best way to have it in the sequence to show up properly?
2. If I have a QuickTime in animation format or Pro Res4444 format with an embedded alpha, how can I import that file to show and cut it on a top layer to animate above my video?
Does Smoke have selection functionality similar to that of Combustion? As an example, you might want to selectively blur part of an image. In Combustion, you would draw a selection and then apply an operator above the selection to achieve this. I don't see a similar selection tool function in Smoke, but I imagine you could achieve the same effect by duplicating a layer and using a Gmask via the Wipe timeline FX.does Smoke not have a selection tool similar to Combustion?
Whats the dealing with importing TWs to Smoke? I have a show that's 70% keyframed with timewarps and need a way other then baking the effect to bring it into Smoke. It's comming from FCP7 and we have Automatic Duck but neither the XMLs or AAF bring anything other then the first speed of the clip. Any way to retain the keyframes?
I am running AutoCAD 2009 and am trying to print a layered PDF. I am not sure how to do it. BUT I downloaded AutoCAD 2013 and it can do the job just fine (under the Output tab). Which AutoCAD version did layered PDFs debut? Is there a way to do it in AutoCAD 2009?
I have RED footage which I exported as EXR. When I import them back in, they look exactly like the RED footage. But when I import the EXR in Fusion, export it back out, and then import that EXR into Smoke, it looks brighter, although I didn't change anything in Fusion. (when I compare the EXR from Smoke and the EXR from fusion in my finder on my desktop, they look exactly the same). So what is Smoke doing with the "foreign" exr on import?I was also playing with the LUT settings. I get a result which is close, but I need to be exact.
