AutoDesk Smoke :: How To Refresh Back Clip Of CFX To Reflect The Changes
May 6, 2013
I'm working on a simple effect that consists of three layers. The bottom layer is a background, the middle layer a gap effect with text and the top layer is a CFX layer. In that CFX layer is the back clip which is made up of the middle and bottom layers and a text node. The back clip is piped into an action background and the text node is an action layer. I'm doing a simple light bloom on the text inside of action.
If I understand CFX back clips correctly, shouldn't it update if a make a change to the middle or bottom layers? In this case it's not. I have to save my action and text nodes, go back out to the timeline, delete the CFX and create a new one. Then go back into CFX and re-apply the action and text nodes that I saved.
Is there a way to refresh the back clip of CFX to reflect the changes made underneath it?
I searched through all the key short cuts, looked through the user guide and I'm at a loss where you can nudge a clip back and forth by single frames. I saw you can hold 'D" and SLIP the clips one frame at a time, but not move them outright.
So, since nudging is one of the absolute most basic requirements of any editor, I know it's in there. But alas, they hid it too well. here it might be?
Maybe hiding next to a trim mode I don't see where I can see how my slips and slides affect the area around the clip?
1. I put a clip in a timeline , then i put a cfx clip on top of the first clip. Add axis clip to cfx clip, set transparancy to 100% (fully transparent) , when hit render , this cfx is still calculated.
2. if i have stack of cfx clips, the clips are solid (no matte or transparancy ). one clip is on top of the other. In the top layer , i add a axis fx and cut a very small hole. We can see even a very small hole ( that will exposed small part of the bg ) will trigger smoke to render both of the clip full frame. Actually i only will see small part of the BG so i'm expecting smoke to render only that visible pixel. How to control this ? In some case i will waste my time waiting smoke to render part that i don't need.
All of a sudden, I'm unable to scroll through clips with real time feedback. Did I turn on some preference?
Also, I've noticed that when I'm in Action, I don't get realtime feedback going to the broadcast monitor, but rather the image catches up upon pen up. I don't see anything about it in the options in Action or global preferences.
is there a way to put a LUT on a clip, without having to 'bake' (process) it? So I can turn it on and off?
Our process is:
import R3E Raw files with User Settings in Red Log (so the image looks flat, with most color information).
then turn on a Display LUT (which settings would I use here?)
then do the color correction with the LUT on and after I'm finished, turn the LUT of and then export a dpx 10 Bit sequence to the vfx department, so they can work with it (in fusion).
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)
I just started playing around with Smoke 2013. I played around with the CFX and did some keying. Now, on the timeline, I have a clip with CFXa and an axis effect. Now I thought, that it should be a container, and that I could simply double click the clip, step into the container and copy out the matte. But that doesn't work anymore, since double clicking now enters the editor again.
So, how can I access the matte (and how can I step into the container)?
Oh, and now that the unrendered clip is on the timeline, I only get the message Unrendered Frame. Obviously Smoke can't play back an unrendered clip, but why doesn't it at least show the frame I'm parked on? And also, I started rendering, but it took forever, so I stopped after 10 min. In Smoke 2012 it rendered at least partially, but now I still only have a dotted line......
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)
Tell me that I'm wrong on this but with the new CFX clip in SP3, it looks like you can't update the original CFX Clip and have it update/link to all shots where it is placed. It would be so perfect. Now it is just another "fancy" way to copy&paste comps?
Is there a way to remove/delete the history from a rendered clip, other than re-rendering the clip without history enabled? Flame has a desktop function that can delete the history from an entire desktop (which would be convenient in my case here on Smoke 2012).
I created a stereoscopic timeline in Smoke. That seems to work so far, but now I want to output it in full resolution on a 3D TV (Samsung). The TV only supports HDMI in.
I'm working on a Smoke for Mac 2012 with a NVIDIA Quadro 4000 (which has 1xDVI and 2x Display Ports). And we have the AJA Kona 3G (SDI out and mini HDMI). We have a reference monitor which is connected via SDI and that works.
We tried to connect the Mac via mini HDMI to HDMI. We did get a signal from Final Cut Pro, but we didn't get a signal out of Smoke.
I tried all kinds of settings, but there is no way of outputting an image from Smoke. What options do we have, so we can get a 3D signal out?
I heard that Smoke for Mac doesn't support Dual SDI out. Is that right? Would it work to simply buy a converter from SDI to HDMI? Would I still get full res HD out then?
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)
I have R3D footage which I imported in 2K. For a couple shots I need a higher resolution, so I matched out my original clip from my timeline, saved it to my library, double clicked and selected Modify Clip History, where I set my layering to full. I don't change anything else, however, now my In and Out TC are not correct anymore! Everything is fine, just until I hit the Modify Clip History and Apply the changes.
If there is still an option somewhere where I can force my import to be frames and set duration to 5 or 10 frames like in 2012. or force a set of sequences o be imported as one clip.
Update: Found the frames option but no frame durations available. But no single clip available in case of importing multiple sequences or frames that need to be in a single sequence.
Currently dancing between Flame Premium 2013x2sp3/2013Sp4 nd Smoke on mac 2013Ext1
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 ?
How to hide selected clips in timeline without turn off layer visibility (eye icon) ? i found no hotkey and also there's such option in contextual (RMB) menu.
So I have a soft imported clip with cfx applied...right click consolidate handles...and it seems to work...
But then archiving gives a crazy size estimate so I checked handles again...it turns out the handles haven't been consolidated at all. Timeline says it has been consolidated but entering cfx and exiting again the handles come back.
I got a clip in timeline, apply connect fx then cut the clip (ctrl-v). The problem i cannot uncut this clip immediately , even if i haven't changed/modified anything yet. The simple solver will be throw out one part and trim back the clip. I'm just curious .. Is this normal ?
Kind of at my wits end with this software. Decided to give it a proper test on a job involving some wire removal and a bit of 3D comping. Every day brings hourly crashes, corrupted sequences, black frame renders, inability to archive projects, on and on. It's like every shot on this project is a minefield of troubleshooting and trying to find workarounds just to get a render complete. I'm spending easily an extra 20 hours a week just trying to overcome problems with the software.
Now I've got a sequence that I literally spent 4 hours on and just trying to open it brings smoke to a hard crash. Trying to make a cfx clip of the sequence takes half an hour to save so I've only been doing that once a day.
Smoke 2013 EXT1 iMac i7 3.4Ghz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB 32GB RAM MAC OS X 10.8.3 Promise R6
I'm trying to apply noise to a shot using the ReGrain effect. BUt it's not working....no matter what settings I try (e.g. custom and then playing with the sliders) I don't receive any effect.... is there anything I have to be beware of?
Or is there another way to apply noise to a clip?
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)
Is there a way to foce relink a clip when conforming an xml?
I have an xml based on 5d footage with no clip names that I need to relinked to graded dpx files. Using clip name and TC isn't working since the xml is looking for .mov etension. Using TC alone dosent work because each of the 5d clips start at :00.
when i select the clip in cfx schematic, how to tell which clip is it inside the timing editor ? there's only small thumbnail and this won't work when i got multiple sama clips on the cfx schematic, the thumbnail will look the same. There has to be a visual relationship between the two areas.
I recently got a movie file from a client. This file is actually an edited video with straight cut edits. So I dragged this from the bin / media library onto the timeline and proceed to chop up the video according to where the cuts are using ctrl v, like how I usually do in premiere pro. I then selected one of the clips and added color correction to this clip. I found out that all the other clips were being color corrected as well.
I removed every thing and re-started from scratch using the source monitor to mark in and out for every cut. This time it worked properly with just the selected clip being color corrected. Is there any way I can do this like in premiere pro timeline with the razor blade but each clip becomes an individual one?
I am usually in the position of taking an FCP edit, relinking it to the hires and putting it out for desktop computers to work on. So as part of this process after I relink, I match source out the clips, rename them from whatever A016_C015 name they have from the footage to our naming structure, something like plate_SC030 or something, and putting it back into the conform and saving the shots separately.
The annoying this is this name doesn't stick. If I match source it out again, old name. If i relink a new XML to this reel of renamed clips, all old names. This turns into a real problem when I get successive new versions of the cut and i would love to just relink to the renamed clips and see at a glance what the changes are between versions. Instead I'm stuck staring a timeline full of A00x_C00x.
Why can't i commit the clip on desktop ? there's no 'commit' in the right click menu. To get this menu, i have to right- clicking the clip in timeline. So let say my clip in the desktop , first i have to drag it into timeline , or open it as sequence. Now in timeline , i commit the clip, then put back (drag) the clip into desktop. That's weird workflow... why can't i just do commit the clip in desktop so i don't need to go through that process ?
I have a single frame clip in my library, i want to put this clip into my timeline and i want it to be 10 seconds. I can just easily in/out in timeline and 'overwrite'. i don't like where i'm repeating a single frame and then still need to render it as 10 seconds clip.
This should be done like 'repeat' in the desktop tools. So in timeline when doing 'overwrite' , Smoke has to be smart to detect 1 frame edit so it just need to 'repeat' it not to 'timewarp' it.
And the another BAD thing , i can't have 'repeat' tool inside cfx . why ? so have to repeat the clip outside the cfx and go back into cfx.
A DPX sequence I'm importing is coming in with 24P timecode but should be at 23.976. Once imported, I tried changing the timecode track via Tools > Reformat and selecting "23.976" and "Affect Record Timecode" - but am then prompted to process a timewarp over the clip. That doesn't seem right to me since I'm just trying to change the TC and playback rate of the clip without actually affecting picture.
There is any simple method to insert/add a clip on timeline without its sound? I know the methods of locking the audio track in the sequence or deleting the audio track of the clip but I'd like to have some simple shortcut like Option+drag or something similar. There is any?
