Welp. I just tested using a Shot Sequence instead of Sources. It keeps the edits in order, with layers, and a new video track linking to the published media. Far superior. I was able to jump into the corresponding shot batches and get to work. Render versions carry across all sequences. Holy shitballs, this is AMAZING.
I do sort of miss the easy keystroke from the TL to the Batch Group, but I’m not gonna cry about it. This workflow is waaaaay cooler.
UPDATE
Nevermind. Just noticed the ‘Open as Batch Group’ button on the upper right. That’s the sauce.
Hey there! Sorry busy busy busy days this week. I think I took your find batch group comment too literally under my own understanding in that context. If you’re satisfied with the Openclip batch group jumping solutions that @cnoellert mentioned above then there you go! It’s not quite as elegant as the one I was thinking of— I think it’s flame hotkey space+b to jump right into the selected corresponding batch group so long as the batch group was created in the conform tab’s “Create Batch Group”, but you’re also right that it’s probably fine and we’ll live without it.
As to the shots sequence vs the sources sequence debate, there’s a decent chance I’m a little outdated on that one. I’m happy to spend some time exploring whether the shots sequence is viable or not in my eyes. Last I left off, the shots sequence did what I would describe as erroneous shot duplication when encountering certain timewarps that I found difficult to work around. I also found some of the connection rewiring to be more tedious than if I had just built them myself with a sources sequence & source segment connections. Once again, this is the conclusion I came to 3 years ago, and there’s a good chance that things have changed and I’m now outdated, or that I was missing something or doing sometime wrong those years ago, but you know how us human beings are— sometimes we’re blinded by our habits.
I’ll definitely be working in some tests in the coming days / weeks and I’ll try to remember to respond back if I find anything noteworthy.
Same. I haven’t tested enough to see how well Shot Sequences play with timewarps and duplicated shots to know if it’s a bulletproof system. Source Seq was always a strong choice, due connecting batch groups and the hotkey jump into corresponding batches. But my first attempts using Shots Seq seem very straightforward.
There are benefits. And there will be dissapointments… the timewarp situation in particular can still be inconsistent and confusing at best.
I tend to make a shot sequence and then prune it before publish. I’ll see if there are repeated shots, figure out why they are repeated and remove them if they are indeed repeats. Then after a publish I may be left with a gap here or there on the publish shots track of a cutdown which I can fill with a simple copy paste from the first instance of the published open clip in the main edit, copying the time warp from the track below.
I guess that’s the long way of saying nothing’s perfect and ultimately what works really well for me may not be a good fit for you.
Trying to hone this workflow a bit more for myself. One question I had for you was about using DPX as the publishing format. Do you consider publishing other formats like @cnoellert , who uses DWAA 45? Just trying to balance space vs quality.
Since these screenshots were taken I’ve switched over to PIZ EXR’s, but more for consistency since we decided on that format for our write files out of batch. I think DPX’s may be a little overkill, but I haven’t put enough time into wrapping my head around all things compression. My knee jerk response is that I know some people use DWAA for lower quality things like proxies and the thought of using that for all of my renders hasn’t really crossed my mind, but I know there’s a number of levels to choose from and 45 is lossless I think? There’s a thread talking about these subjects that might be worth a browse to make up your own mind.
EXR PIZ is lossless. I believe all DWAA is lossy, although I know very legitimate people that say it takes many generations before it is noticeable. Our clients difference matte the plate and comp and would slaughter us if we used any lossy compression though.
Indeed. We’re a commercial house so the majority of material graded externally is arriving as ProRes. Since there is rarely generation loss and no one’s diff’ing our output, it fits the bill—keeping bandwidth snappy and storage requirements low.
But to each their own. I can imagine episodic would be a deal breaker for dwaa
We went with DWAA too. It’s just commercials so Apple aside, it’s not a deal breaker (though you can see a difference after 1 gen on a diff matte set to 0.1 but not to naked eye). As well as being small files, DWAA had better playback for nuke ops compared to piz.
Working on spots mostly, so PIZ sounds great when working solo, or DWAA when handing off shots to Nuke artists.
One other thought – anyone ever reduce the resolution of the publish? Assuming all color has been at this point, and no major resizing will be done – Any need to work in 8K?
8K final delivery? I’ve had comps that needed to post in 6K due to resizing, but the work was basic cleanup. Sources had to be native res to pull off transforms in After FX.
But at what point is all this resolution visible? Sorry if this sounds dumb, btw – genuinely curious.
I resize to some aspect equivalent variant between 4-5k in width at conform. For commercials it requires pre-resizing from the pre-processing ribbon after I’ve linked sources and in the throes of repo-palooza. If the bulk of material is shot on the same can, I’ll do it at the search or load phase, pre-conform.
Occasionally you maybe need the res, so on those one off you can just mute the resize in pre-processing pre-publish.
We do the same unless there’s a reason not to, but even smaller than 4-5K. That said, it can get quite cumbersome when dealing with loads of different formats when those jobs come in.
A few years ago I submitted a feature request for a dynamic resize where you can set your maximum width or height and Flame will sort out the rest based on the ratio. FI-02181, upvote if dig the idea.
