Hi, I’ve set up my timeline and done a bunch of BFX. I’ve been supplied new graded footage and need to relink to the new footage, many of which are in BFX that contain CG renders and artwork that is not changing. In the confirm tab how do I just relink some of the elements associated with the BFX. I seem to have to unlink all the clips within the BFX, which is a pain.
Thanks
m
I usually go into the BFX and unlink the clips that need unlinking in there directly. Then you can leave all the other clips that might be in your BFX (like roto or whatever), exit the BFX and then when you re-link everything the unlinked BFX content should link up again automatically.
umm, don’t you just enter the BFX, duplicate the source clip, right-click and replace from mediahub with the graded clip, temporally and spatially align the two clips, then ctrl drag the graded clip over the old clip to replace it?
You forgot to add “one at a time.”
I may have said it before: I’m not a great proponent of BFX, for a number of reasons.
There are other ways to do flame.
Thanks for all the replies. What is your preferred workflow? I’m using connected segments across multiple sequences to facilitate the various versions of a commercial. BFX has worked pretty well for this, but I’m always looking for other workflows.
This happens to me all the time! I wonder if it would be possible to have a python script do this.
Andy I had forgotten about that.
I have had a long love/maybe-not-so-much-love relationship with BFX. In the last days of Linux Smoke (the true ancestor of modern Flame) the only way to use batch was with BFX. I would keep a reel of FX shots that I would add a BFX to. I would render the top layer of the clip and copy it to my spots. For light duty fixes I would just keep it in my timeline. That ante-deluvian era ended with the 20th Anniversary Edition and all things changed. I resorted to my old Flame ways of using batch/batch groups, but continued to do light BFX as Gap BFX directly on the timeline. In this way, if I had to change the clip under the BFX, I could not only do so easily, but in bulk, relinking entire timelines under the Gap BFX’s. This workflow is started to wear thin, however, for several reasons. When I we started making socials, the Gap BFX no longer worked; they were based on the size, position and aspect ratio of the BG layer. Sometimes this could be fixed easily, other times, if there was paint and gmasks involved, not so much. For a short time I avoided the problem by doing everything at 1920x1080 and applying the proper crop on export, but that too wore thin as the social aspects of jobs became more involved and complex. With the latest specs from Meta and other social platforms the whole Gap BFX workflow has become untenable.
I would be happy enough to simple do the small fixes as a batch group, but it increases the volume of batch groups to the degree that I have no more room on my media panel for the actual LONG list of spots in any given campaign. On occasion I have created a batch group for just the little fixes, but that has its drawbacks as well. I am experimenting with the idea of returning to my old Smoke method of keeping a reel of BFX shots. This way I can do the work at camera resolution so that it can be repo-ed for all aspect ratios, I can relink the footage below the gap and I can create it in such a way that the result will (not automatically, but with a few clicks) repopulate my many versions with connected segments. I can also close the reel of BFX’s keeping my media panel tidy without suffering from batch group creep. Of course, all of this would be easier if we could make subfolders for batch groups.
Sadly none of this addresses the problem of not being able to re-link in either a BFX or a Batch group in bulk. It only adds more options to the compromises.
This sounds like a job for Path Translation:
In Preferences → System → Path Translation, you set Source Path to the original grade and Destination Path to the new grade, and Flame does it all for you automatically.
-Ted
