Render problems with 8K material in Timeline/BFX

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Working on a set of 15s timelines. Original material is RED and Sony 8K files, conformed from Premiere edit. Doing color and cleanup on the timeline (combination of TL-FX/Image + BFX with Paint). Flame 2024 on Linux on a decently powerful system (i9 12K, 128G, A5000).

Related to my earlier question: Diamond Keyer/Select & Color Holdout - #4 by allklier

The project and timeline itself is only HD as final deliverable, but there are some serious punch-ins which is why the project was conformed with the 8K originals. Performance working on color isnā€™t to bad, adding paint to BFX is a tad sluggish but workable.

The one thing that doesnā€™t work is rendering the timeline. Iā€™ve tried many different things, but half-way through Flame will just get stuck on a frame and not go any further you have to kill it. There are some messages in the console, but nothing conclusive.

Breaking the timeline into two segments and rendering them separate is slow but completes, and then I concatenate them in a aux timeline for the final render out. But itā€™s a lot of extra steps.

In some of the new timelines Iā€™ve worked around that by first rendering out the timeline without any color or color management into a flat render. Then bring those back in, cut it apart to rebuild the timeline of HD flat files and then paint/color that. Works like a charm. But is a problem if we get edit changes.

Seems like the primary problem is BFX, as I can see the full 8K resolution in the BFX schematic. And BFX always sit before any of the resize nodes, thereā€™s no way of putting BFX further in the middle.

Iā€™ve considered using the flowgraph BFX setup, but found that unworkable because I lose all the important integration of the image node on the timeline (no TL-FX explorer, no Tangent mapping, etc.)

Any other ideas on wrestling 8K footage in the timeline? For the the flat render seems the way to go.

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I have the same problem with 8k in BFX.

I will either:

  1. Go through the edit, find the shots that are punched in enough to warrant 8k source, then only use 8k on those shots. And still avoid BFX if possible.

  2. Do not use BFX and go with ā€œCreate Batch Groupā€ on the segments instead. With smart replace it works pretty much like BFX but you have to go through and name all the shots first.

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4

Totally, not a big fan of 8K footage for exactly those reasons. I had that discussion with them during pre-pro, but they insisted and in editorial they did punch in very significantly actually using the 8K frame.

It does work, it seems in particular the paint effect that it crashes on. Now there may be one additional wrinkle, that I did copy that BFX Paint effect on the timeline from the first to the last shot (which are identical), so could be the copying the paint node fails, though Iā€™ve done that in the past.

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I only see a little slow down with 8K in the Image timeline effect. Itā€™s really just BFX for me that is unworkable.

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Exactly, same here. Sometimes while doing roto there is tiny bit of lag once I have like 10 selectives. But nothing that would worry me.

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Question is ā€œDo you really need to work on 8K material?ā€

We always shoot 4K or 4.5K material and master it using this source material in BFX. This makes sense as it allows me to export 9x16 versions without resolution loss.

But 8K? I donā€™t really see the advantage. I understand your clients may demand it but then it becomes a social engineering issue.

I did however work with 8K on the timeline with bfx but no TLFX. And with a powerful Linux box.

Sorry for messing the posts. I deleted the post accidentally then managed to get it back as a reply to the deleted post. :man_facepalming:t2:

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I have alsoā€¦ on occasionā€¦ used 4k plates when the client asked for 8k (to HD finish) and no one has ever called me on it.

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The other unrelated issue I ran into, which I think may just be a bugā€¦

I need to freeze a clip that an Action node to do some animation. Not knowing what TL-FX could accomplish a freeze frame of an already colored and whatnot clip, I just added BFX and a mux node with freeze frame, which should be fine. Except for some reason it optimizes the render, and the Action node animation in the TLFX gets lost???

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Dont use BFX and unless you can redo that paint work in less than 5mins, precomp it.

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Bad experiences? Iā€™ve done it extensively in recent versions and had no issue.

Whatā€™s the best workflow then if you need to retouch cleanup underneath your TLFX color work? This can be 50% plus of the clips on the timeline, so donā€™t want to have a batch for each of them.

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8K + BFX + paintsā€¦ bufff ā€¦ I donā€™t even want to think about it. Youā€™re really taking it to the extreme even for powerful workstations. I would move BFX to batch workflow (just copying/pasting schematic nodes). With Create Batch Groups, connected segments, smart replaceā€¦ enough stuff to work comfortable. Keep in timeline only renders + Image and simple TL-FX (repos, letterboxā€¦). And a better memory management simply keeping unused batchs closed.

In general, I only see drawbacks in working in bfx except for really simple effects or to comp final graphics/motion graphics. A little more work to start with, a lot less trouble later.

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Right, 8K + BFX/Paint is not functional.

That said, I need to keep the color TL-FX on the timeline. Canā€™t have batch groups for that. These are longer timelines and I need to the TL-FX editor to copy/paste. It doesnā€™t seem to work if you add the Image node into the BFX/batch.

Same for the control panel. I have a 6-piece Tangent panel that works really well on Flame for color controls. Except all the mappings disappear for Image nodes that inside BFX/Batch. So thatā€™s a no-go for my workflow.

In this case I can commit the 8K source res to an HD render and then rebuild the timeline. So I have two timelines, one with 8K sources and the Premiere conform, that renders out into a new timeline where I do all the color & paint.

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You can do your comp up in batch groups and keep Image nodes on the timeline just fine. Itā€™s just a couple extra prep steps

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OK, Iā€™ll have to start doing that.

16

Thanks for the quick demo and screenshare!

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Appreciate all the help. Got it sorted out how to setup the batch groups in the sequence with TL-FX for color. A tiny bit of overhead, but a more stable setup. Flame for the win.

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Coming back to this to fill in one gap.

Started using batch groups in connected segments after @hBomb42 showed me how. That works quite well.

The one aspect I havenā€™t been able to sort out, how the versioning/render selection works between the batch group and the connected segment.

When you work with pattern browsing and write nodes you get the version selector that makes it very transparent and easy to switch. I havenā€™t found the equivalent with batch renders and connected segments. It seems some other automated logic.

Hereā€™s the scenario where it became complicated.

Batchgroup A has 3 iterations right now. Client didnā€™t like 2 and 3 and wants to stay with 1. So I reverted batch to iteration 1. But I canā€™t get the connected segment to pickup the batch render from iteration 1.

Things I tried:

  • I deleted the other batch renders, so only the original was still there. No dice.
  • I clicked on ā€˜Smart Replaceā€™ and it says it updated something, but the timeline didnā€™t change.
  • I clicked ā€˜Find Batchgroupā€™ and it correctly gives a message that the current connected segment is from a different iteration than the one that is active.
  • I deleted all the renders and just made a new one in Iteration 1, hoping it would propagate. But it didnā€™t.

In the end I solved it by making a new iteration 4 based on 1, and then render that. And this propagated right away.

So is the implicit logic, most recent render of most recent iteration? No override? Sometimes you just need to get back, and ideally without another 10min render and a dummy iteration.

I could make it more transparent by using write nodes and pattern browsing. But then I have to export sequences, rather than ProRes files. Hoping to avoid that.

Any insights?

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Did you throw out your Batchgroup_A_001 rendered clip? It should be somewhere on your machine, esp if it went to client, right? As long as your renders have the name of the setup/iteration they came from, you should be able to trace back to the Batch setup as needed. If your client likes 001 and wants to continue tweaking from there, then yes. Load it, iterate up to 004, and keep going. If 001 is now the hero, thereā€™s no need to make an 004. Just use the editing tools to cut it back into wherever it needs to go. Since those renders will likely have matching duration and Source TC, I like to use the Smart Replace operation. Itā€™s shift-j in Smoke Hotkeys. Ping me if you want me to walk you through on a screenshare!

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Yes, need to keep iteration 1 live for further refinement. So I guess going to 4 is the way to go then.

In the last project I had a few I had to cut into edit, thatā€™s straight forward.

Just wanted to make sure there wasnā€™t a version selector like we have for pattern browsing I was missing. That would have been more transparent.

Thx for being quick to answer :slight_smile:

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Not internal to Flame there isnā€™t. Pattern browsing comes into play when dealing with the external filesystem.

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