NEW PREMIERE CC AND AE AVAILABLE NOW

[Phil Holland]

This is a common request that we are looking into. For now you need to use it like you described. We do support the RMD files from RedCineX though.

David, I sent some of these thoughts over to Adobe privately in 2011 via Al and a few others. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as they really liked the ideas.


What would be sexy, and I mean really sexy, is to have the ability to "browse" for clips in Adobe Bridge like we can in Media Browser in Premiere Pro CC and preview them within Bridge itself.

Then having the ability to load one or more clips "Adobe Camera Raw Style", except it being the Red Importer dialog. I wouldn't mind some of that ACR stuff in there either. In fact... Saving looks and snapshots would be massive in a similar GUI and a great way of unifying the worlds of stills and motion. With the popularity of Adobe software for folks using "raw" cameras it would really add that killer app into the mix. Something that nobody has.

If Mercury Playback support can be added to Bridge and say the adaptive resolution settings can be adjusted in the Preferences for playback and paused resolutions.....
Right now video playback support in Bridge is the missing link in my world. Full screen playback support, slideshows for presentations, etc....

Also, if we could have some JKL control in there and perhaps in and out points set through metadata to speed up and help the ease import to the timeline in Premiere Pro.

Perhaps a feature where you can select multiple clips and export to EDL, import into Speedgrade, or import into Premiere Pro sequence (active sequence or create new based on shot settings).

Actually, if we got to that point, since the architecture is in there for PDF creation you could also "flag" keyframes that represent the entire shot and generate camera and sequence reports through Bridge or have a right click option of "load keyframe(s) into Photoshop".

I get the concept behind Prelude in terms of ingestion. I like what it is, however sometimes being able to simply review, flag, label, and rate takes precedence in managing your shots. And right now you have one of my favorite browsing and data managements tools sitting right there that could be expanded on just a bit to really make a killer app for us. Heck, I'm in features, but if I was working in broadcast I'd sacrifice a stuffed animal for this.

To me Bridge should be the "bridge" to your Adobe creative world. Start there, manage all types of imagery, execute what needs to be done in the Adobe application you desire to use for your task at hand.

It could be something to add to the .RMD support or even providing an additional sidecar file.

I certainly have a vision of how it can get implemented and I have many other thoughts on some additional features. What I mentioned above though would be really, really useful.

 

[Sandro Klopfstein]

why is there no encore cc? encore cs6 gives us the crashes :/

 

[Adam Beck]

David, I sent some of these thoughts over to Adobe privately in 2011 via Al and a few others. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as they really liked the ideas.


What would be sexy, and I mean really sexy, is to have the ability to "browse" for clips in Adobe Bridge like we can in Media Browser in Premiere Pro CC and preview them within Bridge itself.

Then having the ability to load one or more clips "Adobe Camera Raw Style", except it being the Red Importer dialog. I wouldn't mind some of that ACR stuff in there either. In fact... Saving looks and snapshots would be massive in a similar GUI and a great way of unifying the worlds of stills and motion. With the popularity of Adobe software for folks using "raw" cameras it would really add that killer app into the mix. Something that nobody has.

If Mercury Playback support can be added to Bridge and say the adaptive resolution settings can be adjusted in the Preferences for playback and paused resolutions.....
Right now video playback support in Bridge is the missing link in my world. Full screen playback support, slideshows for presentations, etc....

Also, if we could have some JKL control in there and perhaps in and out points set through metadata to speed up and help the ease import to the timeline in Premiere Pro.

Perhaps a feature where you can select multiple clips and export to EDL, import into Speedgrade, or import into Premiere Pro sequence (active sequence or create new based on shot settings).

Actually, if we got to that point, since the architecture is in there for PDF creation you could also "flag" keyframes that represent the entire shot and generate camera and sequence reports through Bridge or have a right click option of "load keyframe(s) into Photoshop".

I get the concept behind Prelude in terms of ingestion. I like what it is, however sometimes being able to simply review, flag, label, and rate takes precedence in managing your shots. And right now you have one of my favorite browsing and data managements tools sitting right there that could be expanded on just a bit to really make a killer app for us. Heck, I'm in features, but if I was working in broadcast I'd sacrifice a stuffed animal for this.

To me Bridge should be the "bridge" to your Adobe creative world. Start there, manage all types of imagery, execute what needs to be done in the Adobe application you desire to use for your task at hand.

It could be something to add to the .RMD support or even providing an additional sidecar file.

I certainly have a vision of how it can get implemented and I have many other thoughts on some additional features. What I mentioned above though would be really, really useful.

I'm with Phil, these are great ideas that should be implemented.

 

[Brad Allen]

No..I reference the HQ/Orig files on export. Depending on the length of the project, I'll sometimes have FCPX generate the proxies, but since it works natively with R3D, there's not really a need unless the sequence is effect heavy.

Hmm, very interesting Chris! What sort of times are you seeing from FCPX for similar length files? I'm suprised to hear that Premiere seems to be so much slower for you, as my cores usually get completely pegged out exporting R3D based timelines.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

So my Adobe Premiere CC incorrectly looks at my HDR .r3d clips as track 2 rather than track 1, which means all of my clips on the time line are very dark.

 

[Dr. Sassi]

I see a lot of value in the C4D/AE combination - and as you seem like an expert in the use of the products ...

I'm coming from Fusion/Lightwave/3ds - and really hate rendering passes and compositing, as you lose a lot of the potential when rendering to 2D and then compositing that into a 3D workspace.

I would like to be able to bring in RealFlow meshes of transparent fluids, put an EXR sequence of a green screened actress in the center of the mesh, and have the fluid distort the actress just as in real life.

1. Does this sound possible in AE/CD4 - when using AE as the compositing program (there would be many other elements in a complex 3D set)?

2. In Fusion, dealing with a 1/4 sized proxy EXR sequence is trivial, and even with 4K sequences, I can get decent playback speed (12 fps while caching in a very complex scene with lots of other image sequences, then 23.976 after cached).

Is this possible in AE? Is there a simple way to tell AE to play with the proxy sequences and textures? Being able to quickly play a comp is really essential when judging camera moves, etc. - and I spend way more time playing a proxy from cache than I do for the final render.

3. Due to the nodal nature of Fusion, I'm able to build complex camera rigs and other tools. I know that neither AE or C4D uses nodes, but ... is this possible in AE?

4. I often bake motions from MotionBuilder in 3ds for use in Lightwave. Will the AE/CD4 combo allow playing an FBX mesh + mdd or pointCache?

5. Any idea if AE/C4D will be able to use the Octane renderer (Octane already works in C4D)? It would be great to get the ability to have real raytracing GI - but ... the main objection I hear on the Fusion forum is that it would take forever to render.

If AE/CD4 were able to use Octane, I'd probably jump onboard today and buy the full version of C4D.

Hey Les C.,

The two main ideas here are, that you can open a scene, without having rendered everything, or have for each pass a track and combine everything on the fly. Which means, you could adjust the e.g., the reflection pass before anything is rendered completely. So the 3D engine becomes highly integrated into the compositing process. But as you said, you have your preferences and then it should fit to your needs, not because it is new.

Please note that I have not found so far IF one can use plug ins in Lite. However, the questions you have asked indicate a level of investment that is certainly not done around the Lite version. Lite is noce but on the long run, one of the full packages is certainly the better way. The main idea is CineWare, and with it, a relatively active connection to Ae's compositing area.

1) My experience with Real-Flow is a little bit dusty, and they have changed a lot. Back then it worked, via mesh or particles. For anything current please check: http://support.nextlimit.com/display/rfkb/Connectivity+Plug-ins+FAQs
The Lite version is not coming with the Thinking Particles, so there is certainly a need to get a full package, with all the extras that Lite (Ae) or Prime isn't providing.

2) I haven't seen or used any proxy files in Ae. Normally I go in 1/2 or even 1/4 preview mode if things go to slow. Do not expect OpenEXR support like in NUKE from Adobe, there are worlds between both (I talk about NUKE, as I'm not used to Fusion, which is not meant as critic).
The combination of C4D and Ae is not that close that you could just feed a composition as texture into C4D, which I would like to have of course. Fusion to my knowledge is supported from the Windows version of C4D, and writes out a little .comp file for multi pass as well to a certain degree (axis based) 3D data.

3) Nodes are given in C4D via XPresso (a node based system to connect data, and change values mathematically) or Thinking Particles. To build camera rigs, you can go with a lot of tools. Character tools, XPresso and UserData (build your own mixer), Python (not in Lite), and if you like CMotion for repetitive motion (Many options are based on the version you have, Lite is of course the smallest package). Perhaps there is more. It is easier to answer to concrete cases. I'm not used to do a lot of camera work in Ae, If you are comfortable in a 3D application, with many options to manipulate in 3D, Ae is not really the full fleshed 3D app, hence the developments with MAXON.

4) MMD is not direct available, Spanki did a lot of work with Riptide Pro to make that happen. FBX -- well that is a wide field of formats and problems, as Autodesk has changed a lot and often. Yes FBX is a given as Import, but please test it - I can't say that it will run in all version flawless. Collada and Alembic is certainly there, as well the old-timer BVH, but also other formats. Details can be found in the Preferences-Impot/Export. Lightwave is an import path, which was used often for Syntheyes files.

5) Octane, I have to pass here, as I have not tested it at all, the website tells that it can. having been a beta tester for Maxwell a decade ago, I know that things look different when you are in production. The support might be a better idea here, or just http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=29638 Currently there are a lot of 3rd party render available and the companies have mostly a vivid user forum.

Before you buy, get the demo version http://www.maxon.net/products/demo-version/download-form.html To my knowledge it is (was?) 42 days full functional. I think you might get a better idea hands on than what I could tell you. I have supported some Lightwave users to get up to speed with C4D, but the common problem is always, coming from LW, Maya, or others, most people like to find "their" old workflow in C4D. Which I never have seen works out very fast and efficient. Just my personal impression. I have used LW 6.5 to 7.0 and found it different to C4D or Electric Image, etc. Each has its own mindset, but perhaps I don't tell you anything new.

Speaking of Ae, it is a complete different way to work than node based of course. Also here, if in doubt, the demo version works 30 days. Certainly time enough to get clear if that fits to your way of working or perhaps not.

I hope I'm not too vague here, but answering since long in fora and teaching hands on, I know that everyone has a different idea how things have to work, and I certainly agree here: Software has to fit to the artist -- not the other way around.

I hope my few lines help a little bit.

Good luck

Sassi

 

[Joel Arvidsson]

This is a common request that we are looking into. For now you need to use it like you described. We do support the RMD files from RedCineX though.

Cheers

Dave

How about to just right click on a clip and be able to open sourcesettings for that clip and also an option to refresh all rmd in a sequence?

 

[Mike Garrick]

A note about new Premier using the colour correction curves ....yes I know why would you want too ..but anyway best to know ....

http://www.creativeimpatience.com/warning-about-using-rgb-and-luma-curves-in-premiere-pro-cc/

 

[Mike Harrington]

I see a lot of value in the C4D/AE combination - and as you seem like an expert in the use of the products ...

I'm coming from Fusion/Lightwave/3ds - and really hate rendering passes and compositing, as you lose a lot of the potential when rendering to 2D and then compositing that into a 3D workspace.

I would like to be able to bring in RealFlow meshes of transparent fluids, put an EXR sequence of a green screened actress in the center of the mesh, and have the fluid distort the actress just as in real life.

1. Does this sound possible in AE/CD4 - when using AE as the compositing program (there would be many other elements in a complex 3D set)?

2. In Fusion, dealing with a 1/4 sized proxy EXR sequence is trivial, and even with 4K sequences, I can get decent playback speed (12 fps while caching in a very complex scene with lots of other image sequences, then 23.976 after cached).

Is this possible in AE? Is there a simple way to tell AE to play with the proxy sequences and textures? Being able to quickly play a comp is really essential when judging camera moves, etc. - and I spend way more time playing a proxy from cache than I do for the final render.

3. Due to the nodal nature of Fusion, I'm able to build complex camera rigs and other tools. I know that neither AE or C4D uses nodes, but ... is this possible in AE?

4. I often bake motions from MotionBuilder in 3ds for use in Lightwave. Will the AE/CD4 combo allow playing an FBX mesh + mdd or pointCache?

5. Any idea if AE/C4D will be able to use the Octane renderer (Octane already works in C4D)? It would be great to get the ability to have real raytracing GI - but ... the main objection I hear on the Fusion forum is that it would take forever to render.

If AE/CD4 were able to use Octane, I'd probably jump onboard today and buy the full version of C4D.

1. That of course needs to be raytraced for refractions...cineware should handle that easy...but the exr sequence would have to be in a Cineware layer...realflow will either generate the particles or mesh via its own plugin. Unless c4d created a roadblock...you shouldnt need anything special from C4D...so probably will work in lite (at least it can work this way in lightwave....doesnt need anything internal just the realflow plugin)
2. Fusion will destroy AE in speed...especially for camera moves...AE is getting better...but complex will slow it to a crawl compared to fusion.
5. No. Cineware will not do third party renders at this time....and octane does not take forever to render....would probably be comparable to fusions openGL renderer inspeed...but with full pathtracing
you can use it in c4d...but not the AE plugin

 

[Les C.]

@Dr. Sassi - thanks for the long reply! Changing platforms always involves some "gotcha's" - and I'm trying to figure out what I'd gain or lose.

I do remember reading that CC AE natively handles EXR now (they are bundling the ProEXR plug-in, but ... not sure if Premiere also includes this plug-in).

@Mike - yes, I've been following the Octane threads closely on the Lightwave forum, and as an unbiased renderer (without all the GI artifacts that happen in animated sequences) and as a very fast GPU-renderer (I'd probably add more Titans), I've been massively impressed.

Unbiased GPU-rendering is absolutely what I want - I'm just trying to figure out how to make that happen so that I can use those beautiful and relatively quick renders inside a compositor as 3d instead of losing so much capability with 2d renders of 3D.

I wish Lightwave could be used as a compositor - they were moving in that direction not long ago. Problem solved if that were the case.

If AE is really slow to use as a compositor, this would really negate all the cool C4D integration features, as I can picture myself pulling my hair out waiting for a RAM cache. And definitely pulling my hair out with the anachronistic layers instead of nodes. I can't imagine dealing with even a semi-complex comp when using layers. Ahhhh!

I guess I'll just have to install the trial and see.

But pulling raytraced renderering into the compositor makes perfect sense to me (although many on the Fusion forum balk, I guess they're so used to doing it with rendered passes).

When the Foundry/Nuke purchased Modo, the writing was on the wall for the future direction of compositing. In a few years, no one will want to work any other way. The times they are a changin' !!!

 

[Mike Harrington]

well some guys can really fly with AE...
I know fusion and AE both equally...and I use AE for 75% of my work...

Anything more complex and I jump into fusion....

If you want octane in AE...its not going to happen yet....even via the c4d plugin. You probably saw my little test of realflow and octane inside lightwave....super fast render...maybe 30 seconds a frame with 1/2 million poly's....all pathtraced GI...

I agree with you as far as the raytraced render inside a compositor....just not sure how fusion would handle millions of poly's....

 

[Les C.]

Mike - yes, the first massively cool video using motion control was done using AE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOaDowGomog

So, I'm still hopeful AE could be workable, but ... I'd really want Octane to make it worth dealing with layers, and 3rd party plug-ins aren't working in the current version of AE/C4D. I sent them a msg earlier on this, to see if it's even a priority for them.

I did see your RealFlow render with Octane. I've owned Realflow for a while, and really need to dig in and master it.

Hopefully Eyeon will announce full support of Renderman (as in providing the DLL instead of just the hooks to create the dll) at SIGGRAPH. Then, it wouldn't be a question of Fusion handling millions of polys, but Renderman (which would be no problem). It's not what I want, but ... it's probably closer.

Maybe Renderman will buy Octane - as they need a way to deal with Arnold's unbiased renderer (and the time in post unbiased saves when not dealing with issues in CGI sequences) Then, problem solved!

Hey, I can only hope!

 

[Mike Harrington]

i remember that old video....was pretty cool

 

[Tehben Dean]

Where do I change CUDA, OpenCL, or Software settings in Pr?

 

[Les C.]

well some guys can really fly with AE...
I know fusion and AE both equally...and I use AE for 75% of my work...

Anything more complex and I jump into fusion....

If you want octane in AE...its not going to happen yet....even via the c4d plugin. You probably saw my little test of realflow and octane inside lightwave....super fast render...maybe 30 seconds a frame with 1/2 million poly's....all pathtraced GI...

I agree with you as far as the raytraced render inside a compositor....just not sure how fusion would handle millions of poly's....

I had a nice chat with C4D sales and tech support today. C4D/AE integration certainly seems nice.

So ... I figured I should actually try something simple in AE CS6 to test the speed when used as a compositor.

In Fusion, I can play while caching a 2MB 1459x2160 EXR of a green screened character full resolution at 13 fps.

If I click on the Prx button (to enable playing the 1/4 resolution proxy EXR's I created (365x540), it plays while caching at 20 fps (and then afterwards at 23.976).

I typically have a number of loaders in a real comp (EXR's and textures for the 3D set), and get about 11 fps while caching using 1/4 resolution proxies (which also take up a 1/4 the RAM cache).

When I tried just the single EXR in AE CS6 at 1/4 resolution (I'm on a dual 8-core Xeon with 128GB RAM and a Titan), I get 2.5 fps while caching.

I spend a lot of time testing camera moves while playing from cache - a lot more than time spent in final render.

I can't conceive of caching so slowly, and I'm not sure how I could easily switch (at the click of a button) from proxy to full sized EXR's in my AE comp?

Is there some basic setup I'm missing in AE? I setup the .txt file for the Titan.

If this is the maximum speed I'm going to get, I'll wait for Fusion to support Renderman or Octane - or switch over to Nuke/Renderman to get real ray-tracing.

I really hoped that I could make this work - as the C4D/AE integration is very enticing.

 

[Dr. Sassi]

Hey Les,

You're welcome.

There is certainly a lot to explore and to test. The step to CineWare is great and will serve a lot of situations very well. If used where it is strong, productions will advance and speed up, from my personal point of view. It is a welcomed step forward.

There are some limitations (or I miss perhaps something ;o) with CineWare. Let me explain, I notice a few years ago that there is a trend to move decisions more and more into the post/composition part of a project. Given the abilities of the current compositing packages, this is certainly one way to go. However, I like to think that one needs to decide what is really important, and if the options to keep things open until the last minute, or render directly what ever is decided. To lock things earlier has certainly to do with forcing a decision and leave stressful render times, close to the dead-line, out of the equation.
I know, clients don't like that, they like to change their mind... ) Call it prejudgement, hehe.

Personally, I will stay as much in C4D Studio as possible, as I do not have the render farm to support such workflow. To have all the rendering in Ae/CineWare seems not always the advised way to go, and even with a single fast machines -- slow -- if we talk here about RED based resolutions in e.g., 4K. I can't even think of leaving everything "un-rendered" in an 4K project, and send then everything at once. Certainly possible in the future... we will see.

Multipass is for example not working with all the camera specific qualities (physical render from the full version) if they are already applied: Motion Blur and Depth of Field/Bokeh. It just will not work, e.g., a Positions-pass has no Bokeh ;o) There are some limitations and as long as the layers from Ae are not actively (e.g., as texture or "image plane") available in CineWare, any reflection or refraction, etc., will get lost, and many things more. As usual, know "your" tool is mandatory.
It is a nice step forward, and I think of it as a Motion Graphic friendly step, with some great advantages for other areas. For feature film VFX, and you asked about Realflow and Octane, I certainly would go from C4D Studio via OpenEXR. Just my two cents.

The idea of CineWare is certainly great and if used well, a great option to use standard multi-pass compositing for example with Object buffer/Adjustment layers to a great deal to get very early a lot of control. But as Mike mentioned, several things might not happen currently.

All in all, please get demo versions, as I only can tell, that everyone has a different idea how things should work. There is no right or wrong, when it works with quality on the end. I'm not certain what plug ins for the full version of C4D will be supported, Lite -- I ahven't found someone who got it working so far. But Lite is - well - lite. )

Besides CineWare, there is as well a communication via Plug ins from C4D to Ae (.aec) and on a separate route back, always only to a certain degree. If it is possible to bake in the light in a scene (possible in terms of the scene dependencies), things might change dramatically. As usual, I feel uncomfortable to generalize and have no idea about the individual project. It is a great option and well placed CineWare will change how we work.

My best wishes.

Sassi

P.S.: Just a side note, I showed during the last Siggraph on our booth how simple you can render out Multi-layer OpenEXR sequences. C4D writes even a little NUKE script. With all layer in one file, you build up your tree, and any changes (new render from C4D), can be done just by changing the name in the read node. If you use incremental numberings, just change the number, and all nodes in your tree will be fed with the new material. Cameras via Alembic, and Camera Projection and other stuff, even UV can be done. (But this is an Adobe thread, so I shut up now ;o)

@Dr. Sassi - thanks for the long reply! Changing platforms always involves some "gotcha's" - and I'm trying to figure out what I'd gain or lose.

I do remember reading that CC AE natively handles EXR now (they are bundling the ProEXR plug-in, but ... not sure if Premiere also includes this plug-in).

...

 

[Matt Ryan]

What are you guys getting for render times? I have a 4.5k RED project in a 4.5k RED timeline, exporting to same size prores LT, 3 minute 28 second video takes 11 minutes both in GPU accelerated and Hardware only (absolutely no speed increase). Is that normal? I have a redrocket and also a GTX 470 that I hacked the supported CUDA cards file in the Premiere CC contents folder along side a gt120. I feel like exports should be closer to real time, right? Do I have settings wrong or is this normal? Everything is up to date and Redrocket is enabled in Premiere. I get real time playback at full quality...and at 1/2 res with 12 layers of 4.5k video all play real time with no slow down. I should also mention that these clips are clean with no resizing or effects enabled. Here's some grabs:

EDIT: I get this message every couple of times I open Premiere CC, but not every time.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Mike Harrington]

that seems about right....

playback is one thing, the re-encoding and writing to the drive take time...there's obviously a bit of overhead as well....

I get realtime only when exporting 3k...

also those CUDA cards will do hardly anything during export....just scaling and some effects...and if you're not scaling then almost nothing

so you're about triple realtime for a 4k export...not too bad actually....

 

[Matt Ryan]

that seems about right....

playback is one thing, the re-encoding and writing to the drive take time...there's obviously a bit of overhead as well....

I get realtime only when exporting 3k...

also those CUDA cards will do hardly anything during export....just scaling and some effects...and if you're not scaling then almost nothing

so you're about triple realtime for a 4k export...not too bad actually....

Shouldn't it be faster considering I'm using a rocket? Resolve is much quicker at exporting.

 

[Mike Harrington]

it is what it is...I have a rocket as well

certain codecs are faster at exporting as well....I know cineform is slow

Try a DPX export to test


All that being said....I am doing a render to h264 for preview right now as I type.... 3k...just single pass vbr...and I am getting 3x faster than realtime...
so there obviously is some more speed to be had

Your settings all look good....
and it seems you exported right from PPro instead of going through AME...which is good....AME sometimes will not use rocket....