DaVinci Resolve 8 released and available

[Hans von Sonntag]

Thanks for chiming in Hans - I'm curious what elements are you still going out to AE for in your finishes?

AE is very good at moving graphics. In anything else Smoke is as good or better.

Hans

 

[shashbugu]

Thanks for chiming in Hans - I'm curious what elements are you still going out to AE for in your finishes?

its funny, but once you get used to Smoke, AE suddenly becomes a lot easier and Seldom unnecessary to use.

Davinci Resolve 8, is very very very very stable. I did a mish mash grade on a 17 minute clip. Just threw a lot of nodal effects at it. It is Solid.
Great job Blackmagic.

 

[Dermot Shane]

the weakness of smoke on mac is huge, and that is the lack of node based compositor, you may get further with Resolve
IMHO Linx version is a very good tool indeed, the Mac version is crippled

I use DS as my finishing tool, and i have had nodes inside the color gui for years now, not looking back at my time on Smoke as a bad thing, but it did feel like i had an arm cut off trying to work with layer based comps, they added a real compositor since then, but only to the real Smoke, the Mac version is still a brick short of a full load, at least one brick...
i can see why you would want to keep AE around if you were chained to a Smack
I keep Nuke on my DS for the same reason ;-)

Oh yea the color tools in DS are far better than the color warper in Smoke.. i grade features in DS without significant pain, and end up with 80% + of the show having nodes by the final pass... nodes rok!

I'm looking at building a Resolve suite even tho it goes against my core ideals of having all tools avb to the artist, the major thing holding me back is doubts about Apple's commitment to the machine underneath the Resolve software

Other systems i am looking at are Pablo PA, Scratch or a third DS (i own two already) - decisions to be made by late summer, i do prefer Resolve, can't see the ROI on the Linux system, can't see the ROI on Smoke ultimate, Mystika, Baselight, Nucoda, full Pablo either

Watching this tread with interest, the majority of my work is shot on RED

d/

 

[Uli Plank]

Have a look at the Hackintosh options, in case Apple gives up on MacPro…

 

[jake blackstone]

the weakness of smoke on mac is huge, and that is the lack of node based compositor, you may get further with Resolve
IMHO Linx version is a very good tool indeed, the Mac version is crippled

Wow. Let us know how well the compostiing on Resolve goes for you. And you're dead wrong on the lack of nodes. Either Smoke uses nodes based compositing. In fact they are identical.

not looking back at my time on Smoke as a bad thing, but it did feel like i had an arm cut off trying to work with layer based comps, they added a real compositor since then, but only to the real Smoke, the Mac version is still a brick short of a full load, at least one brick...

The only difference between Smoke Advanced and Smak is lack of Batch.

i grade features in DS without significant pain, and end up with 80% + of the show having nodes by the final pass... nodes rok!

From this statement, it is obvious, that color grading is not your forte. Nodes in color grading do not rok. In color grading layers actually much more efficient way of operation. Just look at Baselight, Lustre, FilmMaster, Pablo, Scratch. They all use layers. Nodes are much more useful in compositing. So, no, you're wrong again.

Other systems i am looking at are Pablo PA, Scratch or a third DS (i own two already) - decisions to be made by late summer

d/

You do know, that Pablo PA is just a conforming software, right?

 

[M Most]

From this statement, it is obvious, that color grading is not your forte. Nodes in color grading do not rok. In color grading layers actually much more efficient way of operation. Just look at Baselight, Lustre, FilmMaster, Pablo, Scratch. They all use layers. Nodes are much more useful in compositing. So, no, you're wrong again.

He's not really wrong, it's largely a matter of semantics. The user interface is not always a direct reflection of what's going on in terms of a process flow. Since you and I both know Baselight pretty well, I'll use that as an example. The UI in Baselight presents everything as a stack comprised of layers, but if you think about how those layers are architected, Filmlight includes a Reference strip with almost all qualifiers. This allows you to "feed" any qualifier from any layer, which is exactly what nodes get you. It's simply presented a bit differently. But in terms of the process flow, it's nearly identical.

Flexibility is what's desired, but flexibility comes in different wrappers. As long as the flexibility is there, you're really just talking about a screen design. That doesn't make Dermot "wrong," it just means he's looking at a different screen display than you are. And quite frankly, I kind of like the nodal display of Resolve. It allows multiple uses of things like external mattes without having to clutter up a layer stack, and it allows a very quick view of what each node is doing when you need to modify something (Baselight also has that with the pop-up display on the cut view, but it was only added in the last 6 months). Your view is not that of every professional colorist in the world, even though you sometimes give the impression that it is. Nothing is absolute, and everyone has a different approach and mental process. That's why all of these different tools exist, and why they all have their own following. Everything that's being said here is just an opinion, not a fact. Someone else having a different opinion than you doesn't make them "wrong," and it doesn't make you "right."

 

[Dermot Shane]

Wow. Let us know how well the compostiing on Resolve goes for you.

Nooooo!!!!! I mean that.. but if i am going to use a more focused tool, then i understand that i am losing what i hold dear... a overarching tool set

you're dead wrong on the lack of nodes. Either Smoke uses nodes based compositing. In fact they are identical. The only difference between Smoke Advanced and Smak is lack of Batch.

Yup, just what i said... for my workflow it's a big deal.. you may be fine with it, and find smack's really decent 3D comp'n to be of more use to you, but it's not my happy place, prefering DS's wide range of tools for my work

From this statement, it is obvious, that color grading is not your forte. Nodes in color grading do not rok. In color grading layers actually much more efficient way of operation. Just look at Baselight, Lustre, FilmMaster, Pablo, Scratch. They all use layers. Nodes are much more useful in compositing. So, no, you're wrong again.

Not wrong, just not agreeing wit you... gradeing & finishing is what i do day in / day out... features, short films, TVC's... so Jake, i guess the obvious is not really that obvious... kinda cool that way.. i've never updated my IMDB, not a member.. but do chk it out for a partial (and out of date) credit list.. Avid used my work for their current DS gradeing showcase BTW, showing nodes, paint and effects rolled into the color interface, there is real world use for nodes in gradeing, chk it out, it a music video for the band Metric, use in the last Twilight film, i don't oftern do music video's ( this is the first one this decade) tho;
http://www.avid.com/US/avid-tv/AvidDSPart2CorrectingColor/shadowbox

You do know, that Pablo PA is just a conforming software, right?

That depends upon how it's configured... software is the same, much more than conform

We can agree that we don't create the resualts in the same way I'm sure, i don't choose to work inside the same toolsets that you chose to.. my work is good, clients return time and time again - they like how i work and where they get to at the end of the day... sky replacement? no sweat... done before your back from coffee... i've had five days off so far this year;-)

d/

 

[jake blackstone]

He's not really wrong, it's largely a matter of semantics. The user interface is not always a direct reflection of what's going on in terms of a process flow. Since you and I both know Baselight pretty well, I'll use that as an example. The UI in Baselight presents everything as a stack comprised of layers, but if you think about how those layers are architected, Filmlight includes a Reference strip with almost all qualifiers. This allows you to "feed" any qualifier from any layer, which is exactly what nodes get you. It's simply presented a bit differently. But in terms of the process flow, it's nearly identical.

Flexibility is what's desired, but flexibility comes in different wrappers. As long as the flexibility is there, you're really just talking about a screen design. That doesn't make Dermot "wrong," it just means he's looking at a different screen display than you are. And quite frankly, I kind of like the nodal display of Resolve. It allows multiple uses of things like external mattes without having to clutter up a layer stack, and it allows a very quick view of what each node is doing when you need to modify something (Baselight also has that with the pop-up display on the cut view, but it was only added in the last 6 months). Your view is not that of every professional colorist in the world, even though you sometimes give the impression that it is. Nothing is absolute, and everyone has a different approach and mental process. That's why all of these different tools exist, and why they all have their own following. Everything that's being said here is just an opinion, not a fact. Someone else having a different opinion than you doesn't make them "wrong," and it doesn't make you "right."

Well, don't forget Lustre. It hides nodes behind layers, which really are one and the same. Pushing "esc" on Lustre will show you nodes, that normally presented as layers. But that is exactly my point. I don't think node DISPLAY is efficient for color grading and that is why Lustre "prefers" layers to nodes. Nodes can be and very often are messy and often it is not really easy to see the grade flow with so many nodes. On FilmMaster I can name each layer and truly see with the glance what is going on with my grade. Baselight introduced the new pop up in order to address this "look at the glance" shortcoming. Essentially layers and nodes are the same thing and i'm not arguing that. My main argument is competitive operational effectiveness of nodes vs layers display for color grading. In MY OPININON, which is shared by every manufacturer, except for BM, layers display is a better way to go
I noticed, that from the very beginning you were very anti-Resolve, but recently, it appears, that you had changed your mind. What gives?

 

[jake blackstone]

chk it out, it a music video for the band Metric, use in the last Twilight film, i don't oftern do music video's ( this is the first one this decade) tho;
http://www.avid.com/US/avid-tv/AvidDSPart2CorrectingColor/shadowbox





d/

Do you mean this video? http://vimeo.com/12122196
As far as the Avid color grading demo, I had actually looked at it a while ago, when I was doing my finishing app research. The demo looked so pailful, that I ended up with a Smoke BTW, just curios, does Avid DS uses any kind of control panel?

 

[Michael Lindsay]

I'll just give a couple.
1. Lustre... ...It is EOL, but it is soon to be included inside of Smoke and Flame.

Hi Jake

Not doubting you (i've heard similar chat from other individuals) but what is your source for this statement (for example : hunch, loose lip beta tester, overselling salesman, leaked doc.... )

Also is this going to be another smoke advanced only advantage or will smac benefit??

Thanks

Michael

 

[Dermot Shane]

Do you mean this video? http://vimeo.com/12122196
As far as the Avid color grading demo, I had actually looked at it a while ago, when I was doing my finishing app research. The demo looked so pailful, that I ended up with a Smoke

The vimeo link seems to be dead, but if it's the same video, then yea it's my work, Michael Forest did the tutorial's tho... i ended up with the job as the house that this producer normaly went to could not finsh in their smoke & grade in their Lustre with MX footage, and have a combersome kludge of doing the assy in Scratch, rendering DPX, moving those into Smoke, then into Lustre... a one stop box that did it all was a good choice for them...esp as i could get back into the SDK anytime and comp layers of seperatly debayered shots together - Oliver Peters did a story about it at the time;
http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/?s=dermot

look at the screen gab halfway down of a comp, and you can see why Smack is not the tool for me...
It's OK that you didn't grab the power of DS color tools, they are not easy to sit down with and get a handle on as you really need to know the paint & composting to make them sing, and that's a learning curve for sure.. painful? maybe if you don't know the tools... not an issue for me tho.

BTW, just curios, does Avid DS uses any kind of control panel?

You know the old line - "Those who know, can't say & those who say, don't know" ? On the street, not yet, Avid has been typcialy tight lipped, but have said that MC color is going to be supported.

that surface support in common with Resolve + the nodes on offer in Resolve + the good chance at a reasonable ROI in this wacky market + MXF support + gradeing is now 80% of my workflow = Resolve at the top of my list for new tools

d/

 

[jake blackstone]

The vimeo link seems to be dead, but if it's the same video, then yea it's my work, Michael Forest did the tutorial's tho... i ended up with the job as the house that this producer normaly went to could not finsh in their smoke & grade in their Lustre with MX footage, and have a combersome kludge of doing the assy in Scratch, rendering DPX, moving those into Smoke, then into Lustre... a one stop box that did it all was a good choice for them...esp as i could get back into the SDK anytime and comp layers of seperatly debayered shots together - Oliver Peters did a story about it at the time;
http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/?s=dermot

look at the screen gab halfway down of a comp, and you can see why Smack is not the tool for me...
It's OK that you didn't grab the power of DS color tools, they are not easy to sit down with and get a handle on as you really need to know the paint & composting to make them sing, and that's a learning curve for sure.. painful? maybe if you don't know the tools... not an issue for me tho.


You know the old line - "Those who know, can't say & those who say, don't know" ? On the street, not yet, Avid has been typcialy tight lipped, but have said that MC color is going to be supported.

that surface support in common with Resolve + the nodes on offer in Resolve + the good chance at a reasonable ROI in this wacky market + gradeing is now 80% of my workflow = Resolve at the top of my list for new tools

d/

Isn't that ironic, that Smoke works with Avid MC Control, but Avid DS does not? How does one really can call something a color grading device, if it doesn't even support any kind of control panel is...strange to say the least.

 

[jake blackstone]

Hi Jake

Not doubting you (i've heard similar chat from other individuals) but what is your source for this statement (for example : hunch, loose lip beta tester, overselling salesman, leaked doc.... )

Also is this going to be another smoke advanced only advantage or will smac benefit??

Thanks

Michael

Obviously, until Grade shows up (I heard IBC) inside Smoke and or Autodesk makes an official announcement, it's a rumor. I can't divulge the name of the person or persons, but it was from people in the know From what i'd been told, it will be in Smac as well. So, let's hope the info is correct

 

[Dermot Shane]

Isn't that ironic, that Smoke works with Avid MC Control, but Avid DS does not? How does one really can call something a color grading device, if it doesn't even support any kind of control panel is...strange to say the least.

can you say Pablo? (for the first few years)

Worked for a pile of folks... some Pablo artists still prefer the pen and tablet... everyone is diffrent....

I would love to have big balls, heads up gradeing without the muscle memory would be a great thing, moveing mutiple paramiters concurrently would also be a great thing... but not at the cost of losing the tools i use everyday ;-)



d/

 

[M Most]

Well, don't forget Lustre. It hides nodes behind layers, which really are one and the same. Pushing "esc" on Lustre will show you nodes, that normally presented as layers. But that is exactly my point. I don't think node DISPLAY is efficient for color grading and that is why Lustre "prefers" layers to nodes. Nodes can be and very often are messy and often it is not really easy to see the grade flow with so many nodes. On FilmMaster I can name each layer and truly see with the glance what is going on with my grade. Baselight introduced the new pop up in order to address this "look at the glance" shortcoming. Essentially layers and nodes are the same thing and i'm not arguing that. My main argument is competitive operational effectiveness of nodes vs layers display for color grading. In MY OPININON, which is shared by every manufacturer, except for BM, layers display is a better way to go

For a long time, both editors and colorists in Europe used pens and tablets for input (partly the influence of Quantel, but later with Flame, Smoke, etc.). In the US, there were a lot fewer Quantel seats, and even when Flame arrived, many operators used a mouse rather than the pen and tablet. When one uses a pen and tablet as a primary tool, a node based interface is much more intuitive (as is a "button heavy" interface, such as Lustre). However, if one uses a dedicated control panel, its usefulness is diminished because it becomes a bit troublesome to map things like node reconnections to a dedicated panel that is button oriented. So the interface and its usefulness is inexorably tied to the working methods of the operator. As someone who uses a dedicated panel for color work, that probably influences your opinion on layers vs. nodes, since a layer interface is more cleanly and simply mappable to a button oriented panel.

I noticed, that from the very beginning you were very anti-Resolve, but recently, it appears, that you had changed your mind. What gives?

I don't think I was ever "anti Resolve" in terms of the program itself. I was anti "ultra cheap/free" Resolve because I felt - and still feel - that ultimately the pricing policies will have a negative effect on one's ability to make a living in our industry. I am pretty familiar with the new version now, and I see a lot to like as a product, and a number of things fixed since the previous versions. I also still see some limitations for the type of work I do (i.e., lack of basic effect support for XML and AAF imports that ultimately limits the usefulness of that approach, lack of a log based grading control set, and a few other things) as well as some bugs, but these things will likely be addressed over time because one of the pleasant surprises of the Blackmagic takeover has been that they are still quite interested and supportive of the higher end of the market even as they roll out the "free" version, unlike another company that's named after a fruit.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Coming from an animation and compositing perspective, nodes and layers are pretty much the same thing. Nodes can be more powerful in certain implementations, but in the case of Resolve, they only offer serialized and parallel nodes. So it's nothing more than an alternative representation for a layered stack.

Personally, I prefer the nodal approach, I use a Wacom tablet with keyboard most of the time. I've used other panels, but found that even after getting pretty decent with the panel, I still preferred my tablet. The Resolve panel looks excellent, but out of the budget for my small operation at the time. Resolve isn't too button heavy, but it's also geared to work with their control surface or other panel options, so there are times when the keyboard and tablet are not ideal. I'm getting pretty quick with it in Resolve, though and I find I'm currently more productive with the tablet than with the Tangent Wave that I recently sold.

 

[Peter Chamberlain]

Resolve was defined as a nodal based corrector from the very beginning and this does permit simple 'layer' approach to grading or a far more complex structure, depending on your personal style. I think the ability to select the source for each node, for both the image and key, makes it more flexible than the normal layer approach but doesn't make it too complicated either. For those that like nodes the 'Toggle Display Mode' gives a lot more canvas to work with.

 

[shashbugu]

the weakness of smoke on mac is huge, and that is the lack of node based compositor, you may get further with Resolve
IMHO Linx version is a very good tool indeed, the Mac version is crippled

I use DS as my finishing tool, and i have had nodes inside the color gui for years now, not looking back at my time on Smoke as a bad thing, but it did feel like i had an arm cut off trying to work with layer based comps, they added a real compositor since then, but only to the real Smoke, the Mac version is still a brick short of a full load, at least one brick...
i can see why you would want to keep AE around if you were chained to a Smack
I keep Nuke on my DS for the same reason ;-)

Oh yea the color tools in DS are far better than the color warper in Smoke.. i grade features in DS without significant pain, and end up with 80% + of the show having nodes by the final pass... nodes rok!

I'm looking at building a Resolve suite even tho it goes against my core ideals of having all tools avb to the artist, the major thing holding me back is doubts about Apple's commitment to the machine underneath the Resolve software

Other systems i am looking at are Pablo PA, Scratch or a third DS (i own two already) - decisions to be made by late summer, i do prefer Resolve, can't see the ROI on the Linux system, can't see the ROI on Smoke ultimate, Mystika, Baselight, Nucoda, full Pablo either

Watching this tread with interest, the majority of my work is shot on RED

d/

The weakness of smoke on the Mac, is the Mac. Batch is not present in Smoke on the Mac. but truly if you know how to use batch you should really be on Smoke Advanced on Linux. There are few Batch effects tossed into Smac.
Smoke has both layer based and complex intuitive nodal effects, and Modules. The layer based timeline effects or soft effects are pretty much the regular effects you find in any NLE. The Desktop action effects module is a timeline multi sequence based nodal compositor.

So yes Smoke has a nodal compositor. :=)

 

[jake blackstone]

Resolve was defined as a nodal based corrector from the very beginning and this does permit simple 'layer' approach to grading or a far more complex structure, depending on your personal style. I think the ability to select the source for each node, for both the image and key, makes it more flexible than the normal layer approach but doesn't make it too complicated either. For those that like nodes the 'Toggle Display Mode' gives a lot more canvas to work with.

Not to belabor the point, but any modern layer based color grading software has a "switch" on each layer, that allows for a selection of what's is feeding that layer. The choice usually is previous, base and start. I really wasn't complaining about the difference between nodal and layer approach. The difference is academic. I was arguing about the actual visual representation and even more important, flexibility. One of the problems, that I have with a nodal representation is that after using may be 10-12 nodes, it can get difficult to decipher. But even that is not a real problem. Often I find myself in the situation, where I need to copy a portion of a layer. Say, the layer has an HSL key with garbage mask, modified with primary and secondary controls and may have a little NR thrown in for a good measure. What if I want to use the same secondary control, but I don't need the primary, garbage (or a garbage mask, but without the keyframes)and NR. In other grading software I can drill down to that secondary and copy only the modifier or modifiers I need. With Resolve, unless I'm mistaken, you need to copy the whole node and then start deleting the rest. No big deal one may say. it is a big deal, if you must do that on 20 shots at once.

 

[jake blackstone]

The weakness of smoke on the Mac, is the Mac. Batch is not present in Smoke on the Mac. but truly if you know how to use batch you should really be on Smoke Advanced on Linux. There are few Batch effects tossed into Smac.
Smoke has both layer based and complex intuitive nodal effects, and Modules. The layer based timeline effects or soft effects are pretty much the regular effects you find in any NLE. The Desktop action effects module is a timeline multi sequence based nodal compositor.

So yes Smoke has a nodal compositor. :=)

Throw in the History and you have a nodal compositor on steroids, that makes versioning a snap.