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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Magic Bullet Looks

Magic Bullet is very nice.
But how do you want to use it Edgar?

Something far more affordable is Nattress Film Effects. By far my favorite for FCP.
I dont know if they work for AE though.

Coloristia is very cool also.
 
MikeHedge said:
they are genius. Stu is the man! I hope somehow we can integrate them into the RED Premiere workflow.
Click to expand...

they work well here in the adobe cs and premiere workflow... did you have any issues/problems?
 
Edgar Pitts said:
I am curious if anyone has used Magic Bullet Looks in a CS3 Premiere/AE environment. What are your thoughts - good and bad. Thanks.

Edgar
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good
++ price/performance
++ robust toolset
++ intuitive interface
++ free on set version
++ understandable even for santa-claus type DoPs in their late 50/60ties with basic computer skills
++ styles and presets are fast
++ render quality
++ interface speed
++ on set look definition
average
++ absence of network render
++ metering is ok, vector missing
missing in action
-- no -direct- support of hd-sdi out via aja/blackmagic/matrox axio etc
-- no tracking
-- freeform masks are missing
-- no keyframes
-- no quick apply to many shots
-- no global changes on several shots at once

all in all, its one of -the- must have plugins if you dont own a top-end colorcorrection suite.
 
laguun said:
good
++ price/performance
++ robust toolset
++ intuitive interface
++ free on set version
++ understandable even for santa-claus type DoPs in their late 50/60ties with basic computer skills
++ styles and presets are fast
++ render quality
++ interface speed
++ on set look definition
average
++ absence of network render
++ metering is ok, vector missing
missing in action
-- no -direct- support of hd-sdi out via aja/blackmagic/matrox axio etc
-- no tracking
-- freeform masks are missing
-- no keyframes
-- no quick apply to many shots
-- no global changes on several shots at once

all in all, its one of -the- must have plugins if you dont own a top-end colorcorrection suite.
Click to expand...

I think freeform masks are in colorista a companion product.
 
zeke said:
I think freeform masks are in colorista a companion product.
Click to expand...

that is correct.
however, having freeform masks -inside- the looks interface would be a good boost for the speed one can work in.
 
Looks works well (I like it better in AE, than in FCP). Between that and Colorista you can do some great things. In FCP, I use Looks, Colorista, and Nattress Plugins. Also, I've added the Noise Industries plugs, which are great too.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. I do like the Looks program, but there are a few things that I do not like. As Laguun stated, it is not easy to correct many clips, and you can not create master looks that you can edit and filter through. Once you create a look you have to manually adjust each one.

We are correcting a non-Red longform project (PC CS3) and looking for the best solution for under 1k. We have an experienced colorist assisting us and want to find the best solution for our budget.
 
Edgar Pitts said:
Thanks for the replies everyone. I do like the Looks program, but there are a few things that I do not like. As Laguun stated, it is not easy to correct many clips, and you can not create master looks that you can edit and filter through. Once you create a look you have to manually adjust each one.

We are correcting a non-Red longform project (PC CS3) and looking for the best solution for under 1k. We have an experienced colorist assisting us and want to find the best solution for our budget.
Click to expand...

to be honest - in power and creative freedom (and render speed with background network render, and working speed with proxies) for color correction on the desktop nothing comes close to a discreet combustion with a tiffen set.

However, you will need an excellent trainer once or a excellent operator (there are some -outstanding- talents on the discreet vfx/color freelancer list).
 
Laguun,

How much would such a system run you, including hardware and software? Euros, dollars, whatever, Ill figure out the conversion...
 
Rudi Herbert said:
Laguun,

How much would such a system run you, including hardware and software? Euros, dollars, whatever, Ill figure out the conversion...
Click to expand...

what kind of a system? a 2K/4K combustion -killer- setup?
 
Been using the bullet for couple of years in Final cut pro, two thumbs up so far. Cant offer to much input for Adobe users but its a breeze to work with in FCP. Look forward to how the bullet will get integrate with RED.
 
I don't think Magic Bullet will work with Raw/Metadata type files (Red R3D or Cineform Raw captured from the SI2K), but will work with the Cineform wavelet codecs (Neo). Until NAB, the only CC product working directly with R3D files is Scratch.
FYI.
 
Edgar Pitts said:
Thanks Laguun. Does cineform work with Combustion? What kind of performance on a quad core Dell workstation? Thanks.

Edgar
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Hi Edgar,

for a -powerful- combustion station, the following elements are highly recommendable:

- a fast and large raid, S-ATA is the sweet spot.
As combustion cant cache everything in ram, fast disk i/o is crucial.
We are using (among others) areca in 8 to 16 disk configurations. An decent areca controller is 300-600€. A Terrybyte disk is 150-200€. So with 1500~4000€ an array very potent (much faster than 2K, slower than 4K) raid in the 8-16 Terrabyte Space gives the data necessary throughput.

- an Open GL graphics card. Quadro is the sweet spot.
Open GL acceleration will allow you to have realtime feedback at 2K, adjusting colorcorrection on the fly in 2K. Without Open GL it will be slower than RT in 2K.
Even as Nvidia rips off quite a bit for its quadro drivers (the boards themself use the regular Geforce chips), the sweetspot is the 4500/4600. Dont buy at list price, you will often find them in the 500-700€ space. They deliver excellent 2K RT with combustion. Even better are the 5x00 series, however they come at a massive premium.

- an HD-SDI video i/o
if you want to benefit of a calibrated monitor, there are 2 principal ways of adding one to combustion.
a) use a aja or decklink video i/o board. they are inexpensive (800-1600) and allow i/o with hdcam (sr) and other mastering VTRs/DDRs. downside is that they are not -perfectly- smooth under combustion, 24P works but here and there a single frame will be shutter while playback of unrendered corrections. Nothing really problematic, but good to know.
b) add a nvidia sdi to your quadro. downside is that you loose one monitor (combustion works excellent with 2+1 monitors, or even 4+1) and that the nvidia sdi boards are have indeed nasty pricetag. Advantage is that the playback is even better.
be aware however that you will only have excellent -progressive- display with both options. interlaced will be displayed in progressive with all pros and cons of that.

- a 64bit OS and 6, better 8 GB ram
combustion should have as much ram it can adress in its 32bit mode for itself, so 4 GB for the application and 2-4 GB for background tasks and OS are recommendable. with today ram prices thats a no-brainer anyhow.

- a quadcore cpu, 2.4-3Ghz. 8 cores are not necessary, but will help several plugins which cant benefit from the GL. They are not mandatory however.

- one or more inexpensive background slaves.
combustion comes with free network render licenses, managed through the discreet backburner server. so mini-quadcores (2.4 Ghz minimal setups, mini disk, 2-4GB ram, on.board graphics) are an excellent expansion of your investment.

With such a system, including software still in the $$$$ space, you get outstanding creative tools.

i dare to say that for -complex- colorcorrections such VFX system beats specialised DI tools, they simply have more powerful tools.
combustion is one of the sweet spots for replacing a DI system with VFX tool, as it offers:
- interchangeable and adjustable LUTs, for precision work.
- the exact primary and secondary color correction tools of flame/inferno (discreet color corrector and color warper)
- 4K (and up to 10K) resolution.
- 10, 12, 16bit or floating point precision quality in RGB.
- all the essential tools in a very sophisticated implementation (discreet g-mask, discreet tracker)
- an interface for many creative plugins for colorcorrection (tiffen filter suite etc)
- good measurement (discreet waveform/vectorscopr in the system. many $$.$$$ DI systems sadly still mis that).
- grain and noise management (including grain match/degrain, once more the same modules as in flame/inferno)
- a really powerful vector and pixel paint module for these advanced gradients and masks.
- solid support for DI fileformats as DPX, including their setup.
- a good proxy system, which allows to generate, work and switch between 1080/2K/4K.
- excellent render quality of all its modules
- a fast and streamlined user interface w/o dialog-boxes and pop-up windows.
- adjustment of color correction on the fly while playback
- stores and presets for colorcorrections and basically all other functions.
- different views of source, result, positions in time and a/b split display functions available simultaneously.
- an editing operator for the last minute adjustments
- timewarp/ramp functionality.
- sound. this however is minimal.
- global operators and nodes (as: change -all- colorcorrection of type X by 10%)
- transfer modes for combining layers
- background and network processing for massive workloads.
- powerful titling tools, from technical useful stuff as TC burn in to 4K closing title etc.
- A full 3D VFX compositing system incl. schematic if you need it
- footage independent operators, allowing swapping footage -below- an existing CC/Grade.
- and finally, blur, mask and cc in ~RT with 2K i/o.

The downsides of such a system compared to a specialized CC system are:
- no advanced human interface (a la blackboard for baselight or cooper)
- no direct EDL i/o support (you will want to have an Adobe (4K 16bit) or Apple (2K 8bit) NLE in the background, enhanced with the Automatic duck plugin. Or an assistant. For a fullfeature with 1000-2000 edits, an good assistant should need 1-2 days setup. I actually prefer assistants over plugins, as they can prepare the jobs better (already placing CC and CW modules on all clips, rebuilding more complex dissolves)
- no -instant- output to VTR/DDR of mastered quality.
- some missing navigation functions as jog/shuttle
- has to precache here and there
- sunstained playback only for the cache area (4GB are suddenly not much anymore if you playback multilayer 2K)

Depending on the job, i have to say that i even prefer such a system sometimes over its specialized brothers and sisters (as lustre, speedgrade, scratch, color etc), as it gives even more artistic freedom, at the cost of some ergonomics. I have mastered several shorts and fullfeatures in the last years on discreet VFX systems, including some award-winning stuff which really had *VERY* complex CC. For bread and butter tape-tape or dailies operation however the specialized tools are to be preferred. Also, directors and DPs becoming -familiar- with the added possibilities -will- often use them. Even slicker results may be the benefit of this, but usually it takes 20-30% time more. And always make sure that the client/customer/partner understand the route you go - if he "only" wants primary cc and tape-tape workflow he might be disappointed.

From the price/quality/creativity breakdown however i wouldnt know what to recommend else today. Many c* cracks consider it to be "the industries best kept little dirty secret".
 
zeke said:
I don't think Magic Bullet will work with Raw/Metadata type files (Red R3D or Cineform Raw captured from the SI2K), but will work with the Cineform wavelet codecs (Neo). Until NAB, the only CC product working directly with R3D files is Scratch.
FYI.
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Yes. However it should be mentioned that there are systems (as iridas speedgrade) who support raw since much longer and in more variety. speedgrade supports (among others) arri raw, phantom 65 raw, si raw, cineform raw etc.
 
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