STORM by The Foundry

[Richard Shackleton]

Don't worry about a barrage of questions and feature requests - we're happy to hear them, if not appropriate here then directly.

Getting STORM out of the door is both tremendously exciting and frustrating - we have to start somewhere even though we know it can and will grow in many areas. We want the user base to help steer how that happens.

@Kaku. Now that you mention it I remember hearing someone(Peter maybe) say that during the vid.
I guess in my enthusiasm I got confused and forgot.

@Jim, sorry I doubted who you were as there is often too much noise here. Great job on the dev, to you and the whole team.

And thanks once again to both of you for taking the time to answer. I'm really blown away and excited to work with Storm.
Also I have a million and one questions and feature requests covering everything from sub frame audio editing to psds and tiffs on timeline,
to checksum for r3d copying to vignettes on the hsl secondary!

I'll hold off on my barrage of questions till the product arrives.

 

[Richard Shackleton]

Even The Foundry suffers hair loss over QT...

If you stay in RAW, you don't have to worry. But as soon as you transcode to QT, then some inconsistency might appear, but I'm pretty sure TF would know how to handle that properly.

 

[Kaku Ito]

Even The Foundry suffers hair loss over QT...

Oh, sorry for the speculation but we really really looking forward to see TF solving the QT inconsistency with other software. I'm so stoked about what I see so far!

 

[Nick Shaw]

Even The Foundry suffers hair loss over QT...

Yep, I'm pretty certain I had a full head of hair before QuickTime started trying to think for me, and adjust my images in the way it thought I would prefer!

 

[Dave Cox]

So first of all, this app looks incredible and I can't wait to give it a try. Some of the features vs. redcine-x really have me excited.

I have a question however - will there be a way to control things like the 3-way color corrector using something like applescript (or any language, for that matter) so that I could use any control surface or keyboard hotkeys to adjust the look quickly in the ways I am most likely to?

 

[Richard Shackleton]

Hi Dave,

The first version of STORM will have fixed control of the effects, initially via Euphonix, pen/mouse and/or hotkeys. We have Tangent Wave on the roadmap.

Scripting is a great suggestion and some people have spotted there is Python hiding under the hood, to be exposed at some point.

Richard

So first of all, this app looks incredible and I can't wait to give it a try. Some of the features vs. redcine-x really have me excited.

I have a question however - will there be a way to control things like the 3-way color corrector using something like applescript (or any language, for that matter) so that I could use any control surface or keyboard hotkeys to adjust the look quickly in the ways I am most likely to?

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

We have Tangent Wave on the roadmap.

Richard

Richard,

thanks for the great news!!!

 

[Chris Parker]

will it only import .r3d, or can you import ProRes or other camera formats?

 

[Richard Shackleton]

Hi Chris,

This first beta/release .r3d (and broadcast .wav for audio) import only. There is some support for import of QT formats, but don't rely on that yet as it's very early and probably should be hidden to avoid frustration.

We'll be in a position to say more about plans for other camera formats sometime in the new year.

Richard

will it only import .r3d, or can you import ProRes or other camera formats?

 

[Chris Parker]

cool. thanks for the update. what are the syncing capabilities of the initial release? do you feel that storm would be the place to sync sound for dailies creation? others have made this claim previously with mixed results in the real world. wondering how you feel storm is positioned to handle sound syncing, and the needs to deal with timecodes that lose jamsync and all the metadata needed to carry through to the processed files for accurate sound matchback after the offline edit.

if i didn't say it already, Storm is a very exciting release that we here at Bling are salivating over. can't wait to play.

 

[Justin Barham]

I'm very excited about the possibilities of Storm to simplify and enhance the RED workflow. Looking forward to that beta in November.

cool. thanks for the update. what are the syncing capabilities of the initial release? do you feel that storm would be the place to sync sound for dailies creation? others have made this claim previously with mixed results in the real world. wondering how you feel storm is positioned to handle sound syncing, and the needs to deal with timecodes that lose jamsync and all the metadata needed to carry through to the processed files for accurate sound matchback after the offline edit.

Great questions Chris. A reliable way to sync sound during debayer/transcode would be a huge help. Otherwise all the clips have to then be batch exported in FCP if we want audio "baked-in" to the QT file.

 

[Richard Shackleton]

Hi Justin, Chris

Audio is all new to The Foundry, so you are going to have to help us get the details right. In the first version of STORM you should be able to sync external audio to the R3D files (using timecode metadata or manually) and bake audio into exported QT files.

We'd really like to hear about other needs and issues with audio in transcoding and conform workflows.

Thanks,

Richard

I'm very excited about the possibilities of Storm to simplify and enhance the RED workflow. Looking forward to that beta in November.



Great questions Chris. A reliable way to sync sound during debayer/transcode would be a huge help. Otherwise all the clips have to then be batch exported in FCP if we want audio "baked-in" to the QT file.

 

[Peter Majtan]

If You have synced Your timecode - Storm will sync the R3D's and Your external audio automatically creating new clip with merged audio. If You didn't - You can use the audio waveform to sync manually through what we call "sync tag"...

:devil: Peter

Edit: Richard beat me to it... :reddevil:

 

[J Davis]

The audio waveform you refer to and sync tag, are these systems set up in Storm?
Is there the ability to set an in point on an audio clip 'in between' frames?
(Sub frame audio editing in FCP) to prevent an audio clip being synced at 1/48th of a second out when in 24 fps
edit:
if not I would love to request this as a feature

 

[Chris Parker]

sounds like a great start. will you be able to choose the number of audio channels you'd like to export to the QT file? (eg. WAV file has 8 tracks, but I only want channels 1 and 2 exported)

also, in the resulting QT, will the audio metadata remain intact in an XML, ALE or FLX file or some other way to carry this sound metadata (original sound filename and timecode info)? This would be needed to be able to accurately matchback from an EDL to the original WAV file for times the post sound mixer wants to access this, and not simply use an OMF workflow.

I also 2nd what J.Davis said above.

 

[J Davis]

I also 2nd what J.Davis said above.

Glad you agree, please make it so Foundry team.

Another request if its not implemented already. Since would be working directly from r3d's it will be come fairly important to be able to had off a bunch of dailies. Since the color on the dailies can also influence the look of the project right from the get go (ppl get used to that look) and give the cinematographer more control can you implement a way to get a system of first light cc on batches of clips to export for iphone/ipad?

 

[Quentin Brown]

I'm really excited about Storm and counting the days until the Nov 1st Open Beta release date.

The Scopes and false color are fantastic to have, especially since they are realtime! Single channel views are also awesome. I guess for checking focus I really need the RED rocket card but I was hoping that maybe Storm will give us smooth realtime playback on 1/4 res of 4K? (Currently my 2008 MBP can't keep the buffer full enough to do realtime at 1/4 so I have to work at 1/8th but find that can be difficult to spot focus issues at).

It will be just fantastic to have a stable applcation, with a nice UI that plays back and renders out QT's reliably. The ability to do some secondaries is also fantastic for demonstrating to DoP's or directors & producers what can be done to save or enhance a shot quickly there and then on set.

One thing I would love to see is spreadsheet style cut and paste into the metadata fields in list view for a bunch of clips. There are so many tools/apps appearing that can be used for camera, sound, & continuity logging it would be nice to be able to cut & paste their output all in one go. Plus spreadsheet like pulldown to copy across fields or pull out a sequence of numbers would make metadata entry nice and fast. As would autocomplete on a column by column basis ( especially for lenses or filters, though a multiselect for those might be good like in Keyframe Concept Camera report the free iphone app). I love centralised databases and metadata and really want to see them used throughout the production process to streamline everything, I have many ideas on the subject and may even have to consult with some app developers to get them brought into being.

 

[Bill Goehring]

I've found that one of the most useful, regularly used tools in Lightroom for my raw stills production workflow is the graduated filter tool, which can be used to draw gradients in any color, with a range of density of +/- 4 stops, and other qualities, including brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity and sharpness. Further, multiple gradients with differing qualities can be stacked on a single frame with variable transition rates.

Of course, for this technique to be useful in the motion imaging domain, these gradient filters would need to be applied to entire clips, rather than individual frames.

Is this something that will be possible with R3D files on Storm?

 

[Ketch Rossi]

We have Tangent Wave on the roadmap.
Richard

I hope so Richard,

not that would be a huge deal having to buy a second unit besides the Wave, currently used with DaVinci Resolve and RedCine-X, but sure would be nice to be able to use the same Tangent Wave across the board, even so I'm seriously considering that would be best to have the Storm in a separate Mac Pro for the DIT station, so having the Euphonic there and the Wave on the Mac Pro with the Editing and coloring suit at the studio could work just fine, but it would still be way better to have the same tablet in all stations, and easier to not have to learn multiple tablets.

So look forward to hear the good news on when the Tangent Wave will be supported, even so either way I'm definitely getting Storm on all machines, you guys ROCK!!

 

[Chris Steele]

I've found that one of the most useful, regularly used tools in Lightroom for my raw stills production workflow is the graduated filter tool, which can be used to draw gradients in any color, with a range of density of +/- 4 stops, and other qualities, including brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity and sharpness. Further, multiple gradients with differing qualities can be stacked on a single frame with variable transition rates.

Of course, for this technique to be useful in the motion imaging domain, these gradient filters would need to be applied to entire clips, rather than individual frames.

Is this something that will be possible with R3D files on Storm?

This is already possible with the Ramp effect, but it is missing some nice controls. Jimmy STORM tells he's got a bunch or other ideas to make it super cool.