2K Raw: Resolve one light - Edit - Resolve for grade workflow

C

Colinelves

Well-known member
Hello all,

How are people handling the round tripping between edit and grade of the 2K Raw footage? I ask because I've just finished editing* a project shot entirely in 2K Raw (regular speed, as it happens) and I'm really struggling to get Resolve to reconnect to the DNGs properly again.

So far I:

1. Imported the footage into the Resolve media pool and relinked the Wav files.

2. Laid the originals all out in a timeline in resolve, applied the right Raw settings and the 709 LUT (corrected the gamma and exposure in a couple of shots), then exported the timeline as individual clips using the original file names to 422 HQ

3. Brought the 422 exports into FCPX**, synced up the audio files from the mixer as we were running 2 system audio and combined each .mov / audio file as a compound clip for editing.***

3. Edited it all in FCPX (that went smooth enough).

4. Exported the project as an FCPXXML and brought into Resolve.

5. In resolve I added all the original DNGS into the Media pool (I dumped the WAVs as I wasn't using them).

6. Imported the FCPXML into Resolve, unchecking 'automatically import source clips into the media pool' and...

It was a mess. Rather than linking to the right DNGs, Resolve seemed to pick one to build the edit out of. In the end I'm having to go through the edit and force conform each of the cuts to the right clip - and that's after taking the FCPXML into FCP 7 (via Xto7) and cleaning it up.

The whole thing is driving me mad! Any ideas what I'm doing wrong/did wrong earlier? I've check the timecode of the .mov transcodes and the DNG originals and they seem to match, I just can't for the life of me work out why Resolve is doing what it is doing...


*I know, me editing it was a bad place to start, since I'm a DP and don't really know too much about editing (it must be a bit like watching a chimp try and use a typewriter) I honestly do try and avoid it as much as possible, but it was a personal project for a friend...

** that was also a mistake as FCPX really doesn't play nice with other programmes.

*** that was another mistake, as it messed up the export to Xto7 - in the end I had to use X2Pro to create an AAF for the sound editor, lord knows if that worked properly!
 
Not that this is very helpful now (ducks to avoid flying object)...

But did you know that FCPX will import the DNG sequences directly, you can transcode some proxies automatically within FCP X for speed, and, here's the kicker. FCP X appears to do a damn sight better job of debayering than Resolve, produces a better image with full range as well. Arguably the most seamless solution for small projects.

Sadly i can't use it most of the time either.

I cannot stand roundtripping in Resolve, it's the source of most of my headaches and i loath the Neanderthal like workflow, from errors in the export, to errors coming back, to minor changes, the list goes on.

Is there no way you can conform in FCPX to the original DNGs and cut resolve out?

cheers
Paul
 
paulcurtis said:
Not that this is very helpful now (ducks to avoid flying object)...

But did you know that FCPX will import the DNG sequences directly, you can transcode some proxies automatically within FCP X for speed, and, here's the kicker. FCP X appears to do a damn sight better job of debayering than Resolve, produces a better image with full range as well. Arguably the most seamless solution for small projects.

Sadly i can't use it most of the time either.

I cannot stand roundtripping in Resolve, it's the source of most of my headaches and i loath the Neanderthal like workflow, from errors in the export, to errors coming back, to minor changes, the list goes on.

Is there no way you can conform in FCPX to the original DNGs and cut resolve out?

cheers
Paul
Click to expand...

I didn't think FCPX would import CDNG folders as a proper image sequence, so it looked like you have to import each clip individually. Then reset the duration of each frame, then put it together as a compound clip and then sync that to the WAV file *and* then you have to correct the image - all of which is rather time consuming and annoying.

However, the main issue is that I generally don't edit my material, but I am increasingly grading it (as most editors seem to be totally useless at grading, or at least they seem to do a grade that is often the total opposite of what I had in mind when I shot something) and that means I have to provide material in a form they can deal with, which generally means Quicktime as so many editors are allergic to anything other than the increasingly outmoded FCP 7.

So, really, I'm just trying to find out what the issue is with the round trip and what I can do to avoid such problems in the future. I've also posted the same question on the BMD forum, but I don't think anyone has responded yet.
 
paulcurtis said:
But did you know that FCPX will import the DNG sequences directly,
Click to expand...

really? How do you manage that? From my experience FCP X imports single images. You can put them as single 1frame images into your timeline but that's incredibly slow and these images are not displayed correctly.
 
Clermond said:
really? How do you manage that? From my experience FCP X imports single images. You can put them as single 1frame images into your timeline but that's incredibly slow and these images are not displayed correctly.
Click to expand...

I just imported it and it saw it as a sequence. Utterly painless and really nice. Wish i was using FCP X more but for many other reasons i can't.

I did nothing special save for selecting the first file in the folder.

I don't know whether sound is applied automatically though, because the sequence i tested with had no sound so wasn't looking for that.

Let me know if you cannot do it and i'll do it again and write down exactly what i did...

cheers
Paul
 
Colinelves said:
I didn't think FCPX would import CDNG folders as a proper image sequence, so it looked like you have to import each clip individually. Then reset the duration of each frame, then put it together as a compound clip and then sync that to the WAV file *and* then you have to correct the image - all of which is rather time consuming and annoying.

However, the main issue is that I generally don't edit my material, but I am increasingly grading it (as most editors seem to be totally useless at grading, or at least they seem to do a grade that is often the total opposite of what I had in mind when I shot something) and that means I have to provide material in a form they can deal with, which generally means Quicktime as so many editors are allergic to anything other than the increasingly outmoded FCP 7.

So, really, I'm just trying to find out what the issue is with the round trip and what I can do to avoid such problems in the future. I've also posted the same question on the BMD forum, but I don't think anyone has responded yet.
Click to expand...

I'm writing up a big blog post on DNG workflows that i'll finish off next week sometime (i hope).

My personal approach is to not roundtrip but instead use Resolve or whatever to generate a proxy file REC709 AND a log based file containing the full range and then either just use the log file on the timeline (for those that can pop a LUT on) or use the proxy and full range and relink media.

Resolve can do this and even Adobe can by using a profile from these guys http://www.cinelogdcp.com

The landscape for cDNG is changing fast though but a log based file from the source data is pretty bulletproof now and in the future.

Email me direct if you want specifics... (but we're heading out into being under that big yellow thing in the sky we've not seen here for a few months!)

cheers
Paul
 
Clermond said:
Paul, that would be very kind as I have no idea how to manage images in a sequences only as single files.
Click to expand...

Ooops. Egg on face time and apologies all round. It appears that it was just the first frame of a short sequence, not the sequence. I'm only playing with 1 or 2 second clips as i'm testing for other things and i also have a movie on the time line too (which is moving, it's just trees outside). So scrubbing back and forth i'd remembered the DNG sequence moving because it happened to have a duration similar to the whole sequence when it was on the timeline.

Sorry to get hopes raised up, definite forehead slap moment :)

Back to not using FCPX very much now...

cheers
Paul
 
Are you guys working in 8 bit or 16 bit color depth? I'm using after effects, but I imagine Resolve has same option.
 
My question is if it matters what I set it to in after effects, since out of the camera I believe it is only 12 bit. Thanks for any help you can give.
 
dapoopta said:
My question is if it matters what I set it to in after effects, since out of the camera I believe it is only 12 bit. Thanks for any help you can give.
Click to expand...

For grading in After Effects, I set it to 32-bit float. While 16 bit might be fine, but if you add things like color gradings to fancy things up a bit, 32 bit makes a difference. One time, I shot some stuff and added a smoke overlay that I rendered out of Cinema 4D. There was a huge difference in After Effects when in the 16 bit vs. 32 bit color space.

Personally, for grading I would just avoid the 8-bit space all together. 16 bit minimum, 32-bit preferred. More bits can't hurt, but it does ad to the render time.
 
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