VFX heavy Avid Workflow

T

ThirtyFive

New member
Hello,
I used Premiere for my old projects and really liked the workflow with after effects for compositing. For a new project I want to try out Avid MC to see if it suits me, but I have a few questions about the workflow on a VFX heavy project created by one person. This is what I would like to do, transcoding and denoising my H.264 footage in AE into DNxHD 10bit (it actually helps to get a higher image quality), then importing the clips and edit everything together. Now I would like to export singe clips out of my editing timeline to do camera tracking, animation, effects and compositing in Nuke/AE. After that I thought re-importing the clip into Avid to replace my original clip with the VFX clip. The next step would be getting my edit into DaVinci Resolve (XML?) and do final color grading, but because I dont like rendering in Davinci Resolve I would like to render in Avid or any other renderer (I would like be able to export in 2.35:1/2.39:1 without adding black bars).
I hope this is not too confusing ;) I never worked with Avid, but in the Moment it seems that it is not really "one man band" friendly...? I hope somebody can help me and maybe post his or her own workflow. :)

Thanks in advance!
ThirtyFive
 
From Avid, you export QuickTime reference to be used in VFX applications. It is just a reference to the 10 bit DNxHD footage used in Media Composer. From your VFX app, you once again export DNxHD. If that is not possible, then sequential TIFF or similar uncompressed format. Import or AMA link to that to create 10 bit DNxHD in Media Composer. For color correction, export an AAF for Resolve and it will link to the DNxHD media - color correct and it will make a new (updated) AAF that links to the color corrected material rendered. There are several videos available via Google search for this step. Finalize in Media Composer, export as needed for delivery.

Michael
 
Thank you very much! I already did my first edit, it's different than Premiere but I think im getting into it! ;)

Edit: I finished my first edit and would like to do the vfx now, but when I want to export as a QT Reference it says I cant because of the AMA links. But when I edit with the original transcoded 10bit files the playback is very stuttering. Is it not possible just to export single clips from the timeline to do VFX with them? I really dont know what to do and I didn't found any tutorials on hot to setup a VFX workflow with Avid. I hope you can help me!
 
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AMA is linking to the original files so AAF and QT reference will not work. Well an AAF with Edit Protocol checked will work. What's your system specs that it can't play back? Are you transcoding to DNxHD 175x and it stutters?

Michael
 
I did noise removing and transcoding to DNxHD 175x in AE, then imported these clips in Avid and when I tried to play back it stuttered. My specs are:
i7 3.50GHz
Nvidia Geforce GTX 660
16Gb RAM

Avid is running on a SSD and my clips are saved on a normal hard drive.
 
An 175Mbit I-Frame codec should not stutter. I work with DNxHD 180x all the time and have absolutely no problems. My specs: i7 3.5GHz, GF470, 24GB DDR3. And even with a lower speced pc it should play without stuttering. There is something wrong with the import or the export from AE (or something else for that matter). No doubt about it.

Have you tried exporting a different codec from AE? Do you have the same import settings in Avid? Are you "fast importing"?
 
I just right clicked and said import... is the problem maybe based on the fact that I used a quicktime container and not MXF?
 
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