I’ve created a Timeline in smoke consisting of RED files. I’m opening it up in Lustre and am getting no images. Just black. They are stored local. What’s the problem? I could hard commit them but there’s head and tails pad.

Hello,

Is this a Flame Premium machine or two machines running Smoke and Lustre separately? What version of software?

It is a bit hard to say what is going on but I have a suspicion. When you bring RED clips into Smoke it is often possible to build a timeline that is adding a resize soft effect to each clip. This is because the timeline you conform or build could be 8 bit or 10 bit, it might be HD, essentially you have a difference in the RED clip size or bit depth from the timeline and Smoke tries to make it uniform by applying the resize SFX.

This can be fine if you process your clips before you WireTap them into Lustre. This process makes the media managed by Smoke and should pass the processed clips through to Lustre. Give that a try.

One thing you should consider is that if you want to have access to the RED controls of your clips while in Lustre you will need to remove all soft effects and timewarps from your clips in Smoke before you pass it through WireTap. This can be accomplished by creating a starting timeline that is the same bit depth and resolution as your RED clips. If you are conforming from an EDL you could use this directly in Lustre. If you are conforming from XML or AAF you should reformat the XML or AAF to match the bit depth and resolution of your source clips before conforming in Smoke. That way you won’t have the resize applied to the individual clips.

See if that helps.

Paul Andrews

Flame Premium running both smoke and lustre.
RED files loaded into library, stored local so that RED is in black box. 1920x1080 12bit u (1.78).  SDK 3.12
Shots joined when loading into new timeline.
No soft effects.

pandrews 22 July 2011 10:06 AM

Hello,

Is this a Flame Premium machine or two machines running Smoke and Lustre separately? What version of software?

It is a bit hard to say what is going on but I have a suspicion. When you bring RED clips into Smoke it is often possible to build a timeline that is adding a resize soft effect to each clip. This is because the timeline you conform or build could be 8 bit or 10 bit, it might be HD, essentially you have a difference in the RED clip size or bit depth from the timeline and Smoke tries to make it uniform by applying the resize SFX.

This can be fine if you process your clips before you WireTap them into Lustre. This process makes the media managed by Smoke and should pass the processed clips through to Lustre. Give that a try.

One thing you should consider is that if you want to have access to the RED controls of your clips while in Lustre you will need to remove all soft effects and timewarps from your clips in Smoke before you pass it through WireTap. This can be accomplished by creating a starting timeline that is the same bit depth and resolution as your RED clips. If you are conforming from an EDL you could use this directly in Lustre. If you are conforming from XML or AAF you should reformat the XML or AAF to match the bit depth and resolution of your source clips before conforming in Smoke. That way you won’t have the resize applied to the individual clips.

See if that helps.

Paul Andrews

OK. Good information.

Sounds like you are just bringing in your clips and doing a load and join in Smoke. That should work but let’s try this with one clip then progress to multiple.

Rather than doing a store local copy, just bring one RED clip into the Smoke library straight from the gateway. Exit smoke and go to Lustre, browse using WireTap (IFFFS) to the smoke library of that clip and drag it to the Lustre Storyboard. See if it loads that one clip. Also note at the bottom of the Editing Browse menu the location of the clip path. It should be wtg@blahblahblah and not a wt@blahblahblah location. This is because since the clip in Smoke came through the gateway that is shared by Flame Premium, WireTap makes the switch on the fly as you import it into Lustre. It then points directly back to the original R3D source clip in the WTG, not the smoke library. This should allow you to then make any RED adjustments in Lustre that you like.

If this works, build your timeline without making store local copy and try again. Let us know what happens.

Paul

So this does work. However I now have a timeline that is referencing clips that are on our network (not so fast). No real time playback unless I enable and wait for caching. It seems that it would be best if the clips were local.
Yes it does seem to be pointing through the smoke ip to the network location. Not important since I will not be making any changes to te RED file itself.

pandrews 22 July 2011 10:55 AM

OK. Good information.

Sounds like you are just bringing in your clips and doing a load and join in Smoke. That should work but let’s try this with one clip then progress to multiple.

Rather than doing a store local copy, just bring one RED clip into the Smoke library straight from the gateway. Exit smoke and go to Lustre, browse using WireTap (IFFFS) to the smoke library of that clip and drag it to the Lustre Storyboard. See if it loads that one clip. Also note at the bottom of the Editing Browse menu the location of the clip path. It should be wtg@blahblahblah and not a wt@blahblahblah location. This is because since the clip in Smoke came through the gateway that is shared by Flame Premium, WireTap makes the switch on the fly as you import it into Lustre. It then points directly back to the original R3D source clip in the WTG, not the smoke library. This should allow you to then make any RED adjustments in Lustre that you like.

If this works, build your timeline without making store local copy and try again. Let us know what happens.

Paul

In addition it is also seeing ALL the Red frames, there is no consolidation. So it is now wiring in all frames, not just the ones needed.

hengy77 22 July 2011 11:34 AM

So this does work. However I now have a timeline that is referencing clips that are on our network (not so fast). No real time playback unless I enable and wait for caching. It seems that it would be best if the clips were local.
Yes it does seem to be pointing through the smoke ip to the network location. Not important since I will not be making any changes to te RED file itself.

pandrews 22 July 2011 10:55 AM

OK. Good information.

Sounds like you are just bringing in your clips and doing a load and join in Smoke. That should work but let’s try this with one clip then progress to multiple.

Rather than doing a store local copy, just bring one RED clip into the Smoke library straight from the gateway. Exit smoke and go to Lustre, browse using WireTap (IFFFS) to the smoke library of that clip and drag it to the Lustre Storyboard. See if it loads that one clip. Also note at the bottom of the Editing Browse menu the location of the clip path. It should be wtg@blahblahblah and not a wt@blahblahblah location. This is because since the clip in Smoke came through the gateway that is shared by Flame Premium, WireTap makes the switch on the fly as you import it into Lustre. It then points directly back to the original R3D source clip in the WTG, not the smoke library. This should allow you to then make any RED adjustments in Lustre that you like.

If this works, build your timeline without making store local copy and try again. Let us know what happens.

Paul

Sorry, check that. Seems to be wiring in only necessary frames.

hengy77 22 July 2011 11:36 AM

In addition it is also seeing ALL the Red frames, there is no consolidation. So it is now wiring in all frames, not just the ones needed.

hengy77 22 July 2011 11:34 AM

So this does work. However I now have a timeline that is referencing clips that are on our network (not so fast). No real time playback unless I enable and wait for caching. It seems that it would be best if the clips were local.
Yes it does seem to be pointing through the smoke ip to the network location. Not important since I will not be making any changes to te RED file itself.

pandrews 22 July 2011 10:55 AM

OK. Good information.

Sounds like you are just bringing in your clips and doing a load and join in Smoke. That should work but let’s try this with one clip then progress to multiple.

Rather than doing a store local copy, just bring one RED clip into the Smoke library straight from the gateway. Exit smoke and go to Lustre, browse using WireTap (IFFFS) to the smoke library of that clip and drag it to the Lustre Storyboard. See if it loads that one clip. Also note at the bottom of the Editing Browse menu the location of the clip path. It should be wtg@blahblahblah and not a wt@blahblahblah location. This is because since the clip in Smoke came through the gateway that is shared by Flame Premium, WireTap makes the switch on the fly as you import it into Lustre. It then points directly back to the original R3D source clip in the WTG, not the smoke library. This should allow you to then make any RED adjustments in Lustre that you like.

If this works, build your timeline without making store local copy and try again. Let us know what happens.

Paul

So after speaking to Yann in support, this is where we ended up in order to conform a RED timeline in smoke, color correct in Lustre and finally output in smoke.

1. Load in RED footage in smoke. You can load it at low resolution because the actual resizing/importing will happen in Lustre. DO NOT Store Local Copy. This will happen on the Lustre side. In smoke, make sure proxy generation is off, relink the clips to the XML, AAF, or EDL. Load the clip into a timeline and makes any changes. Save the timeline and consolidate. Exit smoke.
2. Start Lustre. Load the timeline into lustre. This is loading the un-imported RED footage. Drag your timeline into the Lustre timeline. Make sure you save an initial color grade so that your work is saved. Do your color grading work. Before rendering, go into Image and adjust the Transcode Settings. In format you determine the output size. Adjust to Half Good for example for outputting HD size material. Render the timeline.
3. Open the Lustre directory in smoke. This directory is created if you create a Lustre project when you create a smoke project. I always do this. Open the directory. You’ll notice that the proxies need to be rendered to load the footage from the Library. This can be taken care of in Lustre but isn’t necessary as smoke will take care of it also.

Here’s the caveat, At this point we have pointers in the smoke for soft imported RED material. The pointers point back to the original SAN location. When Archiving, you want to store this media locally so that it will be included in the Archive. However Lustre needs the material to be soft imported so that it can refer back to the original location in order to change Transcoding values. How do we reconcile these two different needs?

I’d appreciate any help in his workflow.

hengy77 22 July 2011 11:44 AM

Sorry, check that. Seems to be wiring in only necessary frames.

hengy77 22 July 2011 11:36 AM

In addition it is also seeing ALL the Red frames, there is no consolidation. So it is now wiring in all frames, not just the ones needed.

hengy77 22 July 2011 11:34 AM

So this does work. However I now have a timeline that is referencing clips that are on our network (not so fast). No real time playback unless I enable and wait for caching. It seems that it would be best if the clips were local.
Yes it does seem to be pointing through the smoke ip to the network location. Not important since I will not be making any changes to te RED file itself.

pandrews 22 July 2011 10:55 AM

OK. Good information.

Sounds like you are just bringing in your clips and doing a load and join in Smoke. That should work but let’s try this with one clip then progress to multiple.

Rather than doing a store local copy, just bring one RED clip into the Smoke library straight from the gateway. Exit smoke and go to Lustre, browse using WireTap (IFFFS) to the smoke library of that clip and drag it to the Lustre Storyboard. See if it loads that one clip. Also note at the bottom of the Editing Browse menu the location of the clip path. It should be wtg@blahblahblah and not a wt@blahblahblah location. This is because since the clip in Smoke came through the gateway that is shared by Flame Premium, WireTap makes the switch on the fly as you import it into Lustre. It then points directly back to the original R3D source clip in the WTG, not the smoke library. This should allow you to then make any RED adjustments in Lustre that you like.

If this works, build your timeline without making store local copy and try again. Let us know what happens.

Paul

Is this still current information? Do I really have to not have any soft effects on the timeline before I can bring it in to Lustre to be able to access the r3d controls?

CarlE 14 October 2011 08:20 AM

Is this still current information? Do I really have to not have any soft effects on the timeline before I can bring it in to Lustre to be able to access the r3d controls?

No you can have soft fx on the timeline, but you have to soft import the r3d footage. Hopefully this is not confusing. Lustre just needs to see pointers to where the footage is located. All the rest of the info is still good. I would recommend however that before you render the footage at some point you should transcode it so that when your project is archived, you will still have the DPX files to grade from.

CarlE 14 October 2011 08:20 AM

Is this still current information? Do I really have to not have any soft effects on the timeline before I can bring it in to Lustre to be able to access the r3d controls?

Now with the new Source Grading option in Lustre 2012x1 you can pick the timeline with all softFX, but you will grade the sources (check http://vimeo.com/29991318), the softFX (CC, Resize, etc.) won’t be carried over.

Cedric
http://www.workflowers.net

Cedric Lejeune
pipelines&workflows
http://www.workflowers.net