Hi,
today was the first time I did a real editing job in Smoke 2013.
I just wanna list some problems that came up during the day and I would like to hear from others if they have the same problems or if it is just my lack of experience with Smoke.

The positioner:
I keep moving the positioner out of the way because I need to do something on or around a cut but I can’t because the positioner is in the way.
For example if I trim the right side of an audio clip and then want to apply an audio fade, I right click and I don’t get the option to add a fade.
I need to move the positioner somewhere else and then I can right click the cut and add a fade.

Match frame:
When I’m in Source/Record View and I match frame a clip in the timeline, I would expect to see the matched clip in the source viewer.
Instead smoke goes to thumbnail view and shoes the clip there. Why?

Trimming:
I have a video clip and there is gap to the left and a gap to the right.
When I trim the left side of the clip I see the picture that I’m trimming.
When I trim the right side of the clip I only see black.
I really need to see that picture too.

Conform:
I have to say this tool really works great!
But sometimes the tool switches from list view to thumbnail view and the only way to get the list view back is to go to the timeline tab
and then back to the conform tab. I suppose this is a bug!?

Moving clips in the timeline:
Sometimes I just can’t grab a clip and move it.
I can grab any other clip and move that one but not the one I want to move.
When I move some other clips for a while Smoke will eventually allow me to move the clip that was ‘locked down’ before.

Often I want to move everything that comes after a certain point in the timeline to create a gap.
Is there an easy way to select, let’s say all clips to the right of the positioner and move the whole thing?
I know I can draw a bounding box to select stuff but with three video tracks and 10 audio tracks this really is a pain because I have to zoom out all the way and then it is hard to find an empty space around the timeline to click and start dragging the selection.
Also it is really annoying that all the gaps are selected too.
This makes it hard to differentiate between clips and gaps and I always have the feeling I might accidentally delete something without noticing it.

Zooming and navigating in the timeline:
Everytime I use the scroll bar below the timeline to move around the edit, I accidentally change the zoom factor.
This is even worse when I use the bar to the right to scroll up or down.

This is just some of the stuff that keeps to irritate and annoy me.
Other than that it was a pretty good first day.
The rough cut is finished and tomorrow I’ll edit audio and add some effects.

André

hi Andre,

good list - i would agree to pretty much all points!

e.g. im missing a real trim view too - here you could use triptych view (set to prev/next) to avoid just seeing black ...

robert

- robert (unified)

Hi André,

Thanks for all the feedback, I have passed it on to the team to digest :)

I would like to go through some of your points and see if I can suggest a few things:

The positioner:
I keep moving the positioner out of the way because I need to do something on or around a cut but I can’t because the positioner is in the way.
For example if I trim the right side of an audio clip and then want to apply an audio fade, I right click and I don’t get the option to add a fade.
I need to move the positioner somewhere else and then I can right click the cut and add a fade.

----- May I suggest that you think of the positioner and the focus point in a slightly different way.  When the positioner is placed on a segment, it automatically selecting the segment but it is not explicitly highlighted.  This means that you don’t have to select the segment to apply an effect to it and the segments properties appear in the parameters bar above the sequence.  However, if you have directly selected another segment, than the positioner selection is cancelled out.

So to apply this to cuts.  If the positioner is placed on a cut and nothing else is selected in the sequence than in fact the cut is actually selected.  You should be able to add a fade to any track at the cut point using the positioner.  Moving the focus point up and down the positioner will allow you to explicitly choose the track you are apply the dissolve/fade too.

The key here is not have anything else selected in the sequence.  You can deselect everything by either clicking below the edit or the small gap between the video and audio tracks.

Match frame:
When I’m in Source/Record View and I match frame a clip in the timeline, I would expect to see the matched clip in the source viewer.
Instead smoke goes to thumbnail view and shoes the clip there. Why?

----- I believe this is a bug and I will log it with the team.

Trimming:
I have a video clip and there is gap to the left and a gap to the right.
When I trim the left side of the clip I see the picture that I’m trimming.
When I trim the right side of the clip I only see black.
I really need to see that picture too.

----- This is the old mechanism that we used to use to trim clips whereby trimming the head of a clip will show the incoming frame and trimming the tail will show the out-going frame.  So depending on which side you trim will determine what you see in the viewer.  The team are well aware of the need for a trim view and I can’t say anymore than that.

Conform:
I have to say this tool really works great!
But sometimes the tool switches from list view to thumbnail view and the only way to get the list view back is to go to the timeline tab
and then back to the conform tab. I suppose this is a bug!?

----- The tools menu works in tandem with the thumbnail view because to apply the tools to the clips, you do it using the thumbnail view.  I agree that switching menus should perhaps remember their last viewer settings.  I will log it with the team.

Moving clips in the timeline:
Sometimes I just can’t grab a clip and move it.
I can grab any other clip and move that one but not the one I want to move.
When I move some other clips for a while Smoke will eventually allow me to move the clip that was ‘locked down’ before.

----- How far out are you zoomed in the timeline?  do you thin that snap prevents you from slightly moving clips or do you have drag the clips quite a bit to move them ?  I have not had this problem but it could be a sensitivity issue.

Often I want to move everything that comes after a certain point in the timeline to create a gap.
Is there an easy way to select, let’s say all clips to the right of the positioner and move the whole thing?
I know I can draw a bounding box to select stuff but with three video tracks and 10 audio tracks this really is a pain because I have to zoom out all the way and then it is hard to find an empty space around the timeline to click and start dragging the selection.

----- I will log a request to be able to select everything to the right or left of the positioner.

Also it is really annoying that all the gaps are selected too.
This makes it hard to differentiate between clips and gaps and I always have the feeling I might accidentally delete something without noticing it.

----- I will log a request to have an option to ignore gap selections.

Zooming and navigating in the timeline:
Everytime I use the scroll bar below the timeline to move around the edit, I accidentally change the zoom factor.
This is even worse when I use the bar to the right to scroll up or down.

------ The zooming on the horizontal scroll bar occurs when you re dragging the bar up or down as you scroll it from left to right.  This has always been a Smoke function which admittedly a lot of Smoke users are used to.  May I suggest a few alternatives.

You can use COMMAND + and - to zoom in and out of the sequence as well as COMMAND Z to frame the the entire timeline to the window.

For panning, you can press CONTROL-COMMAND and click and drag the sequence to pan the view.  This will pan the view without zooming in and out.

Many thanks for your feedback.

Regards
Grant

Hi Grant,
thank you for your detailed explanations.
Regarding the positioner I now see that I waste too many mouse clicks to activate clips that are already activated.
Still, if the positioner is placed on a cut, which automatically happens after a trim operation, it is not possible to right-click and add a fade.
I made a screenshot that should better explain what I’m talking about.
About my ‘zooming problems’: Today I’ve been using the COMMAND + and - shortcuts a lot but I’ll try to remap them
so I only have to press one key.
SHIFT Z is a shortcut I would like to use more often but unfortunately it does reset all the track heights.
There should be a way to zoom all out and keep the height of the tracks.
CTRL COMMAND for panning is ok if I want to scroll just a small distance of the timeline but for greater distances it is too slow.
It would be great if we could set the behavior of the scroll bars to not act as a zoom tool.
Maybe as an option in the preferences window?
Today I’ve had the ‘locked down’ clip problem once. It is not dependent on the zoom factor.
Next time it happens I will try to make a video.

Thanks,
André

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Usually I want that option ON but I can see that in some situations it might be handy if the positioner wouldn’t move.
Maybe if we could toggle this by holding a key while dragging/trimming?

I developed a Parkinsons scroll technique over time in smoke, as you drag left or right you do tend to drift up and down but with an unsteady shaky hand you can end up at about the zoom you started with - but at a different place in the timeline. Its challenging, entertaining and fun. AND everyone does it.

But now we are getting lots more people maybe we should actually have a modifier to allow zooming - perhaps make it the same modifier as in all the other places you can drag zoom…

best regards

Mike

All's well that ends. That's why its called finishing.

Hi André

I have fed back all your info to the team….

Just a few more comments with regards to what you said.

You said that you would use the SHIFT+Z function more frequently if it didn’t resize the tracks vertically.  To the right of the interface is the zoom fit box.  If you expand that menu, there is an option that will fit only to width which is what you are asking for.

I am not sure if it has a hotkey by default but you can certainly map one to it.

As for the dissolves on the cut, I did log an issue with right-clicking on the cursor and getting the options.  But if you place the positioner on a cut with nothing selected and press COMMAND+T this will put a dissolve on the cut.  Shortcuts instead of right-click. 

These suggestions are just to help you work faster now while we evaluate people’s feedback.

Regards
Grant

I always have the <click>.
Can’t delete it.

Thanks,
André

Hi Grant,

I appreciate you guys listening to all our complaints and wishes.

Thanks,
André

Grant,

Could we have an option to save the track layout? Every time you exit smoke the track layout is reset.

Dave

Grant,

There is a funny feeling that I have had with smoke from the time I started using it.

When I edit in all other apps in the past, there is a certain about of stickyness that footage had in the timeline. You had to give it a little more energy to let the app know you were serious about moving the footage. With smoke it feels as though one touch could nudge anything by mistake out of place.

try it out with premiere, avid, FCP, FCPx.

Let me know if anyone else has noticed this?

Jeffrey Levenstone
It isn’t done until it is finished.