Magic Bullet Looks 3

[Jose Ortiz]

I just bought the new version of Magic Bullet and I have to say that I'm impress with how user friendly the version is. I'm not an expert with this filters at all yet but is not a science projet with this pug in. I decided to buy them for my video wedding edditing. You can save preset of looks and that is very cool if you want to share with other later.

Anyone trying this version? Please add inputs.

Jose

[John Moon]

Jose:
Have you tested the render times? If so, how much RAM are you using?
Thanks,
John

[Jose Ortiz]

Wow yes I have to admit that the render time is two times slower that normal premier filters. My worksation is running 2 dual core 3.0g and 4g of ram.Video card FX1500
I will ask the redgiant people if this is normal. I have understood that they were improving the rendering speed. I did not have the old version so I can not really compare between both.

[John Moon]

I had heard that 1hr on timeline = 1hr of render time...but well worth it I am told. I will probably add this to my tool chest.
John

[Dana Acciavatti]

I was thinking of getting MAGIC BULLET LOOKS myself - even tried the demo. I think the new interface is very easy to navigate and you can create some good looks quickly, but the render times are so long for my current machine that it seemed really impractical for most projects at the moment. Liked some of the presets, but thought most of them were not ones I would use very often at all. The demo version is a bit annoying with the big logo/and or giant X mark covering most of the screen - seems they could have made it a bit smaller to get a better look at the results.
I had just ordered FINAL CUT STUDIO 2 and fooled around with COLOR at the APPLE STORE and got some really great results as well. There is a steeper learning curve for COLOR than MAGIC BULLET LOOKS, but I think it will work really well for getting just the right look, and I don't have to shell out the extra dough for another application. Not sure about the render times, but I'm planning on getting a faster machine in a month or so anyway.

[Wes Powell]

Originally Posted by John Moon

I had heard that 1hr on timeline = 1hr of render time...but well worth it I am told. I will probably add this to my tool chest.
John

I would be psyched if this was true. If I render like a 3 minute clip using the old version on my Macbook Pro, its takes a hour. Sucks.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Originally Posted by Wes Powell

I would be psyched if this was true. If I render like a 3 minute clip using the old version on my Macbook Pro, its takes a hour. Sucks.

Me too, with Premiere (switching to FCP midjanuary, though), on my older computer (3.2 ghz multiprocessor, 1gb RAM), yesterday I had to render a video of a half hour trough Magic Bullet. The computer had to render for 12 hours...

But I have to be honest: it's really worth it!
The footage looks great, all the clients rave about the image quality, and while the image can look VERY filmic, it doesn't loose detail. It takes the video edge off, without becoming too soft or too soapy (unless you take some certain presets, which are made for that).

Great software, worth the long renders!

[Glenn Thomas]

I've given up on Magic Bullet myself. It takes forever to render and can be difficult to get the exact look you're after. I much prefer the standard colour correcter in Vegas. It's quick to use and has pretty much all you need including contrast adjustment and saturation. Before and after example images included below. Best thing about the built in colour correcter is that it renders practically as quick as it would without anything added. For the redish gradient in the pic enclosed I just added a simple gradient image from Vegas' media generator on an above layer. Adjusted the blend mode, tweaked the transparency and got the look I was after. A slight bit of sharpening was added too.

[Simon Denny]

Hey Glenn,
Like the look could you explain that a bit better?
Do you mean the Sony Gradient map or media generator?
The Sony Gradient map only has the blend control.
Cheers
Simon

[Glenn Thomas]

Hi Simon, yeah I've enclosed a screen shot that might explain things a bit better. I actually have the colour corrector on the video output. Saturation is set to 0.9 with a slight bit of gain and offset adjustment. The low and high of the corrector are in the blue region and mid orange.

In the screenshot you can see where I grabbed the gradient from. I think it was just the soft red backdrop I used with a few adjustments made putting the colour at the top etc. You can also see the blend mode for that channel is set to Lighten. The opacity of the gradient is set to 72, just by dragging down the top of the gradient on the timeline.

It might not exactly look that filmic, but it's something different anyway. I guess one of the main things missing from Magic Bullet when using colour correction like this is the diffusion. Although I'm sure that could be done by maybe copying the track, adding a bit of blur and maybe a different blend mode. It's always worth experimenting with these things, as you can end up with some nice results.

[Simon Denny]

Thanks Glenn,
That explains it. Thats one time line you have got going on mate.

Cheers
Simon

[Glenn Thomas]

Originally Posted by Simon Ash

Thats one time line you have got going on mate.

Haha, yeah a music video, I load in all the takes on separate tracks to sync them up, then just drag whatever parts I need onto the main edit track which in the pic is 7.