pre-render feature wish at DVinfo.net

Sam Houchins II · October 9th, 2019, 01:23 PM

Selectively pre-render is great because it will be used in the final render instead of the raw elements, but it's stability sucks if timeline shifts are made.

Render to new track is great, because it's stable and won't disappear on its own like selective pre-render will, but you'd have to delete everything "under" it to get its full benefit of actually replacing what's under it in the final render. A tall stack of complicated edits of multiple elements makes that annoying (especially determining a clean break point), and prohibits later editing of those elements, if needed.

I wish that there was a hybrid option - something less fleeting than selective-prerendering, but with its nature of being able to replace what's "under" it on the timeline in the final render.

Rainer Listing · October 9th, 2019, 02:38 PM

Apologies if I'm missing your point here, but could you not just solo the track? Click the little red s in the circle with the exclamation mark in the track header?

Sam Houchins II · October 9th, 2019, 02:48 PM

valid suggestion for my incomplete point.
In my case I'm trying to stabilize unruly segments burrowed within portions that started before and continue after. I can't see how I can solo a track when I need the prequels and sequels to the segment that exist on other tracks.
Maybe I'm missing the point of your suggestion.
Going forward I can try to be more strategic to accommodate these glitches as I progress in a project, but in this case, these are new glitches to me and am trying to implement work-arounds after the project's essentially done and tightly woven together.

Rainer Listing · October 9th, 2019, 04:01 PM

Sorry, still not getting it. It's not unusual to have to add items e.g. titles and credits to an essentially completed project, a solo (mainly to isolate the audio) render track on top is tidy and it's normal to keep the edits used to create the render track under the track before you do that in case you have to make changes, but you do have to know where the extras begin and end. I just group select the render track and everything under it and move that content out of the way. If you have to revise your main edit, you can just delete the render track (or re-render it).

Sam Houchins II · October 9th, 2019, 05:21 PM

I'll have to pick through your thoughts to see what I can glean from them. Tough to convey a process in words, or perhaps just tougher for me to envision it.
I'm craving a better workflow, and I think that more segmenting and nesting may be the direction that I need to go, instead of flowing left to right and running with it.

As an example, I'm fussing with a glitch within the selected portion, and I can selectively pre-render in place and move on. But if shifts happen it's lost.
I wish that I could render to a new track and simply tag it as the default piece to use (like a selectively pre-rendered piece is by default) without having to remove everything under it by splitting, moving or deleting, and needing to make sure that any moved/deleted trak motion points that went too get reestablished for the remaining elements after it. It'd be nice to render to a new trak, tag it to use by default, leave it on a higher level, and move on.
Or, make selectively pre-rendered segments able to shift with their associated elements instead of disappearing. I understand that they're invalid if content changes within their parameters, but location alone killing them is a shame.

Christopher Young · October 10th, 2019, 11:07 AM

Sam. If I'm understanding you correctly.

You don't have to delete items below your 'Render to new track' sections. Anything you don't want active just right click on them and select 'Switches' then 'Mute.' Everything remains in place nothing is deleted or moved it just becomes invisible so nothing gets thrown out of kilter. If you need to reactive any element later on for any reason it is still there and you just reverse the Switches/Mute option. I often use this method and if there are a number of segments like this and I want to tidy up a bit I just add some lower tracks then using the numeric keypad 8 up and keypad 2 down keys move my muted elements to the bottom of the stack. I also have those tracks,I call them 'storage tracks' muted just in case there is something I moved down that hadn't been Switch/Muted. Once finished I then totally minimize my bottom of stack 'storage tracks' leaving me more real estate for my active upper tracks.

Chris Young

Sam Houchins II · October 10th, 2019, 12:00 PM

Thank you, Chris. Those are some helpful details, for sure.

Ok, /sigh...
I tried muting the camera and audio dub tracks and just rendering the generated media overlaying the jpegs to another track, with the intention of then rendering that segment into the camera and dub trax that would be turned back on with the generated and jpeg elements muted. Problem is, the generated elements rendered with black backgrounds that aren't transparent and cover up the camera footage. This would require me to mask out the black, including masking out the mask so the black text doesn't disappear. This is frustrating with the compounding workarounds applied to workarounds.

I'm also wrestling with periodic render fails due to lack of memory.

Christopher Young · October 11th, 2019, 05:44 AM

Sam they will render with solid black backgrounds unless you use any 32 bit codec that supports Alpha channels to render them out. Your composite track needs to be rendered out over a clear background. In other words an empty or muted lower track. A 32-bit rendered video supports an ALPHA channel.

Now when you have rendered out your video with its Alpha channel you place it on an upper, or the topmost track then right click on it select 'Properties' and then activate its Alpha channel by selecting 'Premultiplied.' This activates the Alpha channel for transparency. Now your lower layer video tracks will become visible through the keyed new 32-bit Alpha overlay tack rendered elements.

I do this all the time with company logos, graphics I've made or video or any other element that needs a transparent background or cutouts to allow underlying video to show through. Just be prepared for those 32-bit Alpha renders to be biggish files. This is how we always used to key in linear tape to tape video edit suites for years. These days this is how you do it, or one of the ways you do it in an NLE.

The first image is a Vegas composite of an image with masked areas and a track motion glow plus some generated media.

The track view image is how the stacked tracks looked. I compiled them over grey so I can see what I'm doing. IMPORTANT, you must mute this grey or whatever color track you chose to use while compiling your composite before you render your 32-bit Alpha channel AVI.

The last image is actually the composite 32-bit video with activated Alpha channel over a new image. Of course with this new Alpha rendered video being a total composite of its elements you can now grade, fly, flip, zoom or move it it one element as you would with any other piece of video.

Chris Young

Sam Houchins II · October 28th, 2019, 05:07 PM

I've come back to read this a couple of times, and I've waited too long to say thank you for the walk-through.
I still don't understand it yet, but I know where it is when I get to actually try it.
Thank you very much for the time and interest to advise me.

October 9th, 2019, 01:23 PM	#1
Sam Houchins II Major Player Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Fredericksburg, VA Posts: 282	pre-render feature wish Selectively pre-render is great because it will be used in the final render instead of the raw elements, but it's stability sucks if timeline shifts are made. Render to new track is great, because it's stable and won't disappear on its own like selective pre-render will, but you'd have to delete everything "under" it to get its full benefit of actually replacing what's under it in the final render. A tall stack of complicated edits of multiple elements makes that annoying (especially determining a clean break point), and prohibits later editing of those elements, if needed. I wish that there was a hybrid option - something less fleeting than selective-prerendering, but with its nature of being able to replace what's "under" it on the timeline in the final render.

October 9th, 2019, 02:38 PM	#2
Rainer Listing Major Player Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Nowra, Australia Posts: 440	Re: pre-render feature wish Apologies if I'm missing your point here, but could you not just solo the track? Click the little red s in the circle with the exclamation mark in the track header?

October 9th, 2019, 02:48 PM	#3
Sam Houchins II Major Player Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Fredericksburg, VA Posts: 282	Re: pre-render feature wish valid suggestion for my incomplete point. In my case I'm trying to stabilize unruly segments burrowed within portions that started before and continue after. I can't see how I can solo a track when I need the prequels and sequels to the segment that exist on other tracks. Maybe I'm missing the point of your suggestion. Going forward I can try to be more strategic to accommodate these glitches as I progress in a project, but in this case, these are new glitches to me and am trying to implement work-arounds after the project's essentially done and tightly woven together.

October 9th, 2019, 04:01 PM	#4
Rainer Listing Major Player Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Nowra, Australia Posts: 440	Re: pre-render feature wish Sorry, still not getting it. It's not unusual to have to add items e.g. titles and credits to an essentially completed project, a solo (mainly to isolate the audio) render track on top is tidy and it's normal to keep the edits used to create the render track under the track before you do that in case you have to make changes, but you do have to know where the extras begin and end. I just group select the render track and everything under it and move that content out of the way. If you have to revise your main edit, you can just delete the render track (or re-render it).

October 9th, 2019, 05:21 PM	#5
Sam Houchins II Major Player Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Fredericksburg, VA Posts: 282	Re: pre-render feature wish I'll have to pick through your thoughts to see what I can glean from them. Tough to convey a process in words, or perhaps just tougher for me to envision it. I'm craving a better workflow, and I think that more segmenting and nesting may be the direction that I need to go, instead of flowing left to right and running with it. As an example, I'm fussing with a glitch within the selected portion, and I can selectively pre-render in place and move on. But if shifts happen it's lost. I wish that I could render to a new track and simply tag it as the default piece to use (like a selectively pre-rendered piece is by default) without having to remove everything under it by splitting, moving or deleting, and needing to make sure that any moved/deleted trak motion points that went too get reestablished for the remaining elements after it. It'd be nice to render to a new trak, tag it to use by default, leave it on a higher level, and move on. Or, make selectively pre-rendered segments able to shift with their associated elements instead of disappearing. I understand that they're invalid if content changes within their parameters, but location alone killing them is a shame. Attached Thumbnails

October 10th, 2019, 11:07 AM	#6
Christopher Young Trustee Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 1,567	Re: pre-render feature wish Sam. If I'm understanding you correctly. You don't have to delete items below your 'Render to new track' sections. Anything you don't want active just right click on them and select 'Switches' then 'Mute.' Everything remains in place nothing is deleted or moved it just becomes invisible so nothing gets thrown out of kilter. If you need to reactive any element later on for any reason it is still there and you just reverse the Switches/Mute option. I often use this method and if there are a number of segments like this and I want to tidy up a bit I just add some lower tracks then using the numeric keypad 8 up and keypad 2 down keys move my muted elements to the bottom of the stack. I also have those tracks,I call them 'storage tracks' muted just in case there is something I moved down that hadn't been Switch/Muted. Once finished I then totally minimize my bottom of stack 'storage tracks' leaving me more real estate for my active upper tracks. Chris Young

October 10th, 2019, 12:00 PM	#7
Sam Houchins II Major Player Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Fredericksburg, VA Posts: 282	Re: pre-render feature wish Thank you, Chris. Those are some helpful details, for sure. Ok, /sigh... I tried muting the camera and audio dub tracks and just rendering the generated media overlaying the jpegs to another track, with the intention of then rendering that segment into the camera and dub trax that would be turned back on with the generated and jpeg elements muted. Problem is, the generated elements rendered with black backgrounds that aren't transparent and cover up the camera footage. This would require me to mask out the black, including masking out the mask so the black text doesn't disappear. This is frustrating with the compounding workarounds applied to workarounds. I'm also wrestling with periodic render fails due to lack of memory. Last edited by Sam Houchins II; October 10th, 2019 at 06:44 PM.

October 11th, 2019, 05:44 AM	#8
Christopher Young Trustee Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 1,567	Re: pre-render feature wish Sam they will render with solid black backgrounds unless you use any 32 bit codec that supports Alpha channels to render them out. Your composite track needs to be rendered out over a clear background. In other words an empty or muted lower track. A 32-bit rendered video supports an ALPHA channel. Now when you have rendered out your video with its Alpha channel you place it on an upper, or the topmost track then right click on it select 'Properties' and then activate its Alpha channel by selecting 'Premultiplied.' This activates the Alpha channel for transparency. Now your lower layer video tracks will become visible through the keyed new 32-bit Alpha overlay tack rendered elements. I do this all the time with company logos, graphics I've made or video or any other element that needs a transparent background or cutouts to allow underlying video to show through. Just be prepared for those 32-bit Alpha renders to be biggish files. This is how we always used to key in linear tape to tape video edit suites for years. These days this is how you do it, or one of the ways you do it in an NLE. The first image is a Vegas composite of an image with masked areas and a track motion glow plus some generated media. The track view image is how the stacked tracks looked. I compiled them over grey so I can see what I'm doing. IMPORTANT, you must mute this grey or whatever color track you chose to use while compiling your composite before you render your 32-bit Alpha channel AVI. The last image is actually the composite 32-bit video with activated Alpha channel over a new image. Of course with this new Alpha rendered video being a total composite of its elements you can now grade, fly, flip, zoom or move it it one element as you would with any other piece of video. Chris Young Attached Thumbnails

October 28th, 2019, 05:07 PM	#9
Sam Houchins II Major Player Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Fredericksburg, VA Posts: 282	Re: pre-render feature wish I've come back to read this a couple of times, and I've waited too long to say thank you for the walk-through. I still don't understand it yet, but I know where it is when I get to actually try it. Thank you very much for the time and interest to advise me.