Clip FX -v- Track FX

[Ian Stark]

I was wondering if there is any performance difference in having one instance of an effect on the track level as opposed to multiple instances on the clip level.

For example, I want to use Magic Bullet on every clip but with minor tweaks from one clip to another. If I use one instance per clip I would end up with around 300 instances. My alternative would be to have one instance at the track level and keyframe the tweaks as required.

My preference would be the former, but not if it adds a significant overhead at rendering time.

Any thoughts?

Ian . . .

[Edward Troxel]

The best I could suggest is try it both ways, test it out, and let us know the results. I can't say that one will be faster than the other. However, it *may* be faster with Track level (and I'm only saying that because it may only apply the effect to the video frame at the track level where it may be using the full resolution at the event level)

How about testing it out for us and letting us know for sure?
A short one minute clip should suffice.

[Ian Stark]

Rather than just do a one minute test I went ahead and did it on a full ten minute production (I had to do it either way so what the hell).

In total there were around 130 clips, therefore around 130 instances of Magic Bullet. I made three presets for use on most clips and on around twenty clips I tweaked these further to get the desired result. On a handful of clips I also used Border and Brightness/Contrast but no other effects were used.

I rendered that to PAL DV Widescreen and it took 39 minutes (I LOVE my new quad core!).

Having delivered the job to the client I then created a copy of the project and this time had just one instance of Magic Bullet at track level and used keyframes to adjust parameters on the time line. I can tell you it was a good deal more painful than having to insert 130 instances of Magic Bullet. Doing it the keyframe way is, I think, more prone to error and takes a lot longer to set up.

Thankfully there was pretty much no rendering time difference between the two methods so I will stick to multiple instances at event level in these situations.

What would be very useful, though, would be the ability to select a group of events then add an effect to all of them simultaneously. I don't think there is a way of achieving this - anyone know any better?

This very casual experiment might throw up different results with different plugins but I suspect that MB is resource intensive enough to give a good test.

Cheers.

Ian . . .

[Sean Skube]

my workflow is usually to do color corrections on a clip level to get them all to look coherent, and then to use track level fx to adjust the color of the overall scene. I try to avoid keyframing if I can.

[Jarrod Whaley]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

What would be very useful, though, would be the ability to select a group of events then add an effect to all of them simultaneously. I don't think there is a way of achieving this - anyone know any better?

Three words: "paste event attributes"

:)

Apply the effects in question to a single clip, then right-click and select 'copy.' Highlight all of the other clips that need those same effects, then right-click on them and select 'paste event attributes.'

[Ian Stark]

Aha! I often use p-e-a to copy things like pan/crop settings from one clip to another - I didn't realise it also copies plug-ins!

Thanks for letting me know! (Wish I'd asked a couple of days ago! Would have saved me a lot of time!).

Ian . . .

[Ian Stark]

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...465#post677465

In case anyone's interested here is a link to the resulting video.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

you can also affect/effect entire clips/source in the Project Media function, which is the best method, IMO, for repairing entire source clips at a blow.

[Ian Stark]

Thanks Spot. Yeah, I had considered that but quite a few of the source clips were up to ten or twelve minutes long and as I was shooting mostly outdoors I had no control over the light - ie the image changes dramatically in appearance in mid-clip and would need different treatments.

Before anyone berates me for shooting such long clips, understand that I was there to shoot (among other things) a bunch of tribal dances and some of them just don't stop!!

Chers.

Ian . . .

[Graham Bernard]

You could try this, Ian ..

#1 - Create Media Bins: "Outside" . ."Inside"

#2 - Plop the varying/variable Media into the Trimmer.

#3 - SCRUB in Trimmer that which is an OUTSIDE Colour Temp and make a SUB Clip - and name it IansOutside 1a - or whatever - of JUST that scrub/region and drop this into the "OUTSIDE" Media Bin

#4 - Repeat for all and each part .. won't take to long.

#5 - Apply OUTSIDE CC to the OUTISDIE Media Bin and . . Apply the INSIDE CC to the INSDIE Media Bin.

Any good?

And no, no berating from me. You have to shoot what you can!

- Grazie

[Ian Stark]

I think to be honest the best method (for my needs at any rate) is to select the clips and use paste/event attributes (now that I know it copies fx as well!).

Thanks for all the ideas.

Ian . . .

ps still happy for some critique on the project!

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...465#post677465