Workflow Critque
by Dustin Brown
on
Jul 23, 2008 at 2:51:22 am
I'm currently a generalist at a small company. I work in 3D animation software, then I run all my own work through post. I rarely ever work with anything that comes from a camera; 99.9% of my content is CG. My current workflow works pretty well for me, but rather than taking the attitude of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," I'd like to get some suggestions on how I might improve what I'm doing. I''ve only worked for one company, so my exposure to various work flows is relatively limited. I often wonder about things like Open EXR, best practices for comping multi-pass renders, etc. If you guys have any recommendations, I'd like to hear them. Here's what I'm currently doing:
1)3D Rendering:
Progressive PNG sequences
Multi-pass to get each render buffer
D1 NTSC Widescreen
2)Then I bring those into After Effects, create pre-comps of each shot where I'm basically just reconstructing the various passes for the shot. Then, if necessary, I make a second round of comps, where I add graphics and effects. I then load all my final compositions into the queue, and render them.
4)I bring those shots into Premiere and do really simple stuff, like transitions, adding titles, etc.
5)From Premiere, I export whatever I need: an ISO, a QuickTime, whatever.
The work our company does is definitely not high end. We don't do color correction, or motion graphics, or work with green screens ... none of that stuff. But I want to bring good habits into my workflow, because I'd like to have at least some of the basic "best practice" stuff in my pocket for the future.
Re: Workflow Critque by Dustin Brown on Jul 23, 2008 at 12:52:42 pm
Hi Chris. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. If you're referring to the ability to import actual comps from AFX into Premiere, without the need to render them first, I'm aware of it. But, as a friend of mine once said to me..."Like all things with Adobe products, just because you *can* do something doesn't necessarily mean you should."
1)Scrubbing through unrendered AFX comps in Premiere is going to be much slower, especially when you hit frames with things like Lens Blur and Glow and whatnot on them. Ouch.
2)In my experience, Premiere isn't so good at memory management. You try to throw too much at it, and you're setting yourself up to get errors come render time. I try to make things as easy on Premiere as possible, so it can't possibly have anything to complain about when I go to render. I've had problems with TGA sequences, still images over 2K, time remapping, etc. It's all bad juju for Premiere.
3)Frankly, I don't want to get into any major Adobe-specific habits, e.g. developing crutches on "features" like that. Who knows, the next job I have might have me using Fusion or Shake, or any number of things. If that's the case, I'll need to render out of post to get my shots into editorial, and I'll need to know a good format for doing that.
Re: Workflow Critque by Dave LaRonde on Jul 23, 2008 at 2:56:51 pm
[Dustin Brown]"...as a friend of mine once said to me, "Like all things with Adobe products, just because you *can* do something doesn't necessarily mean you should." "
Wise advice indeed.
For AE alone, Adobe claims the application supports Open GL, HDV, various forms of MPEG and Mp3. When it comes to actually using these features, the user almost always gets a rude surprise.
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
Re: Workflow Critque by Dave LaRonde on Jul 23, 2008 at 2:31:06 pm
[Dustin Brown]
"D1 NTSC Widescreen 4)I bring those shots into Premiere and do really simple stuff, like transitions, adding titles, etc.
5)From Premiere, I export whatever I need: an ISO, a QuickTime, whatever."
I thing your workflow is pretty good. But I wonder about the D1 Widescreen. If you never make anything that even approaches HD resolution, D1 NTSC Widescreen isn't a bad 16x9 resolution. But do you see the prospect of authoring Blu-Ray DVDs in your future?
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
Re: Workflow Critque by Dustin Brown on Jul 23, 2008 at 2:42:50 pm
Hi David. Great question. We tried providing a client with an HD res animation once and it crushed our puny little render farm when we rendered the 3D frames; it took some ungodly amount of time to render it all. We don't have the resources to invest in a better farm right now, so we aren't offering HD. It's really too bad, I'd love to get some experience working with some of the more high end stuff I hear about: 2K, 4K, floating point, etc. We just aren't that kind of shop.
