Proxies Workflow Question

Still getting my feet wet with Resolve and coming across my first need for proxies. I have conformed to 5K R3D files that are on a local Raid. I did not generate proxies ahead of time but have done a first pass of grading with the R3D decode set to quarter res, which I'm surprised how close to real time it actually gets. Of course as soon as I throw a few more nodes in it starts bogging down.

I tried enabling "use real time proxies" and then created a proxy destination folder in the settings menu but unable to generate proxies. The manual is a bit vague on how the real time proxies are created and how to manage them. When "use real time proxies" is enabled do I still need to add them to the proxy manager? If so I can't seem to add any clips to the proxy manager que. I right click add to proxy manager but when I open up the manager no clips are in the que.

Hoping for some sage advice from those who have travelled down this trail.

Cheers, Chris

Thanks all. Funny I did search for this topic and nothing came up...

What you seem to be asking for isn't really proxies, it's selective caching. Autodesk Smoke does this in the background, and the upcoming version of Baselight has this implemented in a user controlled, flexible way. Perhaps Blackmagic will do something similar in a future version.

No, it's not. What Baselight does is a bit hard to explain in Resolve terms, but basically they allow you to cache any portion of the processing pipeline. So you can tell the system to cache all input strips, and it will spin off a background caching operation that will make DPX files out of the inputs only and substitute them for the "live" originals. This can be very useful for formats like R3d, for instance, because it will create "living proxies" that are fully debayered and decompressed. This still allows you to change the R3D SDK settings, though, and if you do, the frames will automatically be re-cached, allowing you essentially work directly from R3D files but without the overhead of live debayering. You can also cache to any point in the correction stack, which would be analogous to telling Resolve "cache the first 2 nodes only and leave any other nodes live." The end result is a kind of live proxy system that is controlled by the user. Very flexible and useful.