Mark (illusionLAB) ... what did you say was free? ... not DaVinci Resolve 15 ?

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

What does 'free public beta' mean?

https://www.creativebloq.com/news/davinci-resolve-15-software-released-as-a-free-beta

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Mark mentioned 2 things in his post. Use the Avid codecs and the free Resolve 15 - be aware that this is still in public beta testing and may/is a little buggy in some areas. I do all of my editing using image sequences where possible, the rest is mostly camera footage. The Avid DNxHD and above codecs are very, very good, but can only be played back on a system having them installed on it - they are also almost finished doing the transition away fromm QuickTime on the PC side due to the lack of Apple support for the software. On the Mac side it's different as QT is still supported, and even there they use mostly ProRes for encoding, it can be played back on a PC, but there are no really good 3rd party encoders available that a "Pro" would/could use.

As already mentioned image sequences are the best way to render out of iClone. you could use mpg4 files as proxies for external effects creation and then use the image sequence with the effect tracks in a final comp.


Gerry

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System: Win 10 Pro (21H2), Asus X99-E WS, CPU i7-5930K -3,5 GHz, 32 GB DDR4 2666-16 RAM, NVidia GTX 1080 Ti GPU - 11 GB VRAM(Driver Studio-536.99), Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB SSD, 6 TB HD storage.

It is a public beta testing phase that some companies use to get their product tested on a very wide selection of work environments, and there are no sign up charges, or costs for the software. Most, if not all, public betas have a "can not be used after" date stamp meaning that either the tester purchases a full version - or in the case of Resolve downloads and uses the latest free final release version.  


Gerry

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System: Win 10 Pro (21H2), Asus X99-E WS, CPU i7-5930K -3,5 GHz, 32 GB DDR4 2666-16 RAM, NVidia GTX 1080 Ti GPU - 11 GB VRAM(Driver Studio-536.99), Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB SSD, 6 TB HD storage.

You can download the free Resolve here. The public beta forum is here, if you wish to see what testers are reporting.

Gerry

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System: Win 10 Pro (21H2), Asus X99-E WS, CPU i7-5930K -3,5 GHz, 32 GB DDR4 2666-16 RAM, NVidia GTX 1080 Ti GPU - 11 GB VRAM(Driver Studio-536.99), Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB SSD, 6 TB HD storage.

Thanks Gerry. Yes, well I'm Gob-smacked! I've never been involved with beta testing and the like. Don't know what to make of all this.
24 hours ago I'd decided to take the 'layered' approach rather than have to learn Fusion. I'm comfortable with the NLE way.
So I saw a 'Special' for MAGIX Vegas Movie Studio Suite - dropped to $120 AUD. I decided to download the 'trial'.
Then I got another email offering an "upgrade" (I hadn't even 'bought' it yet), and it was for $79.99 USD PLUS they were throwing in 'proDAD ReSpeedr 1.0' for free.... WOW I thought! ... So I bought it !!!
Now I'm not so sure I did the right thing ....

@Gerry .... thanks for the link .... 

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Steve,
Don't get confused with all of this, you can never have enough tools for your work. :cool:

I use Avid Media Composer, and still consider it to be the best out there. But this isn't about best or whatever, it's about what gets the job done that I have in front of me and for that reason I also have the free Resolve installed and use it mainly for the Colour Correction abilities - which are about the best in the field. I also use the paid Fusion version simply because it interacts directly with Media Composer through Fusion Connect. On top of that I have a bunch of stuff from New Blue and Boris that work inside MC quite nicely and a great motion stabiliser from ProDad.

There is no way that anyone can be proficient in using all of the above, but at least I can get a lot of work done with out having to go outside. A friend of mine uses Pro Tools, among other items, for audio work and does a lot of mixes for me - there is no way that I am even going to think of learning a full fledged DAW. Same thing goes for Colour Correction, I can do some stuff myself but the final grade is done by a guy who lives in a dark grey hole and uses a DaVinci control panel. :smooooth: 


The main thing is that there are many ways to be unkind to a cat, and we just have to take advantage of those available - and free is almost always a great way to get the skin off. :P


Gerry

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System: Win 10 Pro (21H2), Asus X99-E WS, CPU i7-5930K -3,5 GHz, 32 GB DDR4 2666-16 RAM, NVidia GTX 1080 Ti GPU - 11 GB VRAM(Driver Studio-536.99), Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB SSD, 6 TB HD storage.

Gerry .... yes I admit I'd naively hoped to get almost everything under one hood.
But aside from the programs I use for creating music, I see:
● iClone - as a 'studio set' environment and for animating actors
● Fusion9 - as an 'authentic' DOF creator as well as for creating other FX
● Vegas Movie Studio - as a layers compositor, perhaps a Grader, additional FX compositing, adding transitions, and rendering out.

This isn't "commercial" stuff - but I think (hope) I can achieve good results all the same .... thanks Gerry :)


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

That's what I've done on my last few projects.  I add whatever audio seems necessary to my iClone project, but then replace it all in my NLE.

In-project audio includes voice-over for viseme generation, some music for timing purposes, and maybe a bit more music to set the mood and "major" sound effects to make it more enjoyable while animating.  For all non-character audio, I attach the audio to appropriately named dummy props to make it easy to find.  But in the end, whether I export to a sequence of PNG or (gasp!) a WMV file, I still replace ALL the audio in my NLE.

To me, the best thing about doing the audio in my NLE is I can vary the volume over time, rather than have each track be a fixed volume for the entire scene.  There are numerous other benefits (easier to work with, etc.), but the variable volume is the major benefit to me.

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

Since version 6, iClone can render audio only (.WAV option under Video), so that's what I would use as external reference. Other than that, I concur with the use of image sequences.

I use Vegas Pro, and in the past I have had problems with images sequences in large projects, but currently that works fine. What I'm currently doing as sort of an experiment is to have a separate Vegas project for each self-contained scene. These projects can be referenced in a master Vegas project and the combined scenes can be rendered out from there. You could see if that helps with any problems with a large number of image sequences.

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