nVeil – the origami of video

If you are looking for a plug-in to give you a unique and different look for striking visual effects, then Storek Studio’s nVeil filter fits the bill. nVeil is an FxPlug filter for Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express and Motion and provides yet another tool that leverages the power of OpenGL and the FxPlug architecture.

 

 

The creative description of what it does is a bit harder to explain than what is happening technically. That’s because the results you can achieve are more like video artwork, than simply stylizing video clips with various effects filters. In short, nVeil uses scalable vector graphics (SVG file) to slice the image into polygons, which are then rendered using OpenGL and powered by the computer’s GPU. These SVG files are considered “veils” (as in a curtain) that become “cells” onto which portions of the image are “projected”. The company has tested nVeil on a range of graphics cards and Macs. I’m on a 15” MacBook Pro with the nVidia GeForce 8600M GT card. It was fine up to 720p projects, but I did receive a render warning when I tried applying nVeil on a 1080i timeline. Nevertheless, unrendered real-time effects played smoothly on this unit.

 

 

nVeil ships with a library of about 60 SVG files. These can also be created or modified using Adobe Illustrator, so feel free to create your own. The user guide and tutorials on the nVeil website provide concise descriptions about how to generate new vector files. SVG images can include line art as well as text.

 

 

In FCP, simply drop the filter onto a clip and access an SVG file from the filter tab. The stock SVG files will be installed in Applications / nVeil / SVG Veil Library. You won’t see any affect at first, so adjust Source Scale as a starting point. Sliding the Source Scale slider to one extreme blurs the image, so that your vector graphic is filled with fuzzy colors, much like a kaleidoscope or a stained glass window. Slide it in the opposite direction and the image becomes a serious of crisp multiple images, like an insect-eye effect.

 

 

From there it’s a matter of adjusting the Source and Veil Transform sliders to get the look you want. Since the nVeil filter is being applied to moving video, the natural changes of objects and color in the video create a vibrant effect.

 

 

You can set keyframes for each slider value, so nVeil filters can change over the length of the clip and may be used for interesting transition effects. Furthermore, as with any other FCP or Motion filter, you can stack filters for other effects. For example, place a blur, glow or vignette filter upstream of the nVeil filter and the adjustments are visible inside the segments of the veil graphic.

 

 

The are a few key settings that control how the veil and source clip are composited. The Add SVG Bounds toggle (Veil Generation) determines whether the outer shape is a rectangle or the drawn edges of the graphic. With Add SVG Bounds unchecked, a dragon graphic holds the shape of the dragon. With it checked, the dragon graphic appears inside the edges of the rectangular file boundary.

 

 

At the bottom of the filter pane is the Background Mode: Pass Through, Projected or Matte. Pass Through leaves the original clip untouched in the background with the veil effect on top. Projected applies Source Transforms, but no veil parsing, to the source clip to create the background. Matte leaves a black background. As yet, there are no provisions to change the matte color or for multi-layer effects. You can’t place a clip with a veil effect on V2 and see a clip on V1 as the background.

 

 

Storek’s nVeil is yet another example of how innovative designers have taken the groundwork created by Apple’s FxPlug to give you new tools that can enrich your productions. Check out the site for motion examples of what can be done with nVeil.

 

© 2009 Oliver Peters

Scoring with Sonicfire Pro

Music choices are very subjective and can often be the most difficult part of finishing a production. There is no replacement for a true custom score that’s right on the money, but rarely do clients have a budget to support that, especially in the world of corporate video. I’ve frequently built videos with music changes every :30 or so. I’m essentially scoring the video without the help of a composer. That takes a lot of time to audition cues online through a needledrop library like Killer Tracks and often clients don’t have the budget to pay for 20 or 30 cues on a longer production. This is where royalty-free music sources can really shine. There are various options, including the music cues that come with Apple Soundtrack Pro or Adobe Soundbooth, but neither of these options is as comprehensive as SmartSound.

 

 

SmartSound is really two entities – the Sonicfire Pro music customization software and the supporting SmartSound music libraries. In order to get the best out of Sonicfire Pro, you really need to use SmartSound music. To build up my own library, I treat myself to a few new discs each Christmas and whenever a new project can support it!

 

 

The Sonicfire Pro software lets you non-destructively change the variation (arrangement), “mood” (orchestration), tempo and length of these music selections. It can do this because each song file is made up of blocks. When you change the duration or pick a different variation to a song, Sonicfire Pro intelligently rearranges the block to avoid something that sounds overly repetitive. The newer offerings in the library include “mood mapping”. This means that the discs are multilayered with instruments mixed into stems – rhythm, lead, percussion, etc. Inside Sonicfire Pro, you can change the “mood” by selecting from a preset or by changing the relative mix of these stems.

 

 

Compositions are based on a fixed tempo measured in BPM (beats per minute). If setting the duration doesn’t quite nail the length you need, you can also alter the tempo. This changes the metadata for the cue and speeds up or slows down the song by altering the BPM. This is a non-destructive process, so tempo files can be deleted and the original native BPM restored. Remember that these song arrangements are made up of real instruments and real compositions, not simply a series of loops in the way that a music cue might be created using Apple’s Garageband.

 

 

The Sonicfire Pro interface works in two parts: the SmartSound Express Track window and the project (timeline or tracksheet) window. Express Track is a smart media browser that lets you search, audition and modify your music selections. It also lets you browse SmartSound’s online library for additional music. Express Track also displays composer and license information that may be used for music licensing cue sheets. Many editors mistakenly believe that they have unlimited rights to use royalty-free compositions for any purpose. SmartSound music covers most typical productions, but not everything. For example, you are covered for regional TV spots, web videos, film festivals or cable networks like Discovery; but, you are not covered if your show runs on HBO or if Warner Bros. buys your film and distributes prints to thousands of theaters. Check with SmartSound if you have licensing inquiries.

 

 

Most of the actual music adjustment is done in the project window. Music is inserted onto a track and the song’s length can be adjusted by dragging the end of the selection. Each song is composed of an arrangement of separate thematic subsections that are each made up of blocks. You can opt to protect certain of these arrangements as you lengthen or shorten a track. This prevents Sonicfire Pro from completely changing the arrangement based on its internal algorithms. The subsections change at keyframed points and the keyframes can be slid earlier or later, thus changing when one subsection transitions to another within the same song.

 

 

You build up your score by assembling various music cues onto separate tracks, complete with crossfades and even add “hits”, like a cymbal crash, bell effects and more. A multilayered or “mood-mapped” cue can be split into sections on the same track to change the mood within that music cue. For example, if your video starts and ends with a high energy visual montage that bookends a talking-head spokesperson in the middle section, simply add a mood change at the start and end of this dialogue sequence. Choose a more subdued variation in the mood setting or manually reduce the level of some of the more intrusive instruments by using the property sliders or the appropriate volume envelopes in the tracksheet.

 

What about Final Cut Pro?

 

So far this has been a quick overview of how Sonicfire Pro 5 Scoring Edition works in general. SmartSound has worked with numerous NLE manufacturers over the years and in fact, has already developed timeline integration with Avid Media Composer, using MetaSync tracks. New since NAB 2009 is Sonicfire Pro 5.1 with the Final Cut Pro plug-in.

 

 

To use Sonicfire Pro with Final Cut, simply edit your FCP timeline as you normally would, adding markers to indicate music changes or the start/end points for a music cue. Once you’ve edited the sequence, save it and leave FCP open. Now launch Sonicfire Pro. The first way is simply to select individual songs and customize them to length. To do this, choose “import from Final Cut Pro” in the Express Track window’s right-hand slide-out drawer. Your FCP markers will be displayed with timing information. By highlighting a marker or a range of markers, Sonicfire Pro will customize the length of the song to fit that duration.

 

 

When you are done, choose “Export Soundtrack/Video”, check Final Cut Pro in the dialogue box and save the file (now a rendered/flattened AIFF). It will appear in your FCP browser, so drop it on the timeline and continue. If you need to roundtrip back to Sonicfire Pro, make sure you have set up your FCP preferences so that audio files use Sonicfire Pro as the external editor. If so, right-click the clip on the timeline and select “Open in Editor”, which sends you to Sonicfire Pro. The app knows to pull up that song and you are ready to make adjustments. Make the changes, export again (replacing the previously exported file) and FCP will reconnect to the newer media.

 

 

The second and more fun way to work with the two apps is to use Sonicfire Pro to score your complete FCP sequence. Choose “Import from Final Cut Pro” twice: once in both the Express Track window and again into a new project (under the file menu). If you exported a QuickTime reference file of your FCP sequence, you can also open this in Sonicfire Pro to sync the timeline and video. When you do so, the FCP markers will also show up in your Sonicfire Pro project timeline. You can also import the soundtrack from your video (presumably dialogue) and do a final mix right inside of Sonicfire Pro. In any case, this is a great way to make sure your music is perfectly customized to match your FCP sequence. When you are done, “Export Soundtrack/Video” (choosing FCP again) and your mix appears inside your FCP browser.

 

 

Over the years, I’ve been a happy SmartSound user. I like the quality of their compositions and I really appreciate that they continue to add to the available library. Although the newest selections are multilayered, that doesn’t obsolete the older, non-layered music. In fact, I still use QuickTracks, which originally came bundled with Premiere 6.5! As I said at the beginning, music is very subjective, so there’s no guarantee that a large SmartSound library is really going to cover every client’s need – but it sure helps. The new FCP plug-in simply makes it easier to use Sonicfire Pro and FCP together.

 

 

SmartSound has provided a number of video tutorials on their website that offer a better look at how the whole process works.

 

© 2009 Oliver Peters

PluralEyes- Help for that Syncing Feeling

If you’ve ever edited multi-cam shows where the production crew’s attitude seemed to have been, “Sync! We don’t need any stinkin’ sync!” – then this software is for you. Without a doubt, every editor friend I ran into at NAB that happened to pass by Singular Software’s booth raved about this product. “You have GOT to see it,” was the comment I often heard about PluralEyes during that week.

 

What’s the need?

 

When you work multi-cam shows, proper sync is essential to line up the camera iso recordings in post. Obviously timecode is ideal, but this only works properly when all cameras were fed from a genlocked master timecode generator. In the case of digital run-and-gun projects (like a low-budget rock concert or reality TV productions), the cameras are running wild and not necessarily synced to each other.

 

Under the best of circumstances you might be able to get the crew to internally sync the cameras to time-of-day timecode at the beginning of the day or get them to occasionally shoot a large LED timecode display somewhere within a concert venue. In a film-style shoot, they might have started each take with clapsticks. More often than not, this doesn’t go according to plan once in the thick of the production – or the timecode starts out close and drifts out. The latter often happens when a camera gets powered down and back up in the course of the production.

 

Most modern NLEs have multi-cam editing tools. Typically these let you sync clips by matching timecode or by marking an in-point at some common event and aligning the source clips accordingly. In the film example, the point where the sticks clap shut provide a good mark-in-point. In the absence of either clapsticks or valid timecode, you often find yourself looking for things that become a common reference point. For instance, the same frame in each camera angle, just where the singer touches his nose in a unique way! Obviously this can become incredibly time-consuming and often not very frame-accurate.

 

 

Enter PluralEyes

 

PluralEyes is designed for Final Cut Pro editors. It synchronizes clips based on common audio. It’s not a plug-in, but a standalone application that works in tandem with FCP. The software analyzes the waveform of a clip’s audio track and processes sync based on the commonality of the tracks among clips from different camera angles. In order to work, you must have in-camera sound, even if it’s only a scratch track. Picture-only (MOS) recordings still have to be lined up manually or by timecode.

 

On the other hand, audio-only clips can be synchronized. If you are shooting a concert, the wild audio from the cameras can be synchronized to the clean audio recording fed from the mixer to an audio recorder. PluralEyes won’t adjust for any sync drift, so such audio tracks still need to be properly recorded. In the examples I’ve seen and tested, the camera tracks can be pretty distorted, which means PluralEyes can still perform the analysis with less-than-pristine audio tracks, as long as it can sufficiently interpret the waveform to establish sync.

 

The bottom line is that PluralEyes gives you a way to quickly and accurately sync cameras without the use of timecode or manual reference marks. This makes it possible to use smaller, prosumer camcorders in multi-cam projects without creating a synchronization nightmare in post. It also lets you use full-blown pro camcorders in situations where establishing common timecode sync is impractical.

 

 

Working with PluralEyes

 

The way PluralEyes works is so simple for the editor, that it takes longer to explain “why” than to explain “how”. You start out by importing or ingesting all the clips into a Final Cut project. PluralEyes can synchronize clips in a sequence or in a bin, but the key is that you have to name the target to be analyzed “pluraleyes”. Either the bin or the sequence (whichever you want synced) has to be named “pluraleyes” and the project must have been saved for PluralEyes to work.

 

 

The most common approach would be to sync a sequence. To do this, place all your camera clips at the start of the timeline. Make sure there are no in or out marks. Stack the different camera angles (with audio) onto ascending video tracks. Camera 1 goes to V1/A1-2, Camera 2 to V2/A3-4, Camera 3 to V3/A5-6 and continuing up with more cameras. All cameras should be lined up at the head of the sequence and on separate tracks.

 

 

If you stopped and restarted the camera recordings during the production, then you can place all clips from a single camera onto the same video/audio tracks. I haven’t seen any Singular documentation that addresses this, but I was successful when I did this on a test project. In other words, Cam 1 clips can stay back-to-back on V1, Cam 2 clips on V2 and so on. I also haven’t seen any mention of a limitation as to the number of cameras. My tests included 2-4 cameras, but I’ve seen other internet posts where six cameras were used.

 

 

Once you’ve created the sequence to be synced and have saved the project, launch the PluralEyes application and select “sync”. The software takes a few minutes to analyze and process the tracks and to create a new synced sequence, as well as multi-clip groups. Singular’s short, downloadable sample project (3 cameras, 1 minute clips) only took several seconds to sync. Another project that I tested, which was a 3-camera, half-hour interview show, took a couple of minutes. These tests were both on a MacBook Pro.

 

 

Once PluralEyes is done, return to FCP and you will have a new synced sequence and source multi-clip groups. In my interview show test, the studio crew recorded it in segments, so each section was broken into a separate multi-clip group by PluralEyes. In the tests I’ve done so far, syncing has been fast and successful in each case. I have had one editor tell me it didn’t work when he tested it, but I have no idea if he was doing everything correctly. In any case, Singular lets you download a trial version to see for yourself.

 

 

I will offer one caveat about sync. Since the clips are aligned based on the audio, there is no guarantee that the audio recorded by the camera itself will be in perfect sync with its own video. For instance, if you are recording audio of a concert and the cameras are only picking up the ambient audio from the PA system, it’s quite likely that each camera will be visually out of sync by a frame or two (or more) when synced against a master audio recording from the board feed. This is due to the natural delay inherent in such live venues. Fortunately Final Cut offers some quick functions to adjust clip sync, either for the master clip itself or when trimming clips later during the edit.

 

Using PluralEyes is a no-brainer for any editor who works with multi-cam projects in Final Cut. There’s also an interesting bundling deal right now with the folks at CoreMelt and they’ve even done a quick tutorial showing how the two projects might be used in conjunction with each other. Check it out.

 

On another note, Singular is also working with post solutions for the Canon 5D Mark II, which can be found here and here.

 

© 2009 Oliver Peters

More Grunt with CoreMelt

In the world of plug-in effects filters, CoreMelt might seem like the new kid but that would be incorrect. CoreMelt is the brainchild of Roger Bolton, an accomplished Flame artist and visual effects veteran with numerous film credits, including Kingdom of Heaven and The Lords of the Rings trilogy. Bolton started out as one of the principal developing partners with Noise Industries, originally designing the Organoptics FX package for Factory Tools (Avid) and later ImageFlow and PolyChrome for FxFactory (FCP).

 

 

Earlier this year CoreMelt broke out on its own to release the V2 products, based on CoreMelt’s V-Twin effects engine. It no longer ties into the FxFactory filter management engine; however, it’s perfectly fine to have both the FxFactory version of the CoreMelt products, as well as the V2 filters, installed on the same system. In fact, both CoreMelt and Noise Industries recommend that you might need to do that for compatibility with legacy projects. Previous versions installed under FxFactory show up with a CM prefix in the effects palette, whereas the new filters have a C2 prefix.

 

 

As in the case of the previous versions, CoreMelt V2 filters install into five hosts: Apple Final Cut Pro, Motion, Final Cut Express plus Adobe After Effects CS3 and CS4. These effect packs include filters, transitions and generators, which match FCP’s filter organization. Be sure to look for the installed effects in those three folders. Motion and After Effects don’t use this exact same structure, so for instance, all C2 (CoreMelt V2) selections will appears under the single After Effects pulldown menu for effects. Transition effects will have an asterisk after the name to indicate a two-layer transition effect.

 

 

I’ve been testing the filters in FCP, Motion and After Effects and they generally seem pretty solid in each, however, it seems to me that they are most responsive inside FCP. That difference is pretty subtle, so don’t let that deter you from considering it for After Effects as a primary host. I’m testing these on a MacBook Pro, so obviously a Mac Pro tower with a fast graphics card would make a big difference. Even so, these filters run fast on the laptop and adjustments are responsive. Plus, these filters are just plain fun to work with.

 

 

The CoreMelt V2 product line groups filters into packs with similar functions. These include transitions (PolyChrome), editor tools (Gadget), glows & blurs (Luminous), color correction (Pigment) and distortion & grunge effects (Shatter). There’s also the image montage package (ImageFlow Fx) and VeeYou – plug-ins that generate VU and EQ animations from audio files in your project.

 

 

There have been some solid improvements to ImageFlow Fx V2. Now you have a lot more control, including such things as adding frames around the stills from a selection of preset graphic frames.

 

 

I do a lot of the color grading, so the Pigment and Luminous filters had the most appeal to me. Like many of the newer advanced filters, CoreMelt departs from the standard FCP slider parameters to add its own custom GUI in the filter control pane. If you get lost in how an effect should work, click on the CoreMelt logo and a PDF manual opens in Preview to walk you through the steps. You can pick between the standard or custom interface. Custom uses certain range-based sliders that are helpful in some of the color correction adjustments.

 

 

In addition, there’s a heads-up graphic that overlays on top of the picture when you are making color adjustments. You may have this up the entire time or only when dragging a slider. This seems particularly helpful when making S-curve adjustments. Curve functions are missing in Final Cut’s built-in color grading tools and would normally require a trip to Apple Color without such a plug-in.

 

 

CoreMelt breaks their products down into a number of attractive bundling options ranging from CoreMelt Complete V2 to individual filter packs. For instance, if you are only interested in the color correction tools, than all you have to do is purchase the CoreMelt Pigment pack for just those 22 plug-ins. In addition, the ImageFlow Fx V2 and PolyChrome Transitions V2 trial versions include several free plug-ins, plus there’s a free download of the 12 VeeYou filters.

 

I won’t go into depth on the whole set, because it’s something that’s easy enough to check out for yourself. These filters seem to have a low system impact – in other words, safe to try. On the whole, CoreMelt V2 is a great addition to the editor’s toolkit at a really low price.

 

© 2009 Oliver Peters

Loader

The last 6 – 12 months have seen a bumper crop of new Final Cut plug-ins and utilities that extend its power and functionality. Quite a few have come to light since this year’s NAB. I’m going to spend the summer highlighting a number of these throughout the next series of posts.

 

The first isn’t really a plug-in at all. Digital Heaven’s Loader is an utility that launches whenever FCP is started and is designed as a “helper application” to manage media files that you import into a Final Cut project. The cardinal mistake that I see many editors make is in how they handle file organization. Setting your scratch disk locations in FCP takes care of ingested tape-based or tapeless media, but it doesn’t do anything to help you organize music, announcer tracks, photos and graphics, which make up a large part of a project.

 

I occasionally inherit projects from other editors and am confronted with missing media. The majority of the camera media relinks just fine from an external drive, but then I find a handful of clips that are offline. Digging a bit deeper, it turns out that these aren’t on the drive at all. These images or tracks had been imported from the editor’s local Pictures folder or iTunes music folder and never copied to the external project drive in the first place.

 

Another problem is sample rate conversion of audio. FCP does an poor job of dealing with 44.1kHz audio and MP3 files. You should ALWAYS convert to 48kHz AIF files BEFORE bringing these into your FCP project, but most editors never do. Issues like these, which are automatically handled for Avid editors by their application, require extra thought on the part of the FCP editor.

 

Enter Loader, which helps to resolve this dilemma. Loader is designed to deal with still images, sound files and QuickTime movies that are not ingested from tape, P2, XDCAM or other professional camera format. The application does three very simple functions:

 

1) Loader automatically copies the imported files into a central location that is independent of their original folders. The original images, tracks and movies are preserved and untouched. More importantly, the media that is used in the edit stays with the rest of the project files.

 

 

2) Loader organizes this non-timecode-based media into three neat folders – Movies, Audio and Graphics. You get to choose where these files are to be placed at the time of the first import into the project. After that, Loader will remember where to send the files. In my case, I typically create a Project Files media folder at the same location as my Capture Scratch folder. Inside the Project Files folder, I’ll create folders for each FCP project in this manner: Drive Name/FCP Media/Project Files/Project Name. That last folder is where I will direct Loader to send the imported files. Loader will automatically create a Movies, Audio and Graphics folder inside, thus keeping everything neatly organized.

 

 

3) The last and most important function is automatic sample rate conversion of imported audio tracks. Simply drag an MP3 track or a song from iTunes to Loader and it automatically copies the file and converts it to a 48kHz/16-bit AIF file, retaining its original file name. It will also handle Apple’s CAF files.

 

 

Loader’s own interface is pretty minimal. There are preferences where you can chose whether or not to launch Loader with FCP. You can also add or remove file extensions from the 3 primary media types. Loader appears in FCP as a small clapstick icon on top of the left or right edge of the FCP interface. Hold down the Command key and slide the clapstick bar up or down to keep it from obscuring part of the interface.

 

 

Don’t use the FCP’s import menu command to bring in a new file. Instead, simply drag the file that’s to be imported towards the clapstick icon. As you hover over the bar, Loader’s full interface slides out – looking like the rest of a film slate. Drop the file onto the “slate” and Loader takes care of the rest.

 

 

Any files handled by Loader appear in the FCP browser inside a new date/time-stamped “imports” bin. Of course, you can move or change this bin or the master clip in the FCP browser, just like any other clip.

 

 

If you edit with multiple FCP projects open at once, Loader will also keep track of these. Simply drag-and-drop the file to the correct FCP project name on the slate icon and Loader takes care of placing the media into the correct folders and into the right project pane. Once you get used to Loader, you’ll quickly see how this can save you time and hassles on many future FCP projects.

 

© 2009 Oliver Peters