R3d into Shake

[Brian D. Goff]

If I get this right, you can wrap the R3D into a quicktime film (during import into FCP) so you can "natively" work with R3D in FCP (max resolution is 2k however). Would it not be possible to wrap the R3D into a 4k quicktime and then be able to work with "native" R3D in Shake? Is there any software that can do this?

thanks

[paulherrin]

i'm not sure man... i haven't tried it. let me know if you get something working. apple stopped supporting shake a long time ago (unfortunately, it's still really powerful). i'm pretty sure they dropped that for motion (bad idea.) but you should check out nuke by the foundry...

otherwise, do your one light grading in redcine-x or storm (if you haven't checked it out you should) or whatever - then export to tiff or dpx or exr, and read that sequence into shake.

[Ben Brainerd]

I'm pretty sure that's not a viable option. The "Wrapped R3D" support in FCP is dependent on some of the newer quicktime plugins, which I'm pretty sure Shake doesn't support them. Look at how much hackery was involved in getting Color to support the new codecs. Shake, like Color, is one of those apps that Apple bought and sold more or less as-is, and with its lack of support I'm guessing no go.

Like Paul said, it's still possible to work with RED footage in Shake, just not natively.

[Alex MacLean]

do your one light grading in redcine-x or storm (if you haven't checked it out you should) or whatever - then export to tiff or dpx or exr, and read that sequence into shake.

yeah RCX -> DPX -> Shake is the way to go

[Jean Déraps]

By going the RCX->DPX route, you lose the connection (and advantages of working with) the RAW R3D file. The latest versions of Nuke (6.1 and newer) can work with native R3D files. Although Shake was (and still is) great, we'll all have to bite the bullet with Shake someday and (unfortunately) move on if we want to work with R3D files in a top notch compositing program.

[paulherrin]

jean, you are correct.

while you do lose the Rawness of the file, as long as you get it pretty close to what you want in your first color correction, you can save as 16-bit (tif, dpx, or exr) and still get some latitude out of the file to work with. take note those files will probably be a bit larger than your r3d file, so you'll have to store both... which can add up if you're operating on a small scale.

in any case, if it's at all feasible... the switch to nuke is quite comfortable. my only complaint is that you can't shake a node off... haha. but seriously, a couple years ago, nuke only had a better interface, but basically the same features. now... nuke is well advanced and much more powerful. they've also updated their roto tools, so that they are actually usable, and they are actually really nice.

as always, if you need any help just ask. good luck!

[Gunleik Groven]

While not discussing Nukes capacity, even with Nuke there are quite a few advantages as to stability and predictability to work with EXR's. And it's fast and colorconsistent.

When working in a larger environment where colorconsistency through many hands and minds is crucial, giving everyone RAW files to play with is not a very good idea...

If you are a one-man or small shop, that may differ...

Shake can also do EXRs, but I haven't tested that...
G

[paulherrin]

yes, shake can read up to exr 1.4, so just don't use any compressions that came in after that.

however, shake reads dpx and tiff much faster. exr's will be more accurate, but visually that is up for debate as to whether you will notice any difference. it probably depends on the image and how much you're going to be manipulating it. as a general rule, always do the bulk of your color correction with the raw file before you export.

[Alexander Ibrahim]

I love Shake... but if you really need to work directly with .r3d files, then you really need to look at more up to date composite applications.

At this point I think even AE is more advanced. (Not in working techniques... just technology.)

I prefer Nuke.

[Ben Brainerd]

Also, IMHO, I personally think working with RAW at the compositing/FX stage is generally a bad idea. Mainly because you can't render *BACK* to RAW.

As a Colorist, I get really frustrated when someone hands me a bunch of RAW files to grade most of the film and a few rendered FX shots. It makes the finishing workflow needlessly complex. My recommended workflow, if there's going to be any significant FX work, is to run the entire film off as DPX/EXR/TIFF/etc before sending it to FX. That way everything is coming to finishing in the same format, reducing hassles.

I work this way whenever possible since not every program renders RAW the same way. It's better than it used to be, but I've found that the exact same settings can, on occasion, produce slightly different results depending on what program is doing the rendering.