The Top Ten Percent

I’m a bit confused about when the process for preserving the top 10 percent comes into play. The Guide goes into a lot of detail about how to export effects plates from your NLE and keep the top ten percent of the luminance signal, but doesn’t mention it when importing your edited film into AE for onlining. Does that mean the process is different and isn’t a problem? Or are you meant to go through that whole process for all footage that goes over 100 percent?

	Quote:
	Or are you meant to go through that whole process for all footage that goes over 100 percent?

Yes, if you want to save the super white values.

-- Bruce

_________________
Bruce Findleton
Land's End Productions

bfindleton wrote:

	Quote:
	Or are you meant to go through that whole process for all footage that goes over 100 percent?

Yes, if you want to save the super white values.

-- Bruce

How about in Premiere Pro & After Effects, not saving tiff files but simply opening the Premiere Pro (prproj) project in After Effects? Would it still be necessary to use the Proc Amp effect as described in the book?

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	Ruby Quincunx wrote:
	How about in Premiere Pro & After Effects, not saving tiff files but simply opening the Premiere Pro (prproj) project in After Effects? Would it still be necessary to use the Proc Amp effect as described in the book?

Not if you use CS3 and set your After Effects project to 32bpc! In that case the overbrights are preserved correctly. Way to go Adobe!

Better still, your Colorista corrections that you started in PPro will be carried over to AE, where they will be applied in float and respect the overbrights as well.

It's a beautiful world.

-Stu

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Last edited by Stu on Fri Nov 14, 2008 6:41 pm; edited 1 time in total

	Stu wrote:
	Not if you use CS3 and set your After Effects project to 32bpc! In that case the overbrights are preserved correctly. Way to go Adobe!

In the Adobe Help AE help file it says:

	Quote:
	You can import 10-bpc uncompressed YUV AVI files created in Adobe Premiere Pro into 16-bpc RGB After Effects projects. You can also render with 10-bpc YUV compression.

But then goes on to say:

	Quote:
	Dynamically linked compositions are rendered in the color depth of the After Effects project (8-, 16‑, or 32‑bpc, depending on project settings). Set the After Effects project color depth to 32‑bpc if you’re working with HDR (high dynamic range) assets.

Can you describe a typical workflow, Stu, that allows you to retrieve the top ten percent in AE? I tried using levels in 16 bit and pushing up the input white but it doesn't look right compared to the ProcAmp treated footage. When I switch to 32 bit my comp display looks like 4 bit color and when I try to ram preview it crashes AE. Non optimal to say the least.

-- Bruce

_________________
Bruce Findleton
Land's End Productions

	bfindleton wrote:
	When I switch to 32 bit my comp display looks like 4 bit color and when I try to ram preview it crashes AE. Non optimal to say the least.

Report that to bugs [at] adobe [dot] com dude, that's obviously not how it's supposed to work!

DV video in AECS3 maintains "the top ten percent" as floating-point overbright values in 32bpc mode.

-Stu

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The DV Rebel's Guide

	Stu wrote:
	Report that to bugs [at] adobe [dot] com dude, that's obviously not how it's supposed to work!

Ya think?... Wink

Turned on OpenGL previewing and 32 bit now behaves appropriately. Go figure. And, yes, pumping up the input white in Levels now reveals the formerly blown out details. Smoove!

Unfortunately this only works in 32 bit float, not 16 bit. I can ram preview about 10 frames of HDV footage. Should prove interesting since I'll be doing the post on a 90 minute D2DVD feature. Hopefully the DP used the zebra bars more judiciously than he did in the first reel that I'm playing with... Wink

Thanks for the tip.

-- Bruce

_________________
Bruce Findleton
Land's End Productions

One technique is to work in 16 or even 8bpc and then render at 32. You can create render settings that force the bitdepth.

-Stu

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The DV Rebel's Guide

And this won't introduce color- or other artifacts coming from 8 or 16bpc-effects? Many effects like color balance only work correctly with 8 or 16bpc and will produce artifacts when used in 32bpc mode.

_________________
The creative person with limitless imagination and no money can make a better film than the talentless mogul with the limitless checkbook every time - Robert Rodriguez

If you're going to work in 32bpc it's better to stick with 32bpc effects, yes.

-Stu

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The DV Rebel's Guide

so i just started playing around with CS3 and have always worked with 16 bit in the past. Are you guys saying it is recommended to use 32 bpc. Just bought the Mark Christiansen book, need to start reading up on this!

I always thought this should be a sticky or something just for clarification. In THE GUIDE, it says, "When you import a clip from your NLE into After Effects, it gets converted to RGB, and clipped at 100 percent in the process. Ultimately, this is the reason why exporting native media is not a good way of getting images out of an NLE for visual effects, or, as you'll discover in the next chapter, for onlining."

I'm assuming that this was written for AE 7.0 (right, Stu?) and is now FIXED in AE CS3 (and obviously it's not crazy to assume the same will be true for all the following versions of AE).

I think that's a pretty important point to highlight, especially for those who would like to use AAF (Avid, Premiere, Vegas, etc) or XML (FCP) files to get their timeline (with all the cuts) into After Effects. This is DEFINITELY much easier than rendering out to QUICKTIME ANIMATION or UNCOMPRESSED AVI and then putting the cuts back in in After Effects manually.

I think it's definitely worth a sticky or something just to make people's lives easier (unless it's been updated in THE GUIDE already and I just don't know it).

If not, tell me to shut up and I'll mind my own business. Smile

LATER!

Stu wrote:

	Ruby Quincunx wrote:
	How about in Premiere Pro & After Effects, not saving tiff files but simply opening the Premiere Pro (prproj) project in After Effects? Would it still be necessary to use the Proc Amp effect as described in the book?

Not if you use CS3 and set your After Effects project to 32bpc! In that case the overbrights are preserved correctly. Way to go Adobe!

Better still, your Colorista corrections that you started in PPro will be carried over to AE, where they will no be applied in float and respect the overbrights as well.

It's a beautiful world.

-Stu

_________________
Paul Del Vecchio - Director
http://www.PaulDV.com/news
http://TripleEBlog.com
http://www.myspace.com/pauldv
http://www.triple-e-productions.net
http://www.twitter.com/pauldv

Paul Del Vecchio wrote:

I always thought this should be a sticky or something just for clarification. In THE GUIDE, it says, "When you import a clip from your NLE into After Effects, it gets converted to RGB, and clipped at 100 percent in the process. Ultimately, this is the reason why exporting native media is not a good way of getting images out of an NLE for visual effects, or, as you'll discover in the next chapter, for onlining."

I'm assuming that this was written for AE 7.0 (right, Stu?) and is now FIXED in AE CS3 (and obviously it's not crazy to assume the same will be true for all the following versions of AE).

You're 100% correct Paul, this was fixed in CS3 after the book's release. As long as you use compatible media and work in 32bpc in AE, this is no longer an issue.

And now we are sticky.

-Stu

_________________
The DV Rebel's Guide

Thanks for making this a sticky. You're the man!

Just one question so I'm clear and I don't spread wrong information. What do you mean by "compatible media" and what would be an example of incompatible media?

Stu wrote:

Paul Del Vecchio wrote:

I always thought this should be a sticky or something just for clarification. In THE GUIDE, it says, "When you import a clip from your NLE into After Effects, it gets converted to RGB, and clipped at 100 percent in the process. Ultimately, this is the reason why exporting native media is not a good way of getting images out of an NLE for visual effects, or, as you'll discover in the next chapter, for onlining."

I'm assuming that this was written for AE 7.0 (right, Stu?) and is now FIXED in AE CS3 (and obviously it's not crazy to assume the same will be true for all the following versions of AE).

You're 100% correct Paul, this was fixed in CS3 after the book's release. As long as you use compatible media and work in 32bpc in AE, this is no longer an issue.

And now we are sticky.

-Stu

_________________
Paul Del Vecchio - Director
http://www.PaulDV.com/news
http://TripleEBlog.com
http://www.myspace.com/pauldv
http://www.triple-e-productions.net
http://www.twitter.com/pauldv

	Stu wrote:
	As long as you use compatible media and work in 32bpc in AE, this is no longer an issue.

He knows his stuff this Stu bloke Wink

16bit

32bit

Screenies from a project I'm working on & now finally understanding the YUV to RGB clipping, few questions though:

Firstly if I apply procAmp & make slight adjustments in Prem & open that project in AE 16bit (CS3) they're quite clearly not appplied according to the RGB parade?

So secondly if I work in AE 32bpc float then, is my workflow the same eg. export as TIFF with LZW compression?

Lastly what are the implications on my hardware for working in 32bpc, will I be rendering four fold in time for example?

Thanks for any help Café, the guide is continuing to be an invaluable resource Very Happy