Smoke Losing Color Info on Red Files

[Anonymous]

This is a continuation of an old post from the 2013 version, and I am hoping there is now a solution. Back then, the solution was a workaround using Red Cine. We're hoping this is no longer required.
The old post can be viewed at: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/General-Discussion/Smoke-loses-camera-information-on-red-conform/m-p/4...

The issue is fairly simple to understand: Smoke is reading the red camera's color information perfectly, that is until we need to change one aspect of it, specifically changing the colour from gamma to REDlogFilm. When this happens, all camera information is restarted to some Smoke default.
Well that's no good. It's very common to need to work in log space, but there'd never be a reason to change the ISO or kelvin along with it. In Red, naturally, any changes you make do not affect the camera settings, you can change anything and not affect the whole pie.
The work around in 2013 was to change the "camera info" or RMD file by bringing them into Red first, switching the color space to REDlogFilm and saving, so that when brought into Smoke it would see the camera settings as log already.
I've attached some screen shots to also help articulate this. The images are the correct log space with the camera settings (done in Red) and the one Smoke produces.
Thank you,
Josh

[hansvons]

Hi Josh,

this issue is a bug a should be suqished some time. But: as a longtime (2008) Red-user and Epic-Dragon owner I can tell you that in in no software package I know other than RedCine the Red-SDK works as excpected. In the moment DragonColor is the problem puppy in Resolve 10.

I found out (and so did many others) that the "native" sensor settings are: ISO 250/320, 5000/5600K regardless what the settings in-camera (.RMD file) have been. This applies for the MX and the Dragon sensor. Using other ISO and Kelvin settings are nothing else but a "pre-grading" which may not be adavantageously. Smoke, hower, defaults to ISO 320 which is IMHO the right setting anyway. Using RedLogFilm is the only meaningful gamma-curve for finishing.

Hence, for me this bug is a non-issue. 

---

sidenote: softimporting R3D files is not working meaningfully, Smoke leverages not all available resources. RT playback is only possibel in 1/4 debayer. Hard-importing/cashing is dog slow due to the mediocre Red-SDK implementation in Smoke. This issue persits from day one Smoke was available on the Mac. 

I use Resolve for transcoding the rushes. It does a very good job and is 5 -10 times quicker than Smoke. IMO, its much quicke to re-transcode the shots in Resolve and re-conform them later in Smoke than to let Smoke do the job.

Hans 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply Hans. I feel ya that the defaults could work, but if I change the colorspace I cannot change any other settings. In this paticular circumstance, we're a vendor receiving shots, so we're not at liberty to make those changes. If someone were to transcode the red files via Red Cine, they'd most likely only change the colorspace as well.

Either way, for anyone with this issue, the solution is a simple workaround: Go into Red Cine (free download) and select any of the clips you want changed, change them (for me it's a simple adjustment to REDgamma3 to REDlogFilm), and then exit. Your rdm file will update automatically. You can also update it back if you need to, but you won't since you can always have "camera" as your colour science option in Smoke.

Here's my workflow for even further detail: Often I'll need both log and linear. Since we can assume the camera settings are of course set to linear, when I connect my edl or offline clips to the red files, I'll keep the colour science to "camera" (debayer is up to you, I ALWAYS go full since we're not editing with these clips and just exporting them from edls) and connect. After exporting v001 io's, I'll duplicate my sequence, then disconnect media on the sequence I've now named v002, and then on my conform tab reconnect I will go to format spesific options and change the colour science from "camera" to "RSX or RMD/Camera." This setting allows Smoke to read the rmd changes.

-Josh