Studio Artist Beginner Question: Using Video

[Sweeney]

Hello Group, I was told by John (hi John!) to sign up here and ask my question about getting started in Studio Artist using video. I have gone through the tutorials and fear that the conceptual link is not being formed. I purchased the program as a video artist. I probably won't process many stills. I simply want to process video by laying whatever effects down and hitting the 'action' button. I have tried to save my own presets with limited success, but get lost in the shuffle of PAS vs image operations vs image operations vs paint synthesizer etc etc. I have a very dark image, so the PAS presets don't work very well with my image. Do I have to make my own presets, then export them, quite the program, and re apply them to my video clips? Am I missing a step, or other steps? I am working on a project now that needs to get done soon, so hunkering down through the entire 8 hours of tutorials seems a bit daunting, although I have reviewed them. Can anyone chime in to explain it in a way that makes sense to a Studio Pro noob? Thanks in advance :)

[liveart]

There are members in here far more adept at videos than I am. I can understand how you can get lost in the interface as a beginner. I will let the obvious comment about getting a new package to do a job on a deadline pass under the boards.

I am not certain which PASeq "don't work well with [a dark image]. But you do not need to make your own presets, if you DO choose to make one, you of course want to save it (export it), but you do not need to quit the program to use it.

why don't you start by describing the effect you are trying to achieve and lets see if anyone has advice on which existing preset might do that.

In terms of applying them to your video clips it all depends on how complicated you are getting with your effects. but generally speaking it can be as simple as using the command "process movie file with paint action sequence to movie"

[Rondan]

Hi Sweeney,

Welcome aboard.

I purchased the program as a video artist. I probably won't process many stills. I simply want to process video by laying whatever effects down and hitting the 'action' button. I have tried to save my own presets with limited success, but get lost in the shuffle of PAS vs image operations vs image operations vs paint synthesizer etc etc.

I have a very dark image, so the PAS presets don't work very well with my image.

Are you talking about a still image or video here? Try an image with better lighting to see what the effects are like.

Do I have to make my own presets, then export them, quite the program, and re apply them to my video clips? Am I missing a step, or other steps?

You don't have to make your own presets. Their are PAS presets already to be used.
That said-you will probably at sometime wish to make your own presets to get the effects you want. If you make a preset you right or left click with your mouse and select export name it save then go to where you exported it to and rt or left click under the action button and select reload presets (that eliminates the need to quit and reenter SA).

I am working on a project now that needs to get done soon, so hunkering down through the entire 8 hours of tutorials seems a bit daunting, although I have reviewed them.
You can go to the Action Menu and select "process movie file with a PASEQ to a movie to process an existing movie. Before you do this you should select the PASEQ that you want to use, by clicking on that preset, since it will begin processing the movie as soon as you bring it in. After the movie is processed-which at that point it does automatically-you can then use Load Movie to Canvas in the File Menu to bring the processed movie back into SA to view it.

I suggest that you go to tutorial disk 2 and watch the Introduction to Paint Action Sequence and the next tutorial about processing a movie with a Paint action sequence .

I hope this helps to get you started. I am sure others will have thoughts and suggestions as well. Good luck.


Can anyone chime in to explain it in a way that makes sense to a Studio Pro noob?

[Synthetik]

You use paint Action Sequences (PASeq) to process movie files in Studio Artist. You can either use one of the prebuilt factory PASeq preset we provide, or you can create your own custom PASeq.

Since you want to process a movie file, run the new source and canvas menu command. Select the movie file you want to process. Then specify the output frame size you want when the set canvas size dialog comes up. Your movie should now be loaded as the current source in the source area, where you should see the first frame of the movie and a movie transport.

To record a custom PASeq, you open the PASeq palette. You then turn on the record checkbox. Then you do whatever it is you want to do in your PASeq by using the Studio Artist interface. Let's say you want to use 1 paint preset to lay down some paint strokes. You would select that paint preset, then press the action button, let it run until you are satisfied, then press the spacebar to stop the action painting. You would then see a single paint action step recorded in your PASeq. You could then turn off PASeq recording.

Since you already have a source movie loaded and your canvas size set to your output frame size, the easiest way to process the source movie with your custom PASeq is to just run the 'Action : Process source movie with a paint action sequence to movie...' menu command. You will be asked to name the output movie, and then studio artist will process your source movie frame by frame. If you need to stop this process for some reason you can press the space bar, and then when the dialog comes up asking if you want to stop processing say yes.

If you want to use an image operation on your source movie for processing, then first record a paint action step that sets the canvas to the source image. press the erase button in the paseq window to erase your previous custom paseq, then turn on paseq recording. you can use the background popup on the right side above the canvas to do this in 3.5. you can then select the image operation you want to use, make sure the Ip Source is set to current layer. press the action button to run the ip op, then turn off paseq recording. you now have a new custom paseq you can use to process your source movie (as i described above by running the appropriate action menu command).


The tutorial introduction pdf in the documentation folder in 3.5 has a rather detail explanation of how to get started recording custom paseqs and processing movie files. the tutorial movie disc #2 has a number of different tutorial movies that run through how to record paseqs and then process movie files with them.


If your source movie is dark, you might want to use some image processing steps to lighten it up. the image compressor ip op would be one thing to try. one of the interactive adjustments like Lum or Bias/gain Adj would be another approach.

[Sweeney]

HI everyone!

Thank you for your responses!

I have reviewed the PASeq tutorials many time. Some of it is starting to sink in, thank you :)

Well,l at least I can get a PASeq image sequence processing. (This is for video, BTW.) Some of my problem areas lie in

1) Adjusting both the in/out points (it processes the whole movie, and in most cases, I don't want that, I just want a portion of the movie processed.)
2) Masking out a certain area of the image such that it does not affect the whole image. I might be headed for manual rotoscoping land on that one, I suspect.

John, thank you for chiming in so quickly :) This is really a great program, thank you!

It's not that the image exposure is dark, it's that the image of a woman is surrounded by a black backdrop, so many of the PASeq's seem not to register the black background so well as if there were many colors (i.i. the Native American figure in the tutorial.)

I am going to continue to dive more into the user guide and see what I can find. Thank you all for your patience with a Noob question. Any more suggestions are certainly welcome :)

[Synthetik]

3.5 does let you set in and out markers for the source movie. but to be honest the easiest way to deal with that is to use quicktime player, select the segment you want to process, copy and paste into a new movie, save that new movie (you can save it so it references the original movie data if you don't want to use up additional space on your hard disk), then use this new movie as your source.

if you want to do masking, you can use region selection to select an area, then turn on the mask (checkbox above the canvas). You can keyframe the region selection in your PASeq if you want the mask to vary over time.

if you have an embedded alpha channel in your source movie, there are menu commands you can use to set the selection to the source alpha that you can record in your PASeq.