(If you still need help after reading this do not leave a comment, please send an email to cs@digitalanarchy.com ) You’ve purchased one of our plugins and still see the watermark on your footage? Let’s fix that! In some cases, especially with Final Cut Pro, when you enter your serial number the demo watermark doesn’t disappear. This is almost always caused by the host app caching the render with the watermark. Sometimes the host app doesn’t recognize you entering your serial number as something that would affect the render. So… it doesn’t re-render anything… and you have a licensed plugin and you still see the watermark. This is most common in Final Cut Pro. In fact, it almost always happens. So we’ll tackle FCP first. Final Cut Pro In FCP, as mentioned, if the demo watermark lines are still there after activating the plug-in, it’s due to a cached render. The easiest way to fix this is to change any parameter. For example, in Flicker Free change Threshold from 20 to 19. FCP knows you made a change and will re-render the screen without the watermark. Usually, a small change like this won’t affect the look of the plugin. (For Flicker Free use Threshold, for Beauty Box use Skin Smoothing, etc) You can also clear this by selecting your project in the Browser window in FCP, then go to File > Delete Generated Project files, check “Delete Render Files”, and click OK. This will remove the watermark from every frame in that project. The downside is that it clears _all_ the cached files including ones not affected by the watermark. This isn’t a problem, but it may slow FCP down for a few minutes while it re-renders everything. Premiere In Premiere, if you still see the watermark after entering the serial number, first click on a different frame on the timeline. Registering the plug-in doesn’t always cause the video preview to update, so moving the playhead after registering will cause the watermark to disappear. If that doesn’t do it, you can delete the render files for that sequence by clicking the Sequence menu at the top of Premiere, selecting Delete Render Files, and clicking OK. After Effects After Effects does re-load the current frame after entering the serial number, so it should do a good job removing the watermark without you having to do anything else. You can delete the cached preview if necessary by clicking Edit at the top of After Effects and selecting Purge > Image Cache Memory.Resolve Resolve gives you a few options when deleting the render files. Click Playback at the top of Resolve, select Delete Render Cache, and then choose All to delete all of the render files for that project, or choose Selected Clips to delete the render files for the clips you have selected on the timeline (make sure to actually select the clips before doing this). Either way will delete any remaining watermarked frames. All host apps: Make sure the plug-in is registered If you see the watermark lines, it’s possible the plug-in is not actually registered on that computer, or that the license was deactivated so it could be used on a different computer if you’re using it on more than one. If you’re upgrading to a new release (Beauty Box 4 to Beauty Box 5 or FLicker Free 1 to FLicker Free 2, you’ll be asked to enter your new serial number for that version.Check the registration status by clicking the Register or Setup button in the plug-in controls, in the location below: If the plug-in is registered, you’ll see the registration info window. This means the plug-in is registered: If it isn’t registered, you can click Authorize and then enter your Name (you can enter anything), Organization (you can enter anything or leave this blank), and serial number.If you have any questions or are running into any issues activating a plug-in after following these steps, send us an email at cs@digitalanarchy.com
Do not use Norton Anti-Virus
We highly recommend against using Norton Anti-Virus. In an attempt to be smart, they proactively quarantine programs because “fewer than 50 users in the Norton community have them”. This means many of our plugins get quarantined when you try to install them. Our installers pose no threat and you can safely install them. Here’s what Norton puts up: 1- It describes the risk as Heur.AdvML.C and labels it a ‘heuristic virus’ which sounds scary and looks like a virus name. It’s not. It’s a Norton code for their ‘artificial intelligence’. If this is how smart AI is, it’s going to be a long time before the bots take over the world. 2- Our major crimes against humanity seem to be that less than 50 users have installed this and it was uploaded over 4 months ago. That’s it. So Norton’s ‘malware heuristics’ AI has decided were a High threat. This is misleading and doing a disservice to us and our users. I assume most other plugins from small companies will fall under the same umbrella of stupidity. As such we recommend you use a different anti-virus software.
Avoiding Prop Flicker when Shooting Drone Video Footage
We released a new tutorial showing how to remove prop flicker, so if you have flicker problems on drone footage, check that out. (It’s also at the bottom of this post) But what if you want to avoid prop flicker altogether? Here’s a few tips: But first, let’s take a look at what it is. Here’s an example video: 1- Don’t shoot in such a way that the propellers are between the sun and the camera. The reason prop flicker happens is the props are casting shadows onto the lens. If the sun is above and in front of the lens, that’s where you’ll get the shadows and the flicker. (shooting sunrise or sunset is fine because the sun is below the props) 1b- Turning the camera just slightly from the angle generating the flicker will often get rid of the flicker. You can see this in the tutorial below on removing the flicker. 2- Keep the camera pointed down slightly. It’s more likely to catch the shadows if it’s pointing straight out from the drone at 90 degrees (parallel to the props). Tilt it down a bit, 10 or 20 degrees, and that helps a lot. 3- I’ve seen lens hoods for the cameras. Sounds like they help, but I haven’t personally tried one. Unfortunately sometimes you have to shoot something in such a way that you can’t avoid the prop flicker. In which cases using a plugin like Flicker Free allows you to eliminate or reduce the flicker problem. You can see how to deflicker videos with prop flicker in the below tutorial.
Wacom Tablets and Repetitive Stress Injuries
I’ve written about this before, but Thanksgiving came along this year and I left on a 5 day, two city trip without my Wacom tablet. Which reminded me exactly why I’m thankful for the tablet. The downside to running Digital Anarchy is that I don’t really get many days off. Usually I’m working in some capacity at least a couple hours a day even on vacations. For trips (like Thanksgiving) that involve plane flights and other downtime, it’s usually a lot more than two hours. (Not really complaining, just pointing out that it’s a thing. There’s plenty of awesome stuff about being Chief Executive Anarchist and coming up with cool video plugins for y’all) I’ve used a Wacom tablet as a mouse replacement since around 2003. I used to run a user group called Bay Area Motion Graphics. Because I and one other DA employee had RSI problems, I got a variety of ‘ergonomic’ devices and had DA folks and members of BAMG try them out. BAMG was mostly video editors and motion graphic artists, to give you some idea of who was using them. Extra space on your keyboard drawer, yes. Clean desk, no. We swapped around the weird looking keyboards, joystick mouse things, trackballs, tablets, and other oddments. We then got together and decided which devices seemed to offer relief to the most people. One of the devices that stood out, especially for me, was the Wacom tablet. Once you get used to using it as a mouse replacement it’s really an awesome device. I have multiple tablets and use them constantly in the office and while traveling. It makes using the computer much less painful. That’s in stark contrast to the last few days. No tablet, so I’ve been forced to use the track pad on the two computers I carry around. My wrists immediately started to ache and tingle. Not good. It’s amazing that for the most part I have no problems when using the tablets, but then after a couple days not using them, much of the pain comes back. Of course, RSI is a whole body thing. Not only do your wrists hurt, but you’re in a less ergonomic position (f’ing hotel chairs) so my shoulders and back hurt as well. Why are the Wacom tablets so effective for helping with RSI? I’m not sure to be honest. But I feel that 1) you’re holding the pen as you would a normal pen. This is a skill you’ve been working on since you were a small child and the muscle memory is very strong. 2) you’re not just using one body part over and over again (like your index finger on a mouse). You’re using your whole hand, wrist and arm. I feel like this distributes the stress over a greater area. Whatever the case, for me, the tablets have been a godsend. It takes some time to get really familiar with them, but it’s been well worth it for me. Of course, it’s just one part of having an ergonomic workstation but it’s a big one (a great chair is another big one). Your health is critical. Take care of yourself.
Why VR Will Fail. (and AR too)
First off, neither will fail completely. VR will succeed in games and AR will end up like the Segway… used by mall cops and tourists. And, yeah, there’ll be some industrial and entertainment (e.g. theme park rides) applications for both. But widespread consumer use? No. Fail. Why? Because most people don’t care. At all. Geeks LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this type of stuff because it’s extremely cool technology. And it’s true, the tech behind it is amazing. However, this does not matter to most people. For most people what matters is 1) does this make my experience better MOST of the time and 2) is it easy to use? Or, more simply: Does this make my experience so much better that it’s worth the effort required to learn and use it? We ran into this problem with Web 3D when I worked for on Cult3D for Cycore, which was a browser plugin to let you view 3D objects on the web. Really cool tech. Cult3D, and 3D on the web pretty much completely failed. Why? Because a sneaker in 3D gets you no closer to trying it on than a bunch of photos. And that 3D sneaker costs a LOT more to create than a few photos. But VR and AR are different than Web3D! No, sorry, they’re not. It’s going to be the same problem. The content creation costs are going to be a killer and does it really add anything to the experience? Is it the order of magnitude better that it needs to be for most people to invest the time/effort/money in it? Especially since it requires glasses you wouldn’t otherwise need, particularly clunky, tech looking ones. For example, the Magic Leap (VR/AR technology startup) website shows a bunch of schoolkids looking at a virtual seahorse. Ok, that’s going to be super awesome… until the novelty wears off. Then… is that virtual seahorse better than high resolution photos and videos showing the seahorse in it’s natural environment that can be shown on a smartboard or HD TV (tech that schools already have)? No, probably not. And do you really think schools are going to outfit entire schools with VR/AR tech and the expensive content? Most schools can’t even buy one smartboard for each classroom… to say nothing of training teachers, many of whom are not very tech literate. But wait, I’ll be able to see bus stops and find restaurants just by looking around! How often do you actually need to do this? You’re going to wear glasses you don’t need so that you can be visually bombarded with virtual signage and more information? Most of us are already in information overload. For the few times a day I need to check bus schedules, Yelp, or Lyft I don’t need AR. AR might be marginally better than having to look at my phone, but it’s something I need to WEAR. And how do you control it? waving your hands around? A fanny pack controller attached to your belt? One other issue is one that dogged 3D TV. People are social and want to connect, especially by looking in each other’s eyes. I don’t like talking to people that can’t stop looking at their phone. If I can’t see their eyes or if their eyes are constantly glazed over looking at the retina display… it’s a big problem. And no, most people don’t want to live in virtual worlds. Yes, for gaming, great. Real life? Give me a f’ing break. Nobody wants to see your dragon avatar walking around the airport. So between the high content creation costs, the difficulty/cost using it, social impediments and the fact that in most cases it’s not going to improve the experience by an order of magnitude, I don’t see it succeeding as a common, every day thing for personal use .
EL Capitan, Plugins and the Anarchist
First off, the important bit: All the current versions of our plugins are updated for El Capitan and should be working, regardless of host application (After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Davinci Resolve, etc). So you can go to our demo page: http://digitalanarchy.com/demos/main.html And download the most recent version of your plugins. If you haven’t upgraded to El Capitan, I’ll add to the chorus of people saying… Don’t. Overall we’re disappointed by Apple as continues its march towards making the Mac work like the iPhone. Making professional uses more and more obsolete. They’re trying way too hard to make the machines idiot proof and in the process dumbing down what can be done with it. One of the latest examples is, of all things, Disk Utility. You can no longer make a RAID using it and have to use a terminal command. They’ve removed other functionality as well, but for many professional users RAIDs are essential as is Disk Utility. However, it’s now been crippled. Of course, then there’s Final Cut Pro (which has gotten better but still doesn’t feel like a professional app to many people), Photos which replaced Apple’s pro app Aperture, and the Mac Pro trashcan. (kind of sad that when we need a ‘new’ Mac, usually we buy a 2010-12 12-core Mac Pro, they outperform our D500 trashcan) Apple isn’t alone in this ‘dumbing down’ trend. Just look at latest releases of Acrobat (which I’ve heard referred to as the Fischer Price version) and Lightroom. Note to Application Developers- Just because we’re doing a lot of things with our phones does not mean we want to do everything on them or have our desktop apps work like phone apps. There’s a difference between simplicity, making the user experience clear and intuitive but retaining features that make the apps powerful, and stupidity, i.e. making the apps idiot proof. Anyways, end of rant… I spend a fair amount of time thinking about software usability, since we have to strike that balance between ease of use and power with our own video plugins, and using the host applications and OS professionally. So this ‘dumbing down’ concerns me both for my personal uses and having to help DA customers navigate new ‘features’ that affect our photo and video plugins. Cheers, Jim Tierney Chief Executive Anarchist Digital Anarchy
It’s a 4K World! … or not.
A survey released lately seem to indicate that, despite all the marketing, there’s little consumer interest in 4K… or UltraHD as it’s now called. It’s estimated that it’s going to take until 2017, at least, for 4K televisions to make up more than 5% of the market. Having just got back from CES and seeing all the latest and great 4K stuff, it’s fairly obvious as to why. It’s not that much better. Manufacturers are touting all sorts of crazy things to justify 4K… you can have the picture spread across two screens! You can look at more of your surveillance cameras on one screen! All sorts of great ideas that try to get around the fact that the one thing you don’t want to do is buy a 4K TV just to WATCH it. The picture is a little better than standard HD, but on a screen of less than 90″, it’s just not that noticable. I can see the eyes of the quarterback just fine in HD. I don’t need to see his nose hairs. Of course, showing all that skin detail is great for stuff like Beauty Box, so we’re looking forward to the 4K revolution. However, if you’re worried about producing 4K content, you can probably relax. It’s going to be a long while before anyone can watch it.
Creative Cloud from a Software Design Perspective
The Creative Cloud has gotten mixed reviews from users. Many users don’t like the idea of ‘renting’ software and feel Adobe is forcing them to pay more or gouging them. While this may or may not be true, there are other reasons for Adobe wanting to make this switch. Software is traditionally done in big releases. You work for a year or more and deliver the final product with much fanfare. This is a feast or famine type of thing… users get all or nothing and the company bets the farm that the release is all that and a bag of potato chips. This really isn’t great for either users or the company.
Patent Trolls
The other day I had a friend call and ask me if I could help him out with some info about visual effects. He’s not in the industry, so I wondered about this, but I gave him a call back ready to help him out if I could. As it turns out he was looking for information about Match Moving. It’s not something I know a ton about, but I know some people that I could refer him to. I asked him why he was looking for the info. He mentioned he was working for a company doing some research for a patent they own. I asked him if this company had a product related to match moving? No. Were they thinking about building a product? No. So basically they’re a patent troll? At which point he admitted he was working for a patent troll. It’s good money apparently. IMHO, patent trolls are the terrorists of the tech industry. (note: I’m not saying they are terrorists, they aren’t killing people)
What Does the Creative Cloud Mean to You?
Last month we asked folks to do a survey about the Creative Cloud and how they felt about it. I thought I’d share the results as some of you may also be curious what you’re fellow users are thinking about the Creative Cloud. Keep in mind that the survey was done before Adobe announced the price drop on Photoshop & Lightroom to $10/mo. So the data is already somewhat out of date, but maybe sheds some light on why they dropped the price.
Speeding Up Beauty Box Video
We’ve come along way from Beauty Box Video 1.0, which was pretty slow. It’s now as fast as any other solution out there, and BB still offers the easiest and highest quality way of doing retouching for HD, 4K, and film. That said, it still requires a render and there are various things that can slow it down. It can really slow FCP X down if FCP isn’t configured correctly. What should you expect speed-wise from Beauty Box? A minute of HD video should take from 3-10 minutes to render out on a reasonably fast machine. So let’s discuss how to get those faster speeds. If you have a fast video card (say, the Nvidia 680 in an iMac) and are seeing really slow speeds, make sure you read to the end were we discuss the configuration file BB uses. After Effects: Beauty Box will render faster in AE than any other host app. This is primarily because of how AE handles multiprocessing. It’s far better than any of the video editing apps. It requires a fair amount of RAM to really take advantage of, but it can run very fast. If it’s possible, we recommend doing the Beauty Box pass in AE, and then bring the intermediary file into your editing app to cut. Final Cut Pro 7 & X: If you’re using FCP X, turn off background rendering. Background rendering works great with basic filters, but when you have something that’s render intensive like Beauty Box background rendering will bring FCP X to it’s knees. Also, turn off scrubbing. FCP will start caching frames and, again, start rendering multiple frames in the background which will really make FCP sluggish. Generally, we recommend either applying BB first, and then turning it off as you’re editing, OR applying it last. Applying it last is the preferred way. You can take your edit, create a compound clip, and then apply Beauty Box to the compound clip. In FCP 7, a compound clip is called ‘Nest’. Premiere Pro: Similar in some respects to what happens in Final Cut Pro. It’s not a real-time effects, so it’ll prevent the Mercury engine from rendering in real-time. So, again, you want to apply Beauty Box either before you start editing (and turn it off while you edit) or apply it as the last step after editing and color correction (recommended). Video Cards: Beauty Box is accelerated using OpenCL. This means it’ll get a massive speed boost from newer Nvidia and AMD video cards. In practice, this speed boost can vary quite a bit. We’ve run into more problems with AMD cards than Nvidia, so we recommend Nvidia cards if possible. Although, usually AMD cards are fine, so it’s not a huge deal. It does tend to be a bit more of a problem on the Mac where Apple creates the drivers. The AMD drivers tend to be more problematic than Nvidia’s. Regardless of which video card you have, we recommend getting the most recent Mac OS (and staying current with updates). Apple rolls driver fixes into the latest OS, so if you’re using an older OS, it’s potentially a problem. If you’re on Windows, you can just download the latest drivers, so it’s less of an issue. What video card to get? We still like the Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 as being the best price/performance option out there. For video applications, the Quadro cards don’t offer a lot of benefits. They tend to be slower and you’re paying for features that are more applicable to engineering/3D apps. If you do a lot of 3D work, the Quadro might be a better choice (I don’t do much 3D, so I can’t comment on that). The newer GeForce cards like the GTX 680 and GTX Titan are great, but don’t necessarily offer the speed boost to justify the extra cost. They are faster, so if you’re looking for the absolute fastest card then the Titan or GTX 690 is a great choice. Both cards require a ton of power, so make sure you’ve got a small nuclear power plant as your power supply. OpenCL Configuration File Beauty Box creates a special configuration file for the video cards in your system. This makes a file that you can send us that helps us troubleshoot any problems and it also keeps track of whether a given video card is crashing when used with BB. If the video card is always crashing this is a good thing. However, sometimes you’ll have a random one-off crash and BB will disable OpenCL. This will cause a dramatic slowdown in rendering. The solution is to delete the configuration file. BB will then recreate a default file next time it starts and rendering speeds will be back to normal. But you need to know where it is to delete it, so here are the locations: Windows: Documents\Digital Anarchy\DA_OpenCL_Devices.txt Mac: Users\Shared\Digital Anarchy\DA_OpenCL_Devices.txt Happy rendering… 🙂
Greenscreen Tips for Shooting Video
There was a question the other day on the After Effects List about tips for successfully shooting greenscreen. A couple good links were suggested (see below), but one that stood out was rotating the video camera vertically. If you’re shooting a person standing, and they’re going to be keyed anyways so you don’t need the extra space horizontally, use the wide part of the camera to capture more vertical resolution. It was also a reminder that shooting greenscreen is difficult even for pros. Great tips from Jonas Hummelstrand: http://generalspecialist.com/greenscreen-and-bluescreen-checklist/ and from the After Effects Help section! http://adobe.ly/RNe3pz More vertical resolution, anyone?
