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really basic length question

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George Lockwood

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really basic length question

PostMon Nov 05, 2018 7:00 pm

been googling but haven't found anything relevant so here i am with what's probably a dumb question. i'm just getting to know fusion 9 and thought i'd put in a long-ish, maybe five minute, shot to play with roto and tracking. thought i'd roto out a window for practice. when i put in some polygon nodes to roto out certain areas the timeline shows them as 1000 frames in length, far shorter than the shot being worked on. this is fusion 9 free, btw.

in the timeline, at the end of the polygon icon is a small arrow. i took this to mean that i could extend the polygon to the length of the clip by dragging or something but that didn't work. i could shorten it but not extend it. i also haven't seen anyplace i could set a default length for nodes. is this just a fusion free limitation? can someone point me to where to find these settings and procedures?

thanks,
g
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Bryan Ray

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Re: really basic length question

PostMon Nov 05, 2018 10:55 pm

Most Fusion nodes can only be as long as your Global frame range. Below the Time Slider, there are four numerical entry boxes, on either side of a slider bar. The inner two numbers define your render range, and the outer two are the global range. Fusion's default is a global range of 0 - 1000, but you can put any number you like in those boxes to change the global range.

To quickly match the global range to your clip's Shift-drag the Loader onto the Time Slider.

A five minute clip is ridiculously long, by the way. I'd recommend practicing on something more similar to what you'd typically see in production. 120 frames is 5 seconds at 24 fps, and that's pretty typical for a show with a slow cutting style.
Bryan Ray
http://www.bryanray.name
http://www.sidefx.com
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George Lockwood

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Re: really basic length question

PostTue Nov 06, 2018 12:06 am

thanks bryan. took me a minute. i think i have most of it. since i didn't turn anything up through googling, i don't have the terminology. i had some confusion between the slider that appears in the inspector when the 'loader' is selected (that only has a single input field on either side of the slider) and the timeline below the work area window. i wouldn't have called that a 'slider' but i guess that's what it's called. thanks for that!

btw, five minutes is on the short side for what i work with, non-industry material and often entire film rolls of 400-1200' for 16mm or 1000-2000' for 35mm. this particular image offers a lot of options to practice on, not to mention that if i'd started out with 120 frames i wouldn't have found out about dragging the loader to the time slider. thanks again for that!

g
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Bryan Ray

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Re: really basic length question

PostTue Nov 06, 2018 2:34 pm

Mind if I ask what the nature/application of the material is? I'm having a hard time imagining any single clip I'd be willing to look at for five minutes at a time. Roto is laborious enough when it's short. I can't even fathom how tedious it would be to routinely do it for thousands of frames at a time!
Bryan Ray
http://www.bryanray.name
http://www.sidefx.com
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George Lockwood

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Re: really basic length question

PostTue Nov 06, 2018 5:10 pm

it's, basically, a window replacement that would, under normal circumstances, have been shot with a green screen. two characters cross the window at the beginning and move to seated positions at which they do not overlap the window. then, later in the shot, one stands and again crosses the window, this time with the camera following him. i thought it would give me a chance to first, roto and track the window, then, second, roto the crosses and, finally, play with the larger move when the camera follows the character that stands and crosses the window. roto, tracking, discontinuous and compound mattes, seemed like a good practice candidate. if it works and is reasonably easy, i could then try the reverse angle and come away with precomped plates to edit the conversation with. all academic, though, as the film is already finished. footage is b&w, btw. thinking now, though, that i probably should have steadied the plate first. oh, well, all a learning experience.

thanks again,
g

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