In
this tutorial tour we're joined by experts imported from Montreal to
show us some neat tricks using Softimage|DS. Our Canadian friends will
let us in on some great secrets about this powerful digital video editing
and compositing system, so we can really drive it at its full potential.
And, it turns out that reports of this DS's demise were greatly exaggerated,
because back room show-and-tell proves that Avid/Softimage is developing
lots of new features and enhancements for the next version of DS, version
3.0 that's code-named Cuba. Nope, I'm not going to tell you a thing
about that mighty upgrade, since I'd be swimming with the fishes if
I did. Suffice to say that for an application that many left for dead
due to Avid's (and everyone else's) intense interest in DS's cousin
Avid Symphony, there sure are lots of new whistles and bells on the
next version, due this fall.
That said, let's place ourselves back into the present and sitting in front of the current shipping version of Softimage|DS, version 2.1. First, we'll take a look at DS's color correction tools, and discover new and unique ways to use them. Just like any other tool, color correction is a tool in the library. So to use it, select the clip, then right click and the pop-up menu lets you choose Add Clip Effect (or if you're new to the system, you can always refer to the NLE panel by switching the main browser between main panel and NLE). Then you get access to a browser containing hundreds of effects
(Figure
1). Select Color Correction in that window, and then a dialog box
appears that lets you manipulate the shot's hue, saturation, gain and
brightness. There's lots more than that, too, with adjustments of every
aspect of the color space in which you're working. Go ahead and goof
around with it -- whichever control you manipulate, those changes are
applied to the shot in real time. Great. But let's say you want to animate
this color correction. Figures 2,3 and 4 show you how to do this.
Here's
where you can animate any of DS's hundreds of effects, not only the
color correction. Hey, here's a great idea: If you're trying to track
a difficult subject and there's not a good point on which to base this
tracking, use color correction to enhance the contrast, then apply your
tracking. It makes the tracking control work much better, and you can
always remove the color correction after the tracking data has been
calculated.
Speaking
of the Tracker, let's use that to stabilize some images. That's really
important when you're compositing, because when you're layering shots
together, you don't want some of them shaking more than others - that
would ruin the entire effect! So if you're compositing two images together,
be sure to stabilize all of them, so they will be moving in the same
way. Don't worry - if you like that "shakycam" look, we'll jiggle them
all in unison just for you at the end of this neat trick. The tracker
is integrated within the DVE, so you first drop the clip you want to
stabilize on the timeline. Then go to the compositor by clicking on
the compositing layout icon on the left task bar (that looks like pieces
of paper lined up.) Once you're there, you can see that this clip has
been loaded into the Layer View by default.
Click
the DVE slice of the layer in the resulting dialog box, click Track
and you'll see the Motion Tracker dialog box. In this case, click Stabilize,
and you're ready to decide how many points you'll need in this stabilization.
If there's just vertical and horizontal shake, you'll just need one
- but in rare cases, you'll need more than one if there is movement
on the z axis, too. Here's where you can use the color corrector to
allow the tracker to see the contrast easier. Also, use it temporarily
as a viewing aid so you can see where the best, most contrasty point
is. Make that happen by reducing the saturation to zero.
Here's a crucial
step: While placing your tracker, hold down the Control key so that
you'll keep the frame in the same place for the entire shot. Define
the area you'd like to track, and go for it (Fig. 5 and 5a). 
After
you've set everything the way you want, click Track, and DS starts calculating
all the tracking points, looking at every frame to find the pattern
you designated. Now, after you've stabilized the shot, you'll need to
scale up (zoom in) the image to get rid of the frame edges revealed
when the frame was moved around. Do this by clicking on DVE and then
Scale and use the interactive bounding box to scale up the images so
those pesky black areas around the frame don't show any more. After
you've processed this together with the stabilization, you're done!
Now, here's an idea that'll make your final composite look even more
realistic. Once you've finished adding all your layers together, put
the shake back into the shot by using the original shake with which
you started. When
you first tracked the shot, the tracking information was sent to the
DVE.
Save
that shake by dragging a thumbnail of that DVE move into any toolbar.
Then re-apply that move to the final composite by closing the graphics
container and clicking on the DVE preset in the toolbar. Boom! There's
a revisited, mirror image of the original shakiness. But it's "good
shake." Good shake? Well, it's uniform shake with all the layers shivering
in concert for that oh-so-trendy look.
Now, here's a tip that Softimage support tech say is one of the most often-asked-for effects that isn't mentioned in the documentation. It's adding a drop shadow to a layer. First, drop the shot you want to key into the overlay track, and drop the background track into the video track directly below that of the overlay track. Select the clip in the overlay track and apply the blue/green keyer as a clip-based effect. Now, pick the key color (in this case it's green and DS makes the composite in real time). To fine-tune your matte, try shrinking the matte a bit to cover up that green line around the object. Try blurring the matte to give a smoother edge between the object and its background. Right click on the foreground in the overlay track and add the drop shadow effect as a clip-based effect. Drag the drop shadow to that perfect spot, then adjust the softness and opacity to your liking.
So, are you a new user of Softimage|DS? If you've spent years learning the keyboard shortcuts of, for example, Avid's Media Composer, those shortcuts are only a button click away. Under the File menu, select User Preferences and click on the Shortcut Keys tab, and choose keyboard shortcuts from Avid, GVG or Sony (Fig. 6). Or, create your own shortcuts if none of those suit you. Perhaps the best tip I could give you would be to point you to the Softimage Web site, where there are over a hundred questions answered in detail by Softimage's panel of experts. These are issues that are frequently asked of the DS technical support department, so if you have a valid support contract and you'd like answers to something not covered here, the Web is the place to look. It's at http://www.softimage.com/ under the Support button. Or see the latest DS information at Avid's DS area.
Here's what I used to test and learn DS:
Intergraph StudioZ
GT Dual Pentium III Xeon processors at 550 MHz
512 MB EDO
RAM
Two 21" Intergraph Multisync 4:3 monitors
Eight 18-GB FibreChannel Disks
Intergraph Studio Z Serial Digital Video Board
Special thanks to Matt Allard, Janick Valois, Tristan du Rudulier and Veronique Froment of Softimage, and Intergraph for their help in the preparation of this tutorial.