Automating the Bake Process

Has anyone successfully auto mated the bake process? and Can you automate the process to occur while working in FCP. (like a background process lol bakeround process)

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Yup. After you put in the cake, set the timer...



www.strypesinpost.com

What is this baking process you are referring to? Like getting baked or what?

Noah

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There is no "bake" or "baking" process in the FCP manual. It is not related to Non-Linear Editing or it's terminology. "Baking" is a 3D term taken from "texture Baking"...which is the process of rendering the multiple lights, shadows and textures onto the scene, as you would see them in a rendered scene. This reduces computations in the final render.

I think he is referring to either Video Mixdowns (an Avid term) or Pre-Rendering (After Effects term).

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I think he must mean rendering.

Sorry, man. FCP does not do background rendering.

H.

what the hell are you talking about?

The OP has asked some Q's recently in the Color forum so I'd assume he is talking about exporting sections of the timeline that have effects applied to them (such as a speed change) as self-contained QT movies and then bringing those back into the project. So baking in the effect, video mix down, pre-render... there's no 'official' FCP term so we're free to take our pick from other apps and, for whatever reason, most of the people I converse w/online about Color have chosen 'bake' as their slang of choice.


-A

I believe there to be a much deeper philosophical matter at issue here.

The fevered patient sincerely asks:

Has anyone successfully auto mated the bake process?

Surely the deeper truth within the esteemed Mr Corbett's question is: "Can existentialism be considered a humanism?"

It's a Sartre overload issue.

Mr Corbett therefore might consider Oscar Wilde's last words, as he lay dying in a poorhouse:
"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do".

Harry.

>so I'd assume he is talking about exporting sections of the timeline that have effects applied to
>them (such as a speed change) as self-contained QT movies and then bringing those back into
>the project

I think I first heard Walter Biscardi mention it in the Color Tutorial... For automation, it may be possible with an XML workaround, but i haven't heard of anyone doing that yet..



www.strypesinpost.com

>I believe there to be a much deeper philosophical matter at issue here.

>The fevered patient sincerely asks:

>Has anyone successfully auto mated the bake process?


Well, he'd never have to marry the baker's daughter once he gets that plug-in.



www.strypesinpost.com

It's actually not an unreasonable question, once one gets past the obvious post-production-as-a-second-language issues.

Unfortunately, the answer is no. There's no way to pick a shot on your timeline and tell Final Cut to render it out as a self-contained Quicktime movie and use the resulting Quicktime to replace the shot on the timeline.

Since this is such a seemingly obvious omission from Final Cut, when one is confronted with the need to do it repeatedly one must ask the obvious questions: Am I doing this right? Is my workflow all screwed up here? Am I going about this the wrong way?

It's not universally true, but it's true more often than not: If the road suddenly gets really bumpy and your path seems filled with obstacles, you're probably trying to drive on the sidewalk.

Well there is one workaround and that's to have a second computer standing by to render sequences out while you edit on the other. But that's outside of the box thinking. Also in FCP's defense, most 3D programs can't 'bake' in the background either. The entire interface is locked up while baking occurs.

Noah

Final Cut Studio Training, featuring the HVX200, EX1, EX3, DVX100, DVDSP and Color at [www.callboxlive.com]!
Author, RED: The Ultimate Guide to Using the Revolutionary Camera available now at: [www.amazon.com].
Editors Store- Gifts and Gear for Editors: [www.editorsstore.com]

Ah...but in After Effects, you CAN render (not "bake" in the background with NucleoPro2 (soon to be released for CS4) and keep working.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

or you could set Compressor to work via a droplet and QT reference file. If you export it as just a reference and not a self-contained movie it only takes a second. Importing the 'baked' clip back in and inserting it into the original timeline would have to be done manually. I edit a lot of little highlights throughout the day. I'll set Compressor to work with the first and continue editing the same timeline while it does it's thing. Slows the whole process down a bit and scrolling on the timeline takes a pretty big hit but you can keep working. I've also had quite a bit of success using Automator to, well, automate lots of things I do routinely each day (not with FCP type tasks.) There are some FCP commands in it though so maybe...just a thought.

I call lots of different things "baking."

I could jump in now and give a warning about the improper use of terminology and the trouble it causes but those of you who wish to use non-standard terms will continue to do so and continue to have to ask silly questions on forums or give incorrect advice later.

There are many examples of this. Try to stick to the correct industry terminology and not mix it up as it serves no other purpose than to waste time trying to look "cool" and achieving nothing in the process.

I guess in terms of exporting clips with effects to a SCQTM for re-instatement into a timeline could be close to the "bake" process, but Baking is not "final rendering" per se - it's simply as Joey said the "flattening" of certain elements such as textures that then speed up the final render process.

In FCP there is little need for this as you simply keep your render files of partial renders or high-lighted clip renders and then the final render simply ignores what has already been done.

Keep "Baking" in the 3D realm (or color if you really think its relevant I don't because you render down and thats it), before you guys create a serious mess and we start calling things by the wrong name and then no-one can find the answers they need in the manuals or on forums where industry standard terminology is used.

So J if you want to use bake - get into 3D or get the oven gloves on - if you want to ask how to automate the creation of self-contained quicktime movies from rendered clips then ask that!

Bake is NOT the term here.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

However I will say this.

If you want the SCQTM clip of the render:


1. simply highlight the clip to render

2. render it

3. go into your Render Files folder (are you getting the terminology yet?)

4. find the last render file

5. copy the clip to a more relevant folder and rename it (if necessary)

6. import it into FCP


You may be able to automate this process in whole or some part using automator and scripting but unfortunately thats not my forte.

It might be something you can use Loader [www.digital-heaven.co.uk] to help with.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

well that was a bit ridiculous

OK, not to add to the confusion, but how come I can use multiple processors using compressor to reformat just about any clip, but when I export via Compressor from FCP I can't?

That sucks...

Because Compressor really doesn't do anything. All it is is a graphical front end to a transcoder process adorably known as "stomp." Compressor can either submit a batch to a single stomp instance, or it can submit it to a Qmaster cluster.

When you do multiprocessor stuff through Compressor, you're actually using it to submit a job to a Qmaster quickcluster consisting of just one machine. But when Final Cut pipes out to Compressor, it just uses one instance of stomp to do the work, hence just one processor.

Why yes, as a matter of fact I did spend my whole day debugging a recalcitrant Compressor node. Why do you ask?