At the last meeting we had a brief look at Conduit for FCP. In particular the question was addressed why use a nodal effects editor plugin for FCP in the first place.
Specifically there is a plugin for FCP called Conduit which allows editors to work with nodes inside FCP.
FCP so great as it is, is primarily an editing program. As editing programs goes one of it´s strengths is that it´s actually has powerful relatively easy tools to use for apply effects! However as soon as one starts apply multiple effects to multiple clips things get clumsy very fast!
Nodes are nothing new. They can be found in high end effects programs like shake. One can think of them as being a graphical representation for different effects. Activate the node and tweak its effect in a parameter window.
Conduit has a Node Editor which is opened in much the same way that one opens the graphical view for the three way colour corrector.
To apply the conduit filter. Either select the clip in question and apply the filter using the standard menu in FCP, Filters, effects, dvGarage and Conduit or dragging the filter directly from the effects tab in the Browser to the clip. Needless to say one needs to download and install the plugin in order to be able to select it!
The filter has initially no effect. It just sits there on the clip. Like all filters it can be opened in the viewer per double click on the clip in the timeline. Back in the viewer the filters tab is selected and the conduit filter appears.
The first thing we notice is that we have wells for different images and different layers in our composite.
Again this is not completely alien. A similar idea to be found in standard transitions and filters in FCP, e.g. page peel.
These wells are used to feed additional information into the current composition, One can select a colour. Or make a composite from several images. Images can be dragged from the browser directly into a well or colours selected using a colour wheel or pipet. This is basically where the raw material for the composite are first collected and arranged for use in the Conduit Editor.
(More about this later in the Inputs section below)
Having arranged the elements for the composite it´s time to press the Show Conduit Editor button at the top of the Conduit filter in the viewer, filters Tab.
The Conduit Editor has 5 areas
1.) The Node Bank
Could be thought of as being the machine room of the plugin. It alphabetically displays the nodes available. Click on a Node in the Node Library to see a hint for what it does. The hint appears directly below the filters library.
2.) The top tool bar is used mainly to determine how one views Nodes in the Node library. It is possible to see all nodes together or one can sort nodes according to categories. The Undo button is also here. And last but by no means least there are options to save / open groups of nodes! Which basically means that you can build up a copy and paste library of composites which can be applied to a variety of clips. Past, present and future!
3.) Parameters selector
Having added a Node it usually needs to be altered or tweaked. First off one has to select the Node in question in the editor. Which is found directly to the right of the Node library. The corresponding parameters appear on the left hand side of the editor, directly below the Node library and Parameter hints. There are two further buttons which influence how the parameters are displayed. They are called Live and Hover.
(See Live and Hover options below in the Lower Tool Bar section.)
4.) The Composition pane.
If the Node Bank is the Machine Room this is basically the command room. This is where the elements are arranged and linked (wired), input Node(s) and effects are applied, filter Node(s) which trickle down to the Output Node.
This is also the point at which it gets rather difficult to explain what´s actually going on. In a nutshell it´s possible to effect different elements separately or simultaneously or both depending on how the nodes are wired.
In it´s most basic form there is always an input and output node as default in the composition view.
The Input Node(s) determines what clip is used as source material. This is where those wells come in handy.
(see additional information for Composition above)
By default the Input Node is driven by source clip but this can change in parameters tab.
Needless to say it´s possible to have several inputs be they clips, photos or mattes. i.e. pick and mix from our pre selection raw material.
(see the Introduction to Nodes section above)
The Output Node is used to get data out of the composition. This is the end result of our work in Conduit.
From a Conduit perspective when one leaves the Conduit Editor and looks at the corresponding clip in the timeline this is the Output.
Nodes are applied to a clip using a tree like structure.
Between the Input and Output Node one can apply an infinite number of Filter Nodes in an infinite variety of ways.
Working with the Nodes is worthy of an Article in and of it´s self. But as already emphasized flexibility is the key word here.
5.) Lower Toolbar
Used to switch between different channels R/G/B or Alpha
Also contains two important buttons: Live and Hover
When the live button is checked one sees only to current level in tree structure (another advantage of nodes!)
When live is not checked one sees the Output no matter which Node is currently selected and being tweaked!
This function is over written by double clicking on a Node.
Hover means just that. If checked, parameters are automatically displayed when the mouse hovers over a particular Node!
So why bother? Why work with nodes in the first place?
With a built in Node Editor such as Conduit one doesn´t have too laboriously open one clip after another which make up a composite.
A simple example. I recently applied a traveling matt to a clip. All well and good until the director decided that she wanted a colour correction as well.
So I was faced with a choice. Either applying the same colour correction twice. Both to the clip itself and to the matt. Or I could nest the clip and the Matt and apply the colour correction to the nested clip.
I took the nested sequence option. Several last minute changes needed to be made to the clip and the Matt and I had to repeatedly open my nested sequence and re nest it. Apart from being cumbersome, nested sequences in FCP have been known to behave irrationally and are not an editors best friend.
Alternatively having not nested the clips a colour correction change for the clip would have to be applied separately to the traveling Matt. And thus tweaked separately. All in all, clumsy!
Conduit makes this all much more intuitive and easier to see what your doing. Apply a filter to several elements simultaneously and change the parameters simultaneously.
Simple building blocks can be combined to give infinite possibilities. This opens up a whole new way of working for the Non Linear Editor!
http://dvgarage.com/prod/prod.php?prod=conduit15
Demo version and plenty of tutorials available.
Further information can be found at the Blog below.
There is also a Conduit support forum.
Finally beware there are know issues with FCP 5.1.3!
