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Loader [LD]
	The Loader tool is used to select and load footage from the hard drive or network storage. The Loader is responsible for trimming, looping, and extending the footage, as well as setting the field order, pixel aspect and color depth. Loader is arguably the most important tool in Fusion.

Contents 1 Loader [LD] 1.1 Common Controls 1.2 File Tab 1.3 Import Tab 1.4 Clip List Tab 1.4.1 Clip List Usage Tips 1.4.2 Clip Lists in the Timeline view 1.5 Format Tab 2 Previewing 2.1 Tips for Loader (edit)

Common Controls

Use this menu to select the fields processing mode used by Fusion when loading the image. The default option is determined by the Has Fields check box control in the Frame Format Preferences, and the default height as well. Available options are Full frames, NTSC fields, PAL/HD fields, PAL/HD fields (reversed) and NTSC fields (reversed). The two Reversed options load fields in the opposite order, and will thus result in the fields being swapped both in time order and in vertical order as well. Use the Reverse Dominance checkbox (described in the Import Tab below) to swap fields in time only.

For more information on fields processing consult the Frame Formats chapter.

Use this control to specify the position of this tool within the project. Use Global In to specify the frame on which that the clip starts and Global Out to specify the frame on which this clip ends within the project's Global Range.

The tool will not produce an image on frames outside of this range.

If the Global In And Out values are decreased to the point where the range between the In and Out values is smaller than the amount of available frames in the clip, Fusion will automatically trim the clip by adjusting the Clip Time range control.

If the global in/out values are increased to the point where the range between the in and out values is larger than the amount of available frames in the clip, Fusion will automatically lengthen the clip by adjusting the Hold First/Last Frame controls.

Extended frames are visually represented in the range control by changing the color of the held frames to purple in the control.

To slip the clip in time or move it through the project without changing its length, place the mouse pointer in the middle of the range control and drag it to the new location, or enter the value manually in the Global In value control.

File Tab

Clicking on the yellow Folder button will display a standard Fusion file browser. The path to the footage can also be typed directly using the text box provided.

The text box supports filename completion. As the name of a directory or file is typed in the text box, Fusion will display a popup that lists possible matches. Use the arrow keys to select the correct match and complete the path.

When a loader is added to the flow, a file dialog will appear automatically to allow selection of a clip from the hard drives. To select footage later, select Cancel. The loader will still be added to the flow. Disable the automatic display of the file browser by disabling Auto Clip Browse in the Global>General Preferences.

It is common practice to use file sequences to identify an image that is part of a series. If the last part of a file's name is a number (not counting file extension), Fusion will automatically scan the directory looking for files that match the sequence.

For example, the following filenames would be valid sequences.

image.0001.tga
image.0002.tga
image.0003.tga

image151.exr
image152.exr
image153.exr

image1.tif
image2.tif
image3.tif

The following would not be considered a sequence, since the last characters are not numeric.

shot.1.fg.tga
shot.2.fg.tga
shot.3.fg.tga

It is not necessary to select the first file in the sequence, Fusion will search the entire folder for files matching the sequence in the selected filename. Also, Fusion will determine the length of the sequence based on the first and last numeric value in the filenames. Missing frames are ignored.

For example, if the folder contains two files with the following names:

image.0001.tga
image.0100.tga

Fusion will see this as a file sequence with 100 frames, not a file sequence containing two frames. The Missing Frames drop-down menuis used to choose how Fusion handles missing frames. The Trim In/Trim Out control's context menu can also be used to force a specific cliplength, or to rescan the folder. Both controls are described in greater detail below.

The Proxy Filename control only appears once the filename control points to a valid clip. This can specify a clip that will be loaded when the Proxy mode is enabled. This allows smaller versions of the image to be loaded to speed up file I/O from disk and processing.

For example, create a 1/4 scale version of a Cineon film sequence to use as a file proxy. Whenever the proxy mode of the flow is enabled, the smaller resolution proxy clip will be loaded from disk and all processing will be performed at the lower resolution, significantly improving render times.

This is particularly useful when working with large film plates stored on a remote fileserver. Lower resolution versions of the plates can be stored locally, reducing network bandwidth, interactive render times and memory usage.

The proxy clip must have the same number of frames as the source clip, and the sequence numbers for the clip must start and end on the same frame numbers.

It is strongly suggested that the proxies are exactly the same format as the main files. In the case of formats with options, such as Cineon, DPX and OpenEXR, the proxies will use the same format options as the primary.

The Trim range control is used to trim frames from the start or end of a clip. Adjust the Trim In to remove frames from the start and Trim Out to specify the last frame of the clip. The values used here are offsets. A value of 5 in Trim In would use the 5th frame in the sequence as the start, ignoring the first four frames. A value of 95 would stop loading frames after the 95th.

Right-click on the range control to see three options appear in a submenu:

Autodetect Clip Length

This rescans the clip to see if frames have been added or removed since the last time the clip was scanned (when it was loaded).

Set Clip Start Frame

Selecting this will display a dialog box to set the number of the actual start frame of the clip on disk. Use this when the first frames of the file sequence are not yet available to set the clip's properties manually.

Set Clip Length

This sets the actual clip length, overriding the scanned length. This is useful if the entire clip has not yet been rendered or captured. Used in combination with Set Clip Start Frame it can be used to define a clip before the clip is available.

For example, imagine there is only a single animatic frame available for a scene that is being precomped. The animation department has yet to render the entire layer. Use the Set Clip Start and Set Clip Length to define the clip anyway, and the composition will load the correct frames when they become available. If the Missing Frames control is set to Wait, then rendering will pause until the frame is available, instead of failing.

The Hold First Frame and Hold Last Frame controls will hold the first or last frame of the clip for the specified amount of frames. Held frames are included in a loop if the footage is looped.

Select this checkbox to reverse the footage so that the last frame is played first and the first frame played last.

Select this checkbox to loop the footage until the end of the project. Any lengthening of the clip using Hold First/Last Frame or shortening using Trim In/Out is included in the looped clip.

The Missing Frames drop-down menu provides options for selecting how the loader will behave when an expected frame is missing from the footage, or is unable to load for any reason.

Fail

The loader will not output any image unless a frame becomes available. Rendering will abort.

Hold Previous

Output the last valid frame until a frame becomes available again. This fails if no valid frame has been seen, for example if the first frame is missing.

Output Black

Output a black frame until a valid frame becomes available again.

Wait

Fusion will wait for the frame to become available, checking every few seconds. Useful for rendering a flow simultaneously with a 3D render. All rendering will cease until the frame appears.

Import Tab

The buttons in this array are used to select the color Depth used by Fusion to process footage from this loader. The default option is Format.

The color depth is determined by the color depth supported in the file format loaded. For example, TGA files will automatically process at 8 bit because the TGA file format does not store color depths greater than 8. Cineon files will load at Float, etc. If the color depth of the format is undetermined, the default depth defined in the flow's frame format preferences is used.

Formats that support multiple color depths will be set to the appropriate color depth automatically.

Default

The color depth is determined by the settings in the composition's Frame Format Preferences panel.

Int 8 Bit/Int 16 Bit/Float 16/Float 32

These options set the color depth.

For a more complete discussion of color depth and how it affects composites, consult the Frame Formats chapter of this manual.

This button array is used to determine the image's pixel aspect ratio.

The loader will conform to the image aspect detected in the saved file. There are a few formats that can store aspect information. TIFF, JPEG and OpenEXR are examples of image formats that may have the pixel aspect embedded in the file's header. When no aspect ratio information is stored in the file, the default frame format method is used.

Default

Any pixel aspect ratio information stored in the header of the image file will be ignored. The pixel aspect set in the composition's frame format preferences will be used instead.

Custom

Select this option to override the preferences and set a pixel aspect for the clip manually. Selecting this button will cause the X/Y Pixel Aspect control to appear. For a more complete discussion of pixel aspect and how it affects composites, consult the Frame Formats chapter of this manual.

This control is only visible when the Custom Pixel aspect Method is used. Enter the desired aspect, or right-click on the control to display a menu of common frame formats and their aspects.

This menu provides options for removing pull-up from an image sequence. Pull-up is a reversable method of combining frames used to convert 24fps footage into 30fps. It is commonly used to broadcast NTSC versions of films.

Normal

This passes the image without applying pull-up or pull-down.

2:3 Pull Up

This will remove existing 3:2 pull-down applied to the image sequence, converting from 30fps to 24fps.

2:3 Pull Down

The footage will have pull-down applied, converting 24fps footage to 30fps by creating 5 frames out of every four. The process mode of a loader set to Pull Down should always be Full Frames.

This control is used to determine which frame of the 3:2 sequence is used as the first frame of the loaded clip. It only appears if the pull-up or pull-down options are selected from the Import Mode menu.

Pressing this button will cause Fusion to attempt to automatically detect and set the Pull-up sequence of the footage. It only appears if pull-up or pull-down are selected from the Import Mode menu. If it succeeds in detecting the order, the First Frame control will automatically be set to the correct value.

When checked, the original alpha channel of the clip will be cleared and set to solid white (completely opaque).

When checked, the original alpha channel of the clip will be inverted. This may also be used in conjunction with Make Alpha Solid to set the alpha to pure black (completely transparent).

Selecting this option will cause the color value of each pixel to be multiplied by the alpha channel for that pixel. This option can be used to convert subtractive (non-premultiplied) images to additive (premultiplied) images.

When this control is selected, the field order (dominance) of the image will be swapped, so that the order in time that the fields appear in is reversed. Unlike the Process Mode control, this is done without spatially swapping the scanlines in the image.

Clip List Tab

A single loader can contain multiple files of any format. You can view, select and delete clips within the Clip List tab. New clips will be inserted in the first frame adjacent to the clip closest to the current frame number. To replace, change the current time to a frame of the outgoing clip and select the desired new clip. This clip list allows you to do simple cut and trim edits, and to preview clips together in sequence.

Load adds a new clip to the clip list. If a valid clip is present at the current time, that clip will be replaced.

This replaces the currently selected clip in the clip list.

Insert adds the incoming clip after the selected clip. If no clip is selected, it adds the new clip to the clip list at the current time. Clips will ripple to the right.

Import adds the incoming clip at the time specified by the selected filename (for example, image.0005.tga would be inserted at frame 5). Import is not dependent on current time or selected clip. It simply places the incoming clip at its specified time. Non-linear editors will recognize this as a 3-point replace.

Clip List Usage Tips

• When more than one clip is present in the list, the controls title bar changes to "Multiple Clips".
• Double-click a clip in the list to change the current time to the start of that clip.
• With a clip selected in the list, press the Del key to remove the clip.
• Drag and drop a file or directory from an Explorer window to replace the list with the new clip.

Clip Lists in the Timeline view

The easiest way to manage a list of clips is to use the Timeline view. The Loader's bar in the Timeline view shows all clips in the list with their relative positions and lengths represented graphically. It also offers many useful editing capabilities:

• Individual clips may be trimmed by dragging the end points of their bar.
• Clips can have their start and end frames extended by Ctrl+dragging the end points.
• Clips may be repositioned on the timeline by dragging elsewhere on their bar.
• Clips can also be re-ordered in the list by dragging them before or after other clips.
• Drop one or more files or directories from Explorer to the right of the bars to append new clips to the list.
• Drop one or more files or directories from Explorer into a gap to insert the clips into the list, without affecting the timing of later clips.

Format Tab

The Format Tab contains information, options and settings relative to loading the image format. Not all file formats have options, notably the Cineon, DPX, PSD, OMF, OpenEXR and QuickTime formats all provide additional options when loaded. See Appendix A: File Formats for a description of all supported formats.

An OMF file is not just a media format, it can contain information about edits, multiple sequences, and even multiple versions of the same shot. If multiple clips exist within the OMF file, the format options may be used to select the desired clip. To import all clips from an OMF file, complete with edit and combine information, use the Import OMF option from Fusion's File menu to create a entire composition from the contents of the OMF.

Fusion can load any one of the individual layers stored in the PSD file, or the completed image with all layers. Transformation and adjustment layers are not supported. To load all layers individually from a PSD file, with appropriate blend modes to combine them, use the Import PSD option from Fusion's File menu to create a entire composition from the contents of the PSD file.

See the chapter Film In Fusion and the chapter for the Cineon Log tool for a detailed discussion of the options found in the Cineon and DPX file formats.

The OpenEXR format was developed by Industrial Light and Magic. Its initial design was to provide a compact and flexible format to support storage of high dynamic range images (float). The format has been expanded to support a variety of extra channels and metadata.

The format options for OpenEXR files provide a mechanism for mapping any non-RGBA channels to the channels supported natively in Fusion. Enter the name of a channel in the OpenEXR file into any of the edit boxes next to the Fusion channel name. A command line utility for dumping the names of the channels can be found at http://www.openexr.com/

QuickTime files can potentially contain multiple tracks. Use the format options to select one of the tracks.

One of the more interesting formats supported by Fusion is the Image File List format. An IFL is actually a text file containing a list of files that should be loaded. Use IFL files to specify a sequence of arbitrarily-named files, or files from different directories.

Previewing

When you select a Loader, transport controls pop up to allow you to play or scrub through the footage in the Loader. If the clip is of a supported video hardware format such as a Reality .dps file or Toaster .rtv file, and that hardware is installed in your machine, the clip will be displayed on the monitor attached to the video hardware. For all other file formats, the clip will be displayed in the view specified in the Preview Preferences page.

If you have multiple clips in the Loader's Clip List, then you can play and scrub all clips together in sequence. This can be useful for checking color balance or "flow" between the clips.

As with other previews, a scratch audio track will accompany the playback, if you specify an audio file to be used. You can do this either in Saver's Audio tab, or with the context menu raised by right-clicking on the Speaker button at the bottom of Fusion's window.

The contents of this page are copyright by eyeon Software.

Tips for Loader (edit)

EyeonTips:Manual/Tool Reference/IO/Loader