Media Extension

The Media Extension plugin allows artists to quickly convert different media formats.

Feature Overview

The Media Extension plugin has currently 2 main features:

1. A Media Converter, which allows to convert between different fileformats, resolutions, colorspaces and add burn-ins. The conversion settings can be saved as presets and can be applied automatically to generated playblasts or renders.

2. Initial support for specifying an OCIO config for color management. See OCIO Workflow for more details.

Installation

As any other plugin the Media Extension plugin can be installed with the Prism installer or using the Prism Hub. To verify the plugin is installed and loaded you can check the “Plugins” tab in the Prism User Settings and search for the “Media Extension” plugin in that list.

Media Converter

Overview

The media files, which are going to be converted are shown at the top of the Media Converter. On the bottom left there are the output settings like the output fileformat, colorspaces and more. On the bottom right there is a preview, which shows how the converted media will look like with the current settings. This preview gets updated every time an output setting gets changed.

Opening the Media Converter

There are multiple ways how to open the Media Converter:

1. From the “Options” menu in the Prism Project Browser choose “Open Media Converter…”

2. In the “Media” tab in the Project Browser you can rightclick any media and in the “Convert” menu you can choose “Custom…”.

3. Using the Prism Launcher plugin. In the settings menu of the Launcher choose “Detect apps on computer…”. This allows you to add the Media Converter to the Launcher.

4. Using Python. If you want to open the Media Converter from a custom tool or plugin you can do that using the following Python code:

core.getPlugin("MediaExtension").openConverter()

Modes

The Media Converter has 3 modes, which can be toggled from the main menu bar.

1. Simple: This is the default mode. It provides a clean and simple interface with the most important settings. It allows to have one media input and one modifier of each type.

2. Advanced: In this mode it is possible to add multiple media inputs, each with it’s own output settings. It’s also possible to add multiple modifiers of the same type. This can be especially useful with the burn-in modifier.

3. Edit Presets: This mode allows to edit settings and load/save presets without the need to have an input widget.

Adding input media

Media inputs can be set by drag&drop media into the input area of the Media Converter or by using the browse button to select files in a file explorer. Images, sequences and videos are supported. File sequences will be detected automatically. In the advanced mode multiple media inputs can be defined. Each has it’s own settings and each input will be converted in a queue.

Output settings

In the output settings an output path can be set. Relative paths can be used, which will save the output files relative to the input files. The fileformat extension will be appended automatically. Currently these output formats are supported: .jpg, .png, .exr, .mov, .mp4, .bmp, .dpx, .gif, .hdr, .tga, .tif, .tx Some fileformats have unique settings like quality, compression or framerate. These settings will become visible when the format is changed in the dropdown menu.

Modifiers

Modifiers are a collection of settings, which will modify the media input in a specific way, before it gets written to the output file.

Each modifier can be enabled or disabled and the change of it’s settings will be applied to the preview on the right side. Currently these modifiers are available:

Crop

This modifier can crop a specific amount of pixels from each side.

Negative values are possible and will extend the output image.

Scale

The scale modifier allows to scale the input image up or down.

There are presets for 50% and 25% and it’s also possible to scale it to a custom resolution.

If the aspect ratio of the custom resolution is not locked it can result in a stretched output image.

Color Conversion

The Color Conversion modifier converts the input from an input color space to an output color space.

The available color spaces are defined by the current OCIO environment variable.

Burn-In

The Burn-In modifier will add text, a rectangle shape or an additional image on top of the image.

This modifier provides settings for position, size and color.

This can be used to add information about the media directly into the pixels.

In order to use multiple Burn-In modifiers the advanced mode of the Media Converter can be used.

Variables can be used When using the text burn-in to generate the burn-ins dynamically.

The variables need to be inserted between curly brackets.

Available variables include: frame, start, end, rel_frame, num_frames, width, height.

Additionally meta data from the media input version can be used as variables like asset, sequence, shot, comment and more.

Slate frame

The Slate frame can be used to add an additional first frame to the media input.

This can be useful to list all the details of the media input such as sequence, shot number and department.

While the slate frame is shipped with a default preset, there is the option to create and save custom presets.

In the simple mode one modifier of each type can be enabled.

Applying multiple modifiers of the same type to the media input is possible in the advanced mode.

Managing presets

Output settings can be saved as a preset so that they can be applied to different media inputs later on.

The gear icon on the right side of the Media Converter provides options for saving and loading presets.

These presets will be saved as a json file and can be edited manually if needed.

The Media Converter comes with a few default conversion presets.

These presets will be shown by default, but they can be hidden by toggling the “Show default conversion presets” in the “Media” tab of the Prism Project Settings.

Presets can be loaded in the Media Converter and they are also available when rightclicking media in the Project Browser.

That way the selected media will be converted using the preset settings without opening the Media Converter UI.

Presets can be saved in the user preferences, in the project folder and in the Media Extension plugin folder.

The PRISM_CONVERSION_PRESET_PATHS and PRISM_CONVERSION_PRESET_SEARCHPATHS environment variables can be used to make presets available from custom locations, like a shared studio library.

Automatically convert playblasts and renders

If the Media Extension plugin is loaded, the playblast and render states in the State Manager have a “Media Conversion” setting.

If enabled a preset name can be selected from the dropdown.

After the playblast/render is completed the media conversion will run automatically as a postprocess.

If the playblasts/renders get submitted to a renderfarm, the media conversion will be submitted as a dependent job.

Project Settings

The following settings are available in the Media category in the Prism Project Settings:

Current OCIO

Displays the current value of the OCIO env var.

The “Make persistent” button lets you set this env var value in the Windows system settings, which will affect applications system wide.

Set OCIO

If checked, Prism will set the OCIO env var to the selected config.

Clear OCIO env var

If checked, Prism will unset the OCIO env var if it has an existing value.

Set OCIO colorspaces

Let’s you define default colorspaces, which will be used in the Project Browser thumbnails and when converting and publishing media to Shotgrid, ftrack or Kitsu.

Show default conversion presets

Defines if the default media conversion presets will be displayed in various places in Prism.

If disabled, only custom presets will be displayed.

Enforce OCIO in Nuke

If checked, Prism will ask the user to enable the OCIO color management in Nuke if it is not already enabled.

OCIO Workflow

Overview

OpenColorIO (OCIO) is the standard color management tool in CG productions and is integrated into most DCCs.

It provides a way to work with consistent color values across different DCCs and across different departments.

For detailed information see the official website.

Colorspaces are usually defined in an OCIO config.

In order to have a consistent color workflow the same OCIO config should be used in all DCCs during a project.

DCCs which have support for OCIO are looking for the OCIO environment variable, which defines the path to the OCIO config file.

Setting the OCIO environment variable

The Media Extension plugin can set the OCIO environment variable.

In the Prism Project Settings in the “Media” tab you can view and set the value of the current OCIO environment variable.

The “Prism Default” config is a slightly modified version of the CG Config.

The config file can be found in the “Configs” folder of the Media Extension plugin.

The CG config and the Studio config are built into OCIO.

The original configs can be found here.

Limitations

Prism sets the OCIO only for the current process and not globally on the system.

Letting Prism set the OCIO variable works well for using an OCIO config within Prism and DCCs, which can detect modified OCIO environment variable.

However many DCCs like Maya and Nuke require the OCIO variable to be set before the DCCs gets launched.

By the time Prism gets loaded during the startup of a DCC it is already to late to define the OCIO environment variable.

Therefore the OCIO env var needs to be set before launching the DCC.

If the same OCIO config will be used for all projects, the OCIO can be set as a global system environment variable in the Windows settings.

Alternatively the Prism Launcher can be used. It will set environment variables like OCIO before launching DCCs.