Creating Other Branches

Like the Paint operator, you can create Keyer and Color Corrector branches as you open footage. After you select the footage, select the appropriate option on the Open Footage dialog.

You can also create solid footage and add a Text or Particles operator to it in one step. (You can add Paint to solid footage in one step.) For these two operators, select Text or Particles on the New dialog instead of Paint.

For both procedures, use the steps in Creating Paint Branches.

Note: If you create solid footage and add a Particles operator to it (both in one step), you cannot select a bit depth; the Particles operator does not support bit depths higher than 8 bit.

Keyer and Color Corrector Branches

Usually, a keyed or color-corrected clip is used in a composite, so you can create either type of branch first and then flow the output into a composite as a layer. The difference between this method and adding a Keyer or Color Corrector operator to an existing layer is only a personal preference for workflow style.

You can quickly render a processed clip without making a composite with it. The branch can also be used elsewhere in the process tree as a secondary input source.

For example, a color-corrected clip can be a Reveal source in Paint. In the following example, a keyed clip is output as a matte and used as the source for the Set Matte operator.

When you use the output of a branch as a secondary source, the change is also shown in the Workspace panel; the names of the items in the bracnh appear in italics.

Text and Particles Branches

As previously explained, whether you create a certain branch and later use it in a composite, or create a composite and then add the operator to a layer, is based on a personal preference for workflow style. The results are identical.

So you can build a workspace any way you like. For example, you can create a Particles operator on solid footage to design a new emitter. You can save the new emitter to the emitter library and use it later when you add a Particles operator to a layer. Or, if you like the emitter object (the emitter in the viewport) as it is, you can link the output of the Particles operator as a layer in a composite.

You do not need to use the branch for a composite. For example, you can create a Text operator on solid footage to design a watermark, then reuse the same operator at the end of several branches (such as color-corrected clips) to render watermarked clips.