Opening Footage and Creating Solid Footage

Before using a piece of footage in combustion, it needs to be in the Footage Library—a list of all footage used in the workspace.

You can see the Footage Library at the bottom of the Workspace panel or Timeline. You can also show the Footage Library view in a viewport. For information, see Using Footage Library View.

If you open footage into a branch (Paint, for example), the footage appears in the Footage Library automatically. Also, if you import footage into a composite as a layer, it appears in the Footage Library.

Note: When a Footage operator is used somewhere in the process tree, its name appears in italics in the Footage Library.

You can also open footage directly into the Footage Library without using it immediately. Later, you can add an operator to the footage to make a new branch, use it elsewhere in the process tree as a secondary input source for another operator, or just render the unprocessed clip in a different format. For example, you can use combustion to render a TARGA® image sequence in QuickTime Streaming format.

Depending on your workflow, you may want to create solid footage for the Footage Library. You can make a single frame with specific properties like frame size, color, and bit depth. Then you can use it as a source, use it to make a composite layer, and so on.

To open footage into the Footage Library:

1. Choose File | Open, or press Ctrl+O (Windows) or Command+O (Macintosh).

The Open file browser appears.

Note: You can also double-click the Footage Library in the Workspace panel to access the Open dialog.

2. Select the footage you want to open. Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Macintosh) to import multiple files.
3. Click OK.

The Open Footage dialog appears.

4. Click Workspace and then click OK.

The footage appears in the Footage Library.

Note: If you open a still image, the duration is set to the Default Still Image Duration specified in the File preferences.

To create solid footage:

1. Choose File | New, or press Ctrl+N (Windows) or Command+N (Macintosh).

The New dialog appears.



2. Select Solid from the Type list.
3. In the Name field, enter a name for the Footage operator.
4. Select one of the standard formats from the Format Options list or select Custom to create a custom format. For more information, see Choosing Format Options.

The corresponding properties (output size, bit depth, frame aspect ratio, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, and field order) appear in the Format Options box. These properties define the solid footage.

5. In the Duration field, enter a duration for the solid footage in either frames or in SMPTE timecode.
6. Click the Background Color box to select the color of the solid frames.

The color is used for the footage unless you enable Transparent.

7. If you want the opacity of the solid layer set to 0% initially, enable Transparent. If this option is disabled, Opacity is set to 100%.
8. Select a bit depth from the Bit Depth list.

Usually, 8 bit is a good choice. You can always change this setting (and all the others) later in the Footage Controls panel.

9. Click OK.

The new Footage operator is added to the Workspace panel and appears in the viewport.