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Red Giant Magic Bullet Suite FAQ
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General Issues
Q: I have not received my serial number, where is it?
Serial number(s) are sent to the e-mail address you provide at checkout (Download orders only). To ensure a safe delivery of this message please read the following:
- Please allow up to 5 hours for this e-mail message to be received.
- Serial number(s) may be looked up online within 3 hours of check out using our Serial Number Look Up System.
- Cross-grade and Academic orders require verification, these are sent within 1 business day.
- Please check your Junk mail folder, as it is common to find this message there.
Q: I just downloaded a .SIT &/or .ZIP file, now what?
- To open .Sit or .Zip files you must have compression software installed on your system. Download: The Unarchiver, StuffIt Expander, or WinZip
- After installing compression software, extract the file contents and use the provided installer for installation.
Q: Can I have my serial number re-sent?
Unfortunately Serial number look up is available to customers who purchased a Download directly from Red Giant Software.
Installation
Q: How do I install Magic Bullet Suite for AE CS3? [Mac only]
If Magic Bullet Suite 2.1 was installed prior to this update, then you must uninstall that version before installing this AE 8 compatible version.
- To uninstall Magic Bullet Suite 2.1 After Effects 7 version from After Effects 8
- Used the Magic Bullet Suite 2.1 AE 7 installer for installation into AE 8.
- Install Magic Bullet Suite 2.1 for After Effects 8.
- During installation you must select the After Effects 8 installer.
- Mac After Effects
- How to apply Look Suite Presets in Magic Bullet Suite 2.1
- Apply Look Suite [Effects>Magic Bullet Suite>Look Suite].
- Open Effects Controls tab.
- Click Animation Presets drop down.
Using the product
Q: How do you Magic Bullet a NTSC project convert 60i footage to 24p?
- Import footage into project (i.e. .mov or .avi).
- Select footage in PROJECT window that you would like to Bullet.
- Command+f [Control+f] will open INTERPRET FOOTAGE window.
- In FIELDS AND PULLDOWN sub menu make sure SEPARATE FIELDS are set to OFF.
- Click OK.
- Make a composition out of footage.
- Select the composition you want to Bullet.
- Command+k Control+k will open COMPOSITION SETTINGS window.
- Change FRAME RATE to 23.976.
- Click OK.
- Apply MAGIC BULLET Effects>Magic Bullet Suite>Magic Bullet.
- Open DEINTERLACE drop down and make sure SOURCE VIDEO is set to NTSC.
- Click AUTO SETUP button.
- A pop-up window will let you know if you encountered any errors or if the plug-in worked successfully.
- Add to Render Queue.
Q: How do you Magic Bullet a PAL project convert 50i PAL footage to 24?
- Import footage into project (i.e. .mov or .avi).
- Select footage in PROJECT window that you would like to Bullet.
- Command+f [Control+f] will open INTERPRET FOOTAGE window.
- In FIELDS AND PULLDOWN sub menu make sure SEPARATE FIELDS are set to OFF.
- Click OK.
- Make a composition out of footage.
- Select the composition you want to Bullet.
- Command+k [Control+k] will open COMPOSITION SETTINGS window.
- Change PRESET resolution of composition to NTSC resolution of your choice.
- Change FRAME RATE to 23.976
- Click OK.
- Apply MAGIC BULLET [Effects>Magic Bullet Suite>Magic Bullet].
- Open DEINTERLACE drop down and make sure SOURCE VIDEO is set to PAL.
- Click AUTO SETUP button.
- A pop-up window will let you know if you encountered any errors or if the plug-in worked successfully.
- Add to Render Queue.
Q: What general guidelines should I use while shooting to prepare my video for Magic Bullet?
The main thing is to shoot it like film-no matter which camera you use-paying particular attention to motion and lighting. Top five things to keep in mind:
- Shoot interlace, don't shoot progressive (unless it is a Panasonic DVX100-24p).
- Use enough light to keep the shutter at 1/60th for NTSC or 1/50 for PAL (you can use the priority mode for this).
- Shoot on a tripod or other locked down device. The steadier and smoother the camera work, the more professional it will look.
- Don't use fast pans because this is not very film-like and it can cause stuttering motion at 24 fps.
- If you have a camera that supports Cine gamma (DVX100) or adjustable knee (Sony DSR-500 or other professional) this can give you greater detail in shadows and/or highlights which will mean a better looking output once you color correct.
Q: What's the relationship between Magic Bullet and Panasonic's 24p DV camera (DVX100)?
The Orphanage was one of the first companies to have access to the DVX100 for testing, and they are extremely excited about what Panasonic has done with the camera. If you shoot with its standard 24p mode, you can use After Effects to remove the 3:2 pulldown for 23.976p. If you shoot with the 24pA mode, you must use something like Cinema Tools to create the 23.976p material. This can be done without recompressing, and allows 24p editorial in Final Cut Pro.
This means you won't need Magic Bullet's Deinterlacing feature, but you will still greatly benefit from its Deartifacting technology, which cleans up the blocky color artifacts present in all DV footage. Additionally, with it's "cine-gamma" function, the DVX100 shoots footage that works very well in Look Suite. The combination of the DVX100 and Magic Bullet Suite is currently The Orphanage's most highly recommended 24p DV solution.
Q: I shot 24P Standard Mode on the DVX-100. After cutting it was imported into After Effects as an uncompressed 10-bit QT. I then applied Magic Bullet & a lot of the heavy motion had horizontal lines going through it.
If you shot 24p Advanced:
- When you shoot in 24p (Standard or Advanced) with the DVX100, you should never use Magic Bullet's Deinterlacing
- When you want a 24fps final output, you should ideally shoot in 24pA mode and use FCP's now built-in Cinema Tools options to strip out the pulldown and create 23.976fps movies to edit in a 23.976fps timeline.
If you shot 24p Standard:
- Since you shot with the standard 24p mode, each of your shots in your 60i cut has a separate pulldown sequence, so you cannot use AE's built-in pulldown removal; here are your basic options:
- Remove pulldown manually for each clip, and visually match it back to the original cut in a 23.976fps comp.
- Run the exported movie through a program like Media Cleaner Pro, which has an Intelecine option designed to remove pulldown from timelines with various cadences.
- Abandon the idea of a 24p conform, and process the material through AE as interlaced. The final result will still be 24p w/3:2, but will not have consistent pulldown across shots, which should only be a problem if you need to film out or format convert the final product.
- You should interpret the footage as interlaced, use Magic Bullet for Deartifacting only, not Deinterlacing and render an interlaced final movie. This will preserve the various 3:2 pulldown cadences properly.
Q: I converted my PAL video to 24p, how do I slow the audio to match the 23.976 video [PAL video only]?
- To slow down your audio to match the 23.976 video, use an audio editing program to make the soundtrack 104.2709% of its original length, or a stretch factor of 1.042709.
- For programs that think in terms of speed, such as the Pitch n' Time 2.0 plug-in for ProTools, the magic number is 95.904095904%.
- After Effects will do a remarkably good job of this stretch:
- Import your audio separately from your video.
- Place audio in your 23.976fps comp.
- Select your footage. - Then reveal the tab for Stretch (or select Time Stretch from the Layer Menu) and enter 104.2709%.
- From the Layer Menu select Enable Time Remapping. - This very important as it triggers After Effects to use a very high quality audio re-sambling technique.
Q: How do I access the Look Suite Library in After Effects?
How to apply Look Suite in After Effects:
- Apply Look Suite [Effects>Magic Bullet Suite>Look Suite].
- Open Effects Controls tab.
- Click Preset Looks drop down and click Load...
- In Look Browser choose the desired filter from list and click Ok.
Q: What are the minimum requirements to run Magic Bullet Suite?
Mac
- Mac OS X
- Power Mac G4, G5, Mac Intel
- 1GB of RAM
- 15 MB of Hard Drive space
- Host Application
- After Effects 6
Plug-in: Magic Bullet Suite v2.1 OS: OS X 10.4.9 Processor: Intel
- After Effects 7 [emulation] note: All the plug-ins in Magic Bullet Suite 2.1 seem to function fine except for Look Suite. Look Suite causes After Effects 7 to crash on Intel Mac systems due to an incompatibility with Apple's Rosetta. We do not recommend using Magic Bullet Suite 2.1 on Intel Mac Systems.
Plug-in: Magic Bullet Suite v2.1 OS: OS X 10.4.9 Processor: PPC [non-Intel]
- After Effects 7
- After Effects CS3 [Beta]
Windows
- Windows XP Service Pack 1
- Pentium 4 2.4 GHz
- 1GB of RAM
- 15 MB of Hard Drive space
- Host Application
- After Effects 6
Plug-in: Magic Bullet Suite v2.1 OS: Window XP SP2 Processor: Intel
- After Effects 7
- After Effects CS3 [Beta]
Plug-in: Magic Bullet Suite v2.1 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit Processor: Intel Xeon
- After Effects 7
Q: Is Magic Bullet Suite v2.1 compatible with After Effects 7 & CS3?
Magic Bullet Suite v2.1 is compatible on versions 6.0 through 8.0 of After Effects. Magic Bullet Suite is not yet compatible with AE CS3 on Windows systems.- Coming soon We do not recommend using Magic Bullet Suite 2.1 with After Effects 7 on Intel Mac Systems due to incompatibility with Rosetta.
Known Issues
Q: I get an Error that says: "Unable to locate "Eve3.framework"
- If you have a USB dongle for Magic Bullet Suite v1, connect it now.
- Ensure that there is an Eve3 Carbon Library file.
- Make sure the entire package has been un-compressed to one location, i.e. Desktop, Documents Folder, etc..
Use compression software to un-compress files The Unarchiver, Stuffit.
- Run the MB Suite 2.1 installer from within the same un-compressed folder where the Eve3 Carbon Library file is located.
If the installer is outside of this folder the error prompt appears.
