Production Finishing

production-finishing

Purpose

The operations layer that finishes films and keeps productions from collapsing: cut, sound, track shots, name files, version, pipeline gates, optimize, QC, deliver, archive — plus automation and realtime export when needed.

Scope

D120–D129, D133, D134, D137, Depth 23–26, S-14 shot management, S-15 QC, S-16 archive, S-18 add-ons. Rendering images is render-comp; this skill takes EXR into the edit and out to humans.

Activation Conditions

• Edit, VSE, sound, foley, loudness, shot tracker, folders, versioning, pipeline, QC, deliver, archive, bpy, USD, glTF, LOD, EEVEE game, add-ons
• Use production-finishing

Non-Activation Conditions

• Compositing node trees for beauty (→ render-comp)
• Story structure (→ preproduction) though editing ⇄ story
• Viewport navigation basics (→ blender-foundations)

Instructions

Editing (D120 / Ch 21)

Cut EXR/image strips + audio in VSE (or Resolve). Pacing from animatic. Continuity rules. Don't recut to hide broken animation — flag QC.

Sound (D133 / Ch 23)

Sound is half of film. Dialogue / foley / ambience / music. Sync to picture. Mix and loudness. VSE audio or external DAW. Horror: silence is a layer.

Shot management (D121 / S-14)

Spreadsheet: ID, status ladder, owner, version, deps, deadline, render order. Animatic shot list is the master.

Assets & files (D122/D123)

Asset Browser, libraries, linking, library overrides (not old proxies). Solo studio tree (5.9). Relative paths.

Versioning (D124)

_v01 at milestones; incremental save; backups; versions.md. Decisions archived too (animatic, sheets, naming).

Pipeline (D125)

The graph in action. Gates scheduled. Dependency spine from Part 1.

Optimization (D126 / Ch 26)

Ladder top-down: budgets → LOD → textures → instancing → viewport → memory/caches → render economics. Don't optimize at the bottom first.

Realtime (D137 / Ch 25)

EEVEE Next production settings; game/web export (glTF); draw-call and texture discipline.

Automation (Ch 24)

bpy essentials, 30-line add-on skeleton, USD, glTF/FBX/OBJ notes, Flamenco farms, version control for blends (lock files, LFS if needed). Script repetitive tasks first (24.7).

Add-ons (D134 / S-18)

Honest catalog. Learn system first. Manifest for archive. Built-in > add-on if equal. License-check.

QC (D127 / S-15)

Technical checklist + 3 creative questions per gate. Final watch whole film with sound. Never ship known errors.

Output (D128)

EXR → edit → ProRes/DNxHR master; H.264/H.265 CRF 18–23 web; 9:16 transcode from master. Don't encode from viewport.

Archive (D129 / S-16)

Masters, final blends, sources, caches-or-settings, decision record, add-on manifest, README, checksum, 2+ media.

Procedures

Status ladder

planned → blocked → splined → animated → sim'd → lit → rendered → comped → approved.

Final QC watch

Whole film, final quality, in order, with sound: continuity, color match, audio sync, frame errors, emotional flow.

Optimization ladder (26.1)

Apply top-down. Texture is the silent memory eater (26.3). 40 GB surprise = caches (26.5).

Decision Logic

5.9 structure, 5.10 when to stop, 5.11 add-ons, 5.15 realtime, 5.8 formats. Fake vs sim is not this skill.

Inputs

• Comped shots / EXR, animatic, naming legend, budgets, delivery specs

Outputs

• Locked edit
• Mix
• Masters + distribution encodes
• QC report
• Archive package
• Optional: export scenes (glTF/USD), scripts
• Shared state: locks.edit, gates_passed, addons_manifest

Tools

VSE, Resolve (external), FFmpeg, bpy, Flamenco, Asset Browser, git/LFS optional. Depth 23–26. S-14–S-16 S-18.

Constraints

Relative paths. One naming legend. Don't archive only the mp4. Don't skip the final watch. Don't buy add-on soup.

Edge Cases

• Game cutscene: export + engine lighting may replace Cycles; still QC in engine.
• Solo: this skill is still required — folders and QC are not "studio-only."

Failure Modes & Fixes

Dependencies

• Consumes render-comp output
• Constrains everyone via pipeline/naming/QC
• Feedback to any skill on QC fail
• ⇄ preproduction (edit vs story)

Related Skills

render-comp, preproduction, blender-foundations, bakg-orchestrator, all skills via QC

Delegation Rules

• Beauty grade issues → render-comp
• Missing animation frames → animation
• Export material mismatch → lookdev + Ch 24.4
• If user asked a whole production plan → bakg-orchestrator

Examples

• Delivery: 24 fps, 1920×1080, ProRes 422 HQ master, H.265 web, archive zip with README + hashes.
• bpy: batch rename collections to legend; batch render shot files.

Required Knowledge / Context

• knowledge/domains/ch15-production.md
• knowledge/depth/ch23-sound-music.md
• knowledge/depth/ch24-pipeline-automation.md
• knowledge/depth/ch25-realtime.md
• knowledge/depth/ch26-optimization.md
• S-14 S-15 S-16 S-18

References to Shared Resources

• checklists/master.md
• checklists/qc-technical.md
• checklists/archive.md
• templates/shot-record.md