-
Using Reverse Tracking on a 2d Camera – Seen it done, can’t find it!
Hi there.
I’ve been handed some footage that was filmed on a boat and I’ve been asked to edit it into a 15second commercial. The footage is extremely shaky and due to the quality, I can’t get away with tracking, then scaling the footage.
However, I remember seeing either here or on VCP (or similar) a technique for stabilizing the footage, pre-composing it, make the composition bigger, then copying the anchor point, position and rotation onto a virtual 2d camera so that the subject remains stable, the footage remains in shot (no black bars) and no up-scaling is required.
Can someone either refresh my memory, or tell me a better way of getting this to work?
Thanks a lot
Dave -
6 Replies
-
Here’s a tutorial called reverse stabilization. Here’s another stabilization tutorial.
But here’s the Video Copilot one to which I think you refer.– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.
-
Thanks for the reply.
I’ve wathced and re-watched the VCP one, and thats basic stabilization, and doesn’t seem to have the reverse feature that I was questioning about.
I’m also pretty sure I’ve checked the other two as well, but I’ll re-watch again.
-
[David May] “so that the subject remains stable, the footage remains in shot (no black bars) and no up-scaling is required.”
Just wanted to clarify that this is not really possible with any technique (unless you have acquired at higher resolution than you need to deliver).
If the acquisition raster is the same as the delivery raster, you’ll have to move the frame around to stabilize, which will reveal the layers beneath it (or the background color). To eliminate that, you’ll have to do something (scale or distort the original footage, or use motion tile, multiple layers with masks, etc.) to make up for pixels that just aren’t there in the camera footage.
Many of these techniques are about mitigating this issue, but it’s inherent in the process.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
thanks for your response Walter.
Hmm..Me thinks that I’m in a bit of a pickle.
-
Shooting resolution equals maximum output resolution, yes. One thought might be to use a decent upscaler like Red Giant to make your footage ‘higher rez’ (quotes becuase it’ll still just be software magic, not real resolution) and then stabilize. Or get creative with layering, or bordering, to mitigate the inevitable frame movement on the edge of the image.
Though the camera thing makes me wonder, though I’ve never tried it, about using a wide angle focal length on your virtual camera and placing it ‘close’ to the stabilized precomp – that might be an interesting way to fudge the edges with lens effect instead of ugly black triangles moving around…
Yes a pickle, but those are delicious sometimes.
-
I remember the tutorial you are referring to and I THINK it was on FXPHD and it was free. However, I needed it last year and it took me ages to find it so good luck. It may have been Mark Christiansen…?
A
Vertigo Productions
https://www.vertigo.co.uk
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up