• Apple Motion

  rotoscoping + intuos 4

  Posted by Andy Schroeder on April 2, 2011 at 6:09 pm

  My current project requires a lot of rotoscoping. Previously I hadn’t had to do large amounts of roto and using the mouse for it in Apple Motion 3 worked fine, but it’s been killing me, I thought maybe getting a pen tablet might ease the task somewhat. I bought an Intuos 4 and while it seems pretty neat, its got a huge response lag when using it with Motion.
  I’m running a Macbook Pro 17″ 2.5Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6 GB of ram, and a Lacie 1TB external firewire 800 drive, with final cut studio 2. Thats it, no other programs running, internet off, and theres this gigantic lag in draw time. If I create a mask freehand it takes minutes to catch up to the pen, but if I use the trackpad or mouse it does the draw immediately. The tablet works fine when I use it with photoshop, but the purpose was for doing roto.

  Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a fix for it that I can’t find in a menu somewhere? Any ideas would be much appreciated.

  Thanks

  Christina Rodriguez replied 15 years, 2 months ago 4 Members · 7 Replies
• 7 Replies

• 

  Zak Peric

  April 3, 2011 at 7:09 am

  HI Back,

  I have the same tablet, however I have MacPro, I have no issues with the tablet when using it in motion. Can you delete the preferences of motion please, this fixes lots of issues. If this does not work than I assume it is a issue with using the driver and motion on Mac book Pro.
  Let me know have you fix your problem.
• 

  Stephen Smith

  April 4, 2011 at 3:21 pm

  If you are doing a lot of rotoscoping you might want to check out Imagineer Sytems Mocha.

  Stephen Smith
  Utah Video Productions

  Check out my Motion Training DVD

  Check out my Motion Tutorials
• 

  Andy Schroeder

  April 4, 2011 at 5:12 pm

  Thanks for your reply, I tried dumping the preferences but it’s still having the same problem. It’s only on the freedraw mask option. If I’m adjusting points on a mask that is already created I don’t have the problem. Like I said, on freedraw mask the trackpad and mouse both do the draw immediately, just not the pen tablet. But on other functions it seems to work fine. I wonder if it’s because the files I’m working on are in ProRess HQ? But doing multiple effects on one shot, I don’t want to be in a low quality codec.
• 

  Christina Rodriguez

  April 5, 2011 at 6:37 am

  What camera was the footage shot on? You can convert to a lower prores setting and always reconnect the HQ footage when done.

  C.R.
• 

  Zak Peric

  April 5, 2011 at 7:01 am

  That us a very good point. Convert your movie to mp4 and complete your rotoscoping. Make sure it has the your footage had the same name. Then reconnect with a better quality version at the end. Bear in mind motion dies write your footage intro ram of your computer if I an not mistaken.
• 

  Andy Schroeder

  April 5, 2011 at 5:25 pm

  Thanks again for the replies everyone.

  The footage was shot on a Nikon D7000, and then transcoded into ProRes HQ for editing and vfx. If I put it in a lower codec for roto would I just export the finished mask by itself in the animation codec and team it up with the HQ footage? Or is there an internal setting that you can use change the codec back and forth without degrading the footage?
• 

  Christina Rodriguez

  April 5, 2011 at 5:41 pm

  APple Pro Res HQ is for cameras that shoot 4:4:4 (overkill for your footage)

  The d7000 shoots 4:2:2… So the ProRes or ProRes LT will be enough.

  It won’t degrade your footage and making it 4:4:4 won’t make it any better…. Do yourself a favor and save time and hard drive space.

  C.R.

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