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Flicker when applying Drop Shadow to clips with Mask Shape and Matte Feather filters applied
I’m working on an intro to a program which as a number of short clips dissolve in briefly and dissolve out. Each clip has the Mask Shape (oval) filter and Matte Feather filter applied. The softened edges of the masked clips flicker when I add a drop shadow under the Motion tab. If I turn off Mask Feather or the Drop Shadow, the flickering stops.
I’m not sure if this is a factor, but this project was originally created in FCP 4.5 and reopened in FCP 5.0.4 when I upgraded.
I’ve tried the obvious, applying a flicker filter, but that didn’t change anything. I was wondering if there is some sort of conflict or incompatability going on here. Any suggestions?
RandyP
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5 Replies
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Randy-
I have experienced the same flicker issue. I don’t have an explaination, but here is a alternative. Add a slug under your cclip and copy and paste the clip attributes to the slug: filters and motion settings. Turn off Shadow on both. Then offset the slug clip for your shadow. You may need to adjust the slug opacity for the desired shadow density.
good luckBilly
Post Supervisor
National Boston Video Center -
I saw a similar unwanted effect with the same footage flow from FCP HD to 5.0. If I recall my fix was to put a slug on the uppermost track over the effect area and turn the opacity to 0. The slug is invisible but it did seem to fix the problem, as I remember.
Doug Olin
Desert Vistas Multimedia -
I tried the method you suggested, using a slug set to 0 opacity on the top most video track, but that didn’t take away the flicker in this case.
Thanks for your input, though. At least I know it’s most likely some sort of software issue, not something else to track down. I’ll try the method Billy suggested in the previous post, creating a drop shadow effect using a slug underneath, if nothing else works.
Randy
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When I was doing some 3D stuff a few years back I choose to have an extremely soft shadow, I had the lights moving and camera moving etc. When I rendered this there was crazy flicker, I was told by Maxon the makers of Cinema 4D XL that the software was guessing at each frame where the shadow was to fall and made not attempt to make this guess base on the previous frame or the next frame. In other words each frame had a shadow render that was slightly different then the previous, though accurately placed in space, this caused a flicker.
I have seen several questions regarding flicker on cameras and with FCP and I wonder if it has something to do with the rendering system not using info from previous frames to create a smooth and consistent render of dark or shadowed areas from frame to frame.
Just a thought.
Chris
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are you rendering in 32-bit or 10bit? If so, that’s the problem. All alpha feathers seems to be buggy with FCP when rendering to more than 8 bit. This has been the case since a while now.
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