-
For Mocha users : several questions
Hi all,
I’ve played around with Mocha before but now I am using it for a short feature I directed so this is serious. Now I am not looking for perfection but at least the best of what I can do within a reasonable amount of time.
I am using Mocha Pro and this is mostly about it’s stabilizing capabilities.
-I am still a bit confused about track layering. What kind of situation would require say one layer composed of 3 tracks and what kind of situation would be the other way around?
-Most of my efforts always introduced what I called a “sliding” effect, the shot end up being stabilized but the different elements in the shot kinda “slide” across it’s space and duration. Is there any way to mitigate this?
-This might feel counter intuitive but stick with me, most times I do not want to eliminate the shakyness/jerkyness present in a shot but simply mitigate it. If I want to “constrain” Mocha do I simply need to balance the minimum % of pixels used in the Track tab AND the frame list in the Stabilize tab? Or do you have another trick?
I’ll probably add to this post later but that’s it for now.
Thanks!
-
6 Replies
-
These kinds of questions are so shot specific. It not really something that can be answered well as a general statement.
My Work:
https://www.morecompletefx.com -
Bummer
Well I spend 10 hours in Mocha yesterday so I did learn a few tricks. There is one shot that gives me grief and it is this one
The shot is exactly what it looks, she stirs her coffee and put down the spoon once done. Even though the camera was handheld and pointing down the shot is not that bad, I just want to remove as much wobbly as possible and keep the cup at the center.
I could I go about telling Mocha that I want the cup to stay there and not track the movement of the camera?
Thanks
-
I would use the “Warp Stabilizer” in after effects rather than Mocha in this case.
~ M
My Work:
https://www.morecompletefx.com -
Try drawing a shape around the right edge of the cup (avoiding the hand spoon). Than yes, you could use the Stabilize tab and frame selection to either lock down or smooth the camera motion.
To answer your other question, if the hand was moving all over the frame, you could add a 2nd layer to track the hand/spoon and as long as that is placed “above” the first later, the first layer would subtract and not use that 2nd layer for tracking or stabilization.
Warp Stabilizer in AE is great, but there are many times where the user needs to make really specific selection on what to stabilize or how much smoothing is occurring. In these cases mocha is quote useful.
Hope that helps,
RossRoss Shain
Imagineer Systems
http://www.imagineersystems.com -
Hi Ross,
Warp Stabilizer gave me some funky results so I went back into Mocha. I ended up painstakingly tracking the entire rim of the cup, so a LOT of keyframes.
The result is not bad at all, not the most efficient method I grant you, but since I will not use the entire shot anymore and rather slow it down and use maybe 1/4 of it I’ll be fine.
Thank you for your suggestions.
-
No problem. If you want to post the clip for me, I could take a quick look to see if there are suggestions to solve the track easier.
-R
Ross Shain
Imagineer Systems
http://www.imagineersystems.com
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up