How to optimize smoothness for pan/crop or track motion?

[John Rofrano]

[Phil Loarie] “For instance I set it to 20 and really did not notice a difference. Is zero better than say 100 or 1000?”

Zero turns smoothness off. 100 is the max. Just set it to 100 if you want it smoother.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Phil Loarie]

Thank you John.
I’ll give it a shot tonight.
-Phil

[Phil Loarie]

Hello John,
I went back to my pan crop project and changed all the key frame points regarding smoothness to 100. I got unexpected results. The geometry of the cropped image changes.

For instance I have a cropped shot, a rectangle that expands from right to left. Instead of the leading right edge moving to the other side with the left edge anchored on the left frame as desired, the left side expands to the left (off frame) and then moves to the right into the frame while the right edge does reach its target. The left appears to expand like a sponge and then shrinks.

Setting the smoothness to 50 still did the same weird geometry change, and yes changing the smoothness back to zero reverted the geometry to the original intent.

Would disabling the GOP in general preferences be contributing factor for this behavior? (see update in my last Nikon .mov thread).

Thanks in advance for your kind attention,
-Phil

[John Rofrano]

[Phil Loarie] “The left appears to expand like a sponge and then shrinks.”

This is why the default smoothness is zero (0). What smoothness does is “round the edges” if you will. Instead of reaching the target in a straight line, it smooths out the angle of approach. This is great for making things go in circles, but as you have seen, could cause some unexpected paths to be traversed. You just need to play with it and see what you like.

[Phil Loarie] “Would disabling the GOP in general preferences be contributing factor for this behavior? (see update in my last Nikon .mov thread).”

No, this is purely due to using smoothing on the keyframes.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Phil Loarie]

Thank you John,
I will sandbox this a bit to understand it better.
-Phil