Mocha and inverse motion stabilization – scale?

[Bart Stevens]

Roland,
Thanks for the input. Yes, I was doing my stabilization then applying the liquify effect. I understand the render order, but it didn’t seem to effect the track. Even with the scale issues, it looked like the track was holding. I’ve attached a stripped down version, if you get a chance take a look.
This is a side project, that I’m doing in my spare time, son no sense of urgency.
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.
Cheers,
Bart

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Heya Ross, I emailed Mathias yesterday, I think, and he’s tracking, er I mean, travelling at the moment. 😉

He says he’ll reply, here, early next week.

Cheers
RoRK

Intensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer

[Mathias Möhl]

Thank you Roland and Ross, for pointing me to this discussion.

MochaImport+ is the right tool for this task. The precomps created by it use collapse transformations by default. However, a liquify effect inside the precomp still works nicely.

I just did a few tests and in CS6 it looks like it breaks if you use an adjustment layer inside the precomp. As this works fine in CS5.5, it looks like a bug to me. But even if you need an adjustment layer in your precomp, you can simply deactivate collapse transformations to make it work again.

The workflow of MochaImport’s stabilized precomps is explained in the After Effects tutorial: Graffiti becomes Alive.

[Mathias Möhl]

I did a few more experiments.

The issue I found with CS6, seems to be something very specific to my particular project. In general applying effects to adjustment layers inside a precomp works fine. In my case, a particular combination of masks, the CC power pin effect and the Cartoon effect caused a problem on CS6.

It seems to be a special case. If you have any problems, I recommend to turn off collapse transformation or tell MochaImport+ to use the corner pin effect instead of the CC power pin (each of these options solved the problem for me immediately).

If you are interested in the details, here is the bug report I submitted to Adobe:

******BUG******
Collapse Transformation with mask, CC power pin, and adjustment layer in a precomp behaves in CS6 different than in CS5.5

Steps to reproduce:

1) take some footage and precomp it.
2) inside the precomp add an adjustment layer on top of the other layer and add the cartoon effect to it.
3) on the adjustment layer insider the precomp, add a cartoon effect (with its default settings).
4) apply a rectangular mask to the adjustment layer in the precomp. The mask shoud be located in the middle of the comp and cover roughly a quarter of it.
5) Copy the same mask on the footage layer inside the precomp (below the adjustment layer).
5) go back to the main comp and apply a CC power pin (with its default settings) to the precomp layer.

6) In the main comp, toggle the collapse transformations switch of the precomp layer on and off

expected behavior: There should be no difference between collapse transformations on and off (this is what I observe in CS5.5).

behavior: With collapse transformation on, the masked area is zoomed to cover the entire comp

This does not look like a minimal example, but as soon as I make it more minimal, the problem disappears.

The problem disappears, for example, when I do one of the following things:
– If I skip the mask on the adjustment layer (and only have a mask on the footage layer)
– If I use a corner pin instead of a CC power pin effect
– If I use a box blur instead of a cartoon effect or even if I put a box blur on top of the cartoon effect

Best
Mathias

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Awesome stuff Mathias. BTW, I think your issue with CC Power Pin with CS6 is related to this thread, where a temporary solution is possible. In the same thread, Todd, from Adobe has already escalated the issue with the AE Team and Cycore. Well … more info on the link above.

Cheers
RoRK

Intensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer

[Mathias Möhl]

Hi Roland,

yes, it sounds like this could be related. I have no 3d layers in my project, but maybe collapse transformations and 3d layers cause the same problem.

Best,
Mathias