Real life light streaks – problems with continuity and flickering

[Ori Kuper]

Walter – that sounds good, although i’m not sure i’m a huge fan of the ‘creating pixels from scratch’ thing. BUT I might try that too!

In the meanwhile I took Richard’s advice and been trying the precomp and echo-process multiple times; i got some nice results with ‘closing the gaps’, at least per a still frame. Attached here.

Since I’m using a laptop system, that by today’s graphic standards would be considered ‘very weak’, my questions now are:

1. What would be using more resources/power for rendering (preview AND final product); the time remapping process you mentioned above, or the multiple precomps with the echo on each (as i show here)?

2. If I wanted to get a desktop system that is capable of such job(s), and on our era’s footage (4-6K) – what do i need to make sure to have in it? I know it’s a huge can of worms, never ending, maybe not for this forum, question – but for now lets say ‘just for this specific job with AE’..

p.s. tried to re-precomp again and boom my AE crashes. And of course the last few precomps with the echo settings were not saved. Yay for trial and error again from scratch and hence why i need a new system 🙁

[Chris Wright]

you could try timewarp 100% but manual shutter blade blur like 4000 to even out the dots. It’s similar to reelsmart motion blur. or cc forcemotion blur.

cc vector blur is designed to blur dots.

Also, depending on flicker, if the above doesn’t work, you can timewarp 50%, then precomp that and then right click timestretch 50%. The speed will be the same but it will create intermediate frames to average out the flicker.

[Ori Kuper]

I’ve been trying few things, one of them was to get a brand new SSD. Now that i’m back on it, I’m trying to make the work a little easier on the system, but getting some unwanted results. Maybe you can tell me why it happens?? I’m attaching print screen of the previews, of each of the 2 options that i’m trying to work with.

The process:
Originally I had both Levels AND Echo effects applied to my original footage. The processing of both effects together was very heavy on the system, so I decided to render the original footage with ONLY the LEVELS effect applied, then bring that rendered file into AE, and apply ONLY ECHO to it (since it’s ‘ready to go levels wise’).
Both the original and rendered are 60fps, so i thought i’m not missing any data there.

The problem:
The results look different; the original file with both effects on it, creates a way smoother ‘streak of light’ with no gaps. The rendered file with the Echo only on it, creates gaps in the line.

I understand that the original file, with the echo applied to it, is using ALL the info that was on the footage even before the in-frame, therefore at any point on the timeline, this line would have more ‘history frames’ behind it (and will create longer streaks). But I don’t think that issue would cause it to be more/less smooth…

So – what is it, that creates those ‘gaps’ in my lines, when i’m using the pre-rendered file and just applying the Echo to it?
Any ideas?

Thanks, Happy holidays and Happy new year!
Ori.

[Ori Kuper]

I’m back for more!!
So i finally had a chance to check this effect while test shooting for few mins in 60FPS. It sure looks better (no gaps in the line). Now I have another question – more editing/general workflow – but since I already started here – I’ll ask it here first:
Lets say I want to create a simple light streak, shaped as a circle, while creating a ‘fast forwarded’ action; Imagine a person holding a light in their hand towards the camera, arm fully extended, creating a circle with their arm. To the camera it looks clockwise.
The beginning is just a regular cutting process:
1. I want to take that footage, slow-mo the shot in Premiere to 50%, and then cut it in a way that would show only around the times when the arm is at 12,4,8,12 – ‘skipping’ the parts in between. BUT:
I want the light streak (to be added in AE) to be FULLY created and shown. w/o gaps. For which I’m afraid I will have to:
2. Take the FULL ORIGINAL shot as is, bring it to AE, create the light streak over the WHOLE shot, render it out as a FULL shot again, replace the shot in PP project with this final render of the shot.
The problem I have with this – I’ll have to process and render a full shot, even though at the end I’ll only be showing less than a 1/4 of it. The problem becomes even worse, when I’m planning on doing it with multiple, different shots.

Any idea how I can avoid that ‘full go-around’ per EACH shot (or that shot’s cuts)? A way to work ‘only with the cuts I really need’ which will STILL create a fully made light streak shown?

Thanks!
Ori.