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Smooth slow-motion in Vegas…possible?
I’ve done a lot of reading about this issue. Whenever I move clips into slow-mo, I get an annoying “stutter” effect for the slow-motion rather than a smooth slow-mo.
Now, I understand that the issue here is that my footage is shot in high speed, and thus doesn’t have the extra frames required for “true” slow-mo (instead Vegas is just taking each frame and repeating it depending how steep I want the slow-mo to be, twice for 50% speed, and up to 4 times for 25% speed). I get that.
However, in reading around it would seem that other software (FCP, After Effects) have methods of dealing with this, largely by interpolating or blending the missing frames rather than just repeating the last frame. My question is, does Sony Vegas have anything like this? I understand it still won’t be as good as if the footage was shot in high speed and I truely had the extra frames to work with, but some form of interpolation/blending has got to be better than the stuttery mess I’m left with in Vegas.
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11 Replies
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However, in reading around it would seem that other software (FCP, After Effects) have methods of dealing with this, largely by interpolating or blending the missing frames rather than just repeating the last frame. My question is, does Sony Vegas have anything like this?
Yes, and actually this is the default behavior in Vegas so I wonder why you are not seeing this. Right-click on the slo-mo event and make sure either Smart Resample or Force Resample is enabled. This is what tells Vegas to resample the video and blend the frames to make new ones.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Right-click the clip, select Properties and then click Disable Resample.
See if that helps. -
John, I just tried doing a 25% slo-mo on a clip of my daughter and her friends dancing.
Disable Resample gave me the cleanest slo-mo which is why I suggested it. -
Hmmm… I would have though that enabling it would have created the in-between frames and made it smoother. Very interesting. I’ll have to play with that and see.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Sorry, I’m just not seeing it Mike. When I disable resample and step frame by frame, Vegas is duplicating frames (sometimes 3 in a row!) and causing very jerky movement. When I switch to force resample, I get smooth motion that blends from frame to frame. I don’t see how you could be seeing anything different. Force resample provides smoother slo-mo than disable resample on my system.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Hmmm, I’m not really seeing a noticeable difference either way.
If I take the clip into after effects and use its blending technique it looks much smoother than doing it either way in Vegas. Unfortunately the project I’m working on right now has like a bazillion slow-mo clips that all have to be adjusted to specific timings so moving each of them back and forth between Vegas and AE while trying to get the timing right is a major pain.
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I am really liking this forum alot. I can see that this is going to be an addictive hobby. I just played around with the slow-motion and stretch in a clip as well. I noticed that there was no difference in the clip when viewed in the preview window as I hold down the alt key and go thru frame by frame. Each frame was duplicated approximately four times at maximal stretch. I did, however, see the intended effect when I set the video preview window to best quality. I now see each individual frame including the interpolated ones. Try this and hopefully you will be able to see what you are looking for.
-Mark
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I have also been trying to achieve smoother slow motion and came across this tutorial, Butter-smooth slow motion.
(At the bottom is the instructions for Vegas users).However, it says to disable resampling. When I do this I get some of the same problems Mark was having… repeated frames and choppy looking slomo. What gives? If I set resampling to “force” or “smart” it plays much smoother better.
I am thoroughly confused.
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I registered specifically to answer you (and because I like the forum in general, but this was a more dramatic entrance). I think I know why there’s conflicting advice in this regard.
Often times when people want to play around with slow-mo, they’ll use high fps footage. For example, my Canon 550D can record at 60fps.
Now if my output was a 30fps movie for say, Youtube, I could slow down to 50% by simply doubling the time between individual frames. This is a very clean way to do it because (a) you don’t blur any individual frames and (b) there’s no stutter, because the numbers match up nicely (at no time does the software need to create or delete frames).
In the case above, you *absolutely* want to disable resample, because all it can do is create software blur and diminish the quality of your footage.
However, the resample option was created for a reason. Sometimes, you want to slow down footage where the framerates do not match up nicely, or they do but there’s not enough frames for any illusion of smoothness (try cutting 24fps footage in half).
In those cases, you need resample, because the alternative is as you describe: either jittery because of missing/interjected frames, or jittery because not enough frames.
Hope that answers your question.
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[Rene van den Bosch] “I registered specifically to answer you (and because I like the forum in general, “
This thread is over 5 years old…an answer not so topical and some might not even monitor the forum anymore.
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