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Splines and Mattes in Twixtor
Does anyone have any advice about adding splines and mattes in Twixtor using After Effects? I’m attempting to reduce some unwanted warping and tearing in my shots.
I have been attempting to use the matte option but I am running into some unexpected errors. I created a new sold in After Effects and added a matte to that layer and in the Twixtor plug-in on the footage I pointed FG1 to that layers Alpha channel but that does not show up. I got it to work if I placed that solid into a Comp though. This is frustrating because I see a lot of errors with the matte too. More than without it and it’s hard to adjust the matte and see it updated.
No I am experimenting with Splines. Do you add the mattes right to the layer the Twixtored shot is on? How many points do you use? How should they be shaped?
I might have high expectations of the software. Do you do a lot of compositing with multiple versions of a shot to create one perfect image?
Any sage advice is appreciated.
Thanks!
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4 Replies
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First: I presume you’ve seen the manual that’s included with Twixtor? It was put on your disk by the installer when you installed the plugins.
Second: to “see” the mattes, changes Twixtor to display FG1, FG2, etc. Make sure the mattes have absolutely 0 value where there is no matte. NOTE: Twixtor, by default, chooses the red channel, make sure you choose the ALpha channel. Second: if you are in AE and roto mattes onto the FG1 layer you are using, make sure you do that in a precomposition! AFter Effects doesn’t pass us the matte channel if you create the matte in the same composition where Twixtor is applied. I suspect this why Twixtor is not seeing the matte.
The splines should be applied to the same layer where Twixtor is applied! To see examples of projects with Twixtor properly set up (not tutorials, but sample projects set up correctly) go to this page:https://www.revisionfx.com/products/twixtor/help/#after_effects Scroll down until you see the “Sample Projects” section.
Cheers,
Pete Litwinowicz
RE:Vision Effects, Inc. -
I’ve read through the HTML manual that came with the software.
To my dismay I discovered on my own the Roto mattes have to be on a Precomp to work.
Are there any good pointers about creating the splines and mattes? I have people walking in front of a static background but my mattes are causing more artifacts than without. I’m getting issues around people’s arms and heads and creating a matte that works well is quite difficult and time consuming.
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We have no extra tutorials at this time, except to look at the pre-made projects I suggested you look at (take a look at those, they might be very helpful, even if they don’t show you step by step).
And, sorry to say, some shots are just very difficult. With arms an legs crossing the body and each other, this can be very difficult for Twixtor (and any retiming solution), even with mattes and splines. THe sample projects I pointed you to have an example of a person with a couple arms crossing each other and a torso. And even with multiple layers of mattes, it still needs quite a few splines to guide the tracking.
Yes, it can take a lot of time to do this if you don’t roto for your everyday job. But the point is that it is often possible with Twixtor where other retiming products don’t offer these options to guide the tracking.
Cheers,
Pete Litwinowicz -
Thanks. Good to know. It gets frustrating when you don’t know if you are just doing something wrong or if it just isn’t possible.
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