Using REFlex motion morph

[Peter Litwinowicz]

If you understand the Warp plugin, then the Motion Morph plugin should be easy :-).

You just need a pair of splines (AE’s masks or combustion’s rotosplines), just like with the Warp plugin: one of each pair aligned with the “from” movie at each frame and the other of each pair aligned with the “to” movie. And you create as many spline-pairs as you need to align the images at each frame.

Since you know how to use Warp, then perhaps you should take a look at our RE:Flex sample projects, located here: https://www.revisionfx.com/products/reflex/support/#After%20Effects (for After Effects) or here: https://www.revisionfx.com/products/reflex/support/#Autodesk%20Combustion (for combustion).

There is a project of Motion Morph examples. This is not a tutorial per se, but a project that demonstrates what a proper set up looks like. Make sure to quickly read the ReadMe file that is in the directory.

Let us know if we can answer any other questions,
Pete Litwinowcz
https://www.revisionfx.com

[Pj Pesce]

I have literally spent the last two days trying to make this plug-in work. I can’t believe that for the money charged, there isn’t a decent manual and a detailed tutorial for this. From reading the other posts, I don’t think I’m alone in this frustration.

Cappa

[Pierre Jasmin]

I am willing to help you out step by step, but it would be useful to know in which application you run RE:Flex as the workflow varies a lot between each app we support

Pierre

[Pj Pesce]

That’s very kind of you.

I’m on After Effects, Mac.

Can I e-mail you directly?

[Pierre Jasmin]

I would suggest you start with the Warp plugin first to familiarize yourself

1) Load a still (let’s start easy) in AE
2) Drop that into a comp, put yourself at the first frame
3) Apply RE:Flex Warp
4) select the Pen tool
5) draw a shape
6) press on the effects control window (there are other ways to end a shape)
7) twirl open the layer in the timeline
8) select mask 1
9) CTRL – D on windows (Edit | Duplicate) — now you have two times the same shape
10) make another shape (mask3), duplicate mask 4
ok now you have 4 shapes
11) twirl open mask 2 and 4 and press the hour glass button beside Mask path, now that shape is animatable
12)ok now go to the last frame
13) in re:flex check AutoHide Mask (the second parameter)
(make sure you set back the cursor to arrow – selection tool)
and the first param (a menu, says Warped Image)
14) move the visible shapes around – change the Display menu from Warped to Unwarped back to Warped — ok you see the shapes appear and disappear accordingly. If you look in the timeline you should see the shape locks alternate as well.
15) press on the timeline play, now you have an animated warp

SO: A warp takes a “from” shape and a “to” shape and warps the image from the “from” shape to the “to” shape. The Warp Amount parameter actually controls the displacement from the original to the destination. It defaults to 100% so you get the full warp effect. Basically the Mask 1,3,5,7 are the “FROM” shapes and 2,4,6,8,… are the “TO” shapes and Mask1 and 2 go together, 3 and 4 are also a from and to pair and so on.

Yes?

OK, now the motion morph also works with the concept of a pair of shapes, except the FROM is attached to the main input (the current layer on which you apply the effect) and the TO is attached to the layer you selected in the layer param.

So turn off RE:Flex Warp and apply Motion Morph (keep the shape for now). Select another layer that is the same size for “Warp to Layer”. Change Display to “Unwarped From” and turn “AutoHide” shapes on. Looks familiar? Select “Warped From” …

Now select Warped and Blended and set both Warp and Blend slider to 50% – yes? ok it’s probably not much right now, usually you set shapes for Motion Morph on the two sequences that are related, for example you trace the eye of the guy in layer with mask1 and the other guy eye (in other layer) with mask2,…

Hopefully now, if you look at the sample projects on the support section of our site, this will start to make more sense

You can write to us with sample projects at techsupport@revisionfx.com so we can help you set up your morph.

Pierre

NOW: The motion morph also has a “from” and a “to” shape

[Jaime Escalante]

I have one talking person with a fixed camera that I would like to morph to a second morphing person on another set with a fixed camera.

I tried following these steps — I got the Warp down, but the Morph is not working. Does anyone have a nice YouTube video or something that walks you through a quick-and-dirty morph?

We are doing 20 morphs in 10 seconds so they definitely don’t have to be perfect.

Thanks for any replies or information.

–Jaime

[Pierre Jasmin]

Which application (AE, Shake, Fusion, Combustion,…?)

Pierre

[Jaime Escalante]

After Effects.

I considered using Liquify because when you’re doing one morph every 20 frames you don’t need “perfect” quality.

Thanks for the response

[Pierre Jasmin]

Here some ideas on how to prepare the material for multiple morphed transitions – although for Motion Morph you could also do them one by one: from clip 1 to clip 2

There is a manual that explains what the controls do and some sample projects in the support section of RE:Flex on our website.

1) Motion Morph or Morph?
With Morph you can make a morph between two frames of a same sequence, with Motion Morph between two clips

A. MORPH tool: With Morph you can create motion between the last frame of a sequence and the first frame of another sequence and to do so you would in a precomp stack all your clip and offset them so they line up in time, and if you want say 5 frames transition between each, leave 5 empty frames between each clip in your precomp, which we call here the black frames.
B. Take that comp and put it into a new comp in which you apply RE:Flex Morph. Animate the button “Picture Key” so it’s checked at the last valid frame, then unchecked at the first black frame, then checked again at the next sequence first frame.
You should now have a sequence without black frames which blends frames where there was black.
Then you can place some masks on the last valid frame of a sequence, set the Mask path to animate, then on first valid frame of next sequence (after the last black frame) move the shape vertices so it represents about the same location then the other images (eg a shape for eyebrows – then move it so it’s on the next frame — on the eyebrow).

2) Motion Morph: If you want to cross-morph sequences with action, You have to organize your 10 sequences in two different precomp I think and hopefully you have some head and tail on these clips. Let’s imagine you have ten clips you want to cross-morph or chain-morph. In one precomp you stack clip 1,3,5,7,9 and in the other you stack in time order 2,4,6,8,10. Another thing, let’s say they are are 5 clips of 5 seconds edited, for the second comp start the first clip (offset start point) so it starts at 2.5 seconds.

B. OK you have two sequences and you drop these two sequences into a new comp. You apply Motion Morph to the first sequence and you select as “Warp To Layer” the other clip. First see the value Global Blend. Animate it to mask the hard cuts in each of the two sources. So if we used 5 seconds shots, then every 2.5 seconds that value will alternate between 0% and 100% (it will be 0%/100% where you in the precomp switched from a clip to another).
Now play RAM preview, it should just be a chained dissolve if you are in Warped and Blended mode.

C. Go to the first frame, copy the key-frames of Global Blend and Paste it into “Global Warp”. Set Display to Warp From mode.
* Make a small line on a feature in first frame.
* Duplicate (ALT D on windows)
* Press somewhere on the effects control window (how I found to terminate shape draw in AE)

The Duplicate is to create a corresponding “To Shape”
* Change to Display Mode Warp To
* Check Auto Show Hide Splines
* Place the spline to corresponding features

(Twirl open masks and make sure the path are in animate mode)

** Do a few shapes like that – animate to start every 2.5 seconds and then add more inbetween positions for shapes as needed
** sometimes the AutoAlign will do a good job on fast transitions

Pierre

[Jaime Escalante]

Thank you for your information — I will give it a shot

–Jaime