[Alex Kuzelicki]

Thanks for the correction, JB. Appreciated.

I still couldn’t get it to work, however, as my laptop doesn’t have Page Up and Page Down only the arrow keys (or so I thought) .

And, for some reason, mapping the up/down commands to the arrow keys wouldn’t work.

In the end, I figured I’ll just make up some other key combination and see if it applies. That’s when I accidentally discovered the fn key on the laptop!

If you press that it gives you alternative options for keys not present on the laptop. Low and behold if you hold down the fn key with the up/down arrow keys you get “Page Up”/”Page Down”!!!

Serendipity 🙂

Thanks again, JB.

ALEX

PS – This may be obvious to a lot of people but I’ve had Mac laptops for years now and never knew what that fn key did. Hopefully, this helps someone else out similarly oblivious to me 🙂

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Hey John,

Actually that’s a really good point, I was overlooking. I suppose I don’t have to get the biggest, baddest MacPro there is as an alternative to the iMac. I’m sure even the entry level quad core MacPro with heaps of RAM would blow my current PowerPC G5 out of the water! And would be closer in price to the iMac.

Then again, the top of the line iMac has one thing even the MacPros don’t at the moment – Thunderbolt ports. I know they’re not quite available yet but I like the idea of simply hooking up a ‘supersonic’ external (footage) drive.

As far as upgrading goes, I figure these newer computers only seem to last a few years these days so if an iMac does a good job for those few years I’d be happy.

Mmm… I’m still confused! Thanks for the perspective though, it’s opened up another door.

Appreciated,

ALEX

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Hey Michael,

Good point. The footage is DVCPro 1080i, so that would make sense.

Cheers for that.

ALEX

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Hey Tudor,

Thanks for that suggestion. Was in the midst of trying different blurs when I read your reply. Your Fast Blur solution definitely reduced a lot of the flicker.

I have a Blackmagic card that lets me see ‘everything’ on my monitor which actually was a bad thing in this case.

The clip in question is only ever going to be seen on computer monitors, where it looks fine, so I’ve been spending lots of time trying to fix an irrelevant problem.

Then again… it’s good to know how to fix things (for future reference).

Thanks for your helpful advice.

Appreciated,

ALEX

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Hey Rob,

Thanks for the moral support. There’s some comfort in knowing others are suffering too 🙂

I did some more research and found that besides the high-rez of images causing the jitter, another possible cause is having two layers too close together in 3D space… though that wasn’t my particular problem. Maybe someone reading this might benefit though.

In the end, I did a bunch of tests with different blurs and was able to reduce the flicker – not totally – but to a level I can live with. Then I read Tudor’s reply which confirmed the solution. Fast Blur works good.

Hopefully, this will help someone else with a similar problem.

Does Creative Cow have a ‘knowledge bank’ kind of thing? Like a list of solutions to common problems. I know you can search posts but it seems the same problems come up for a lot of people. Would be good to go to a page, look up “Jittering/Flickering” and get definitive solutions.

Can’t complain with the help I’ve gotten from this site though. It’s an awesome community.

Cheers,

ALEX

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Thanks for the reply, Ted.

I hadn’t thought that it might be my Pen sensitivity somehow getting goofed up.

Will do some tests with and without.

Thanks for the idea.

Cheers,

ALEX

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Hey Ted,
Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately, I can’t directly stabilize the layer I want to as the tracking markers have already been removed (ie. there’s nothing to track from). But your simple solution, of just pasting the (Anchor Point) keyframes worked. Actually, last night, I did try parenting the keyed layer to the stabilized layer (which is effectively the same thing) but it didn’t seem to work. This morning I realized that my stabilization data wasn’t that ‘stable’ – so it was working after all. I was just too… (insert your own adjective here)… to realize it.

Please forgive my fuzzy, 3am brain 🙂 Anyway, I redid the stabilization, parented the keyed layer to it and all’s fine.

Hey Dave,
Thanks to you too. Your suggestion is what I planned to do AFTER stabilizing the footage (ie. reapplying the motion of the original footage to the (stabilized) keyed footage once composited with atmos and BG layers).

All is good now, though.

Thanks for the help guys. Appreciated.

ALEX

PS – We shot it hand-held… but not too hand-held 🙂

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Hi again,

Yeah, you’re right, I shouldn’t be seeing black fringing with a Straight Unmatted TIFF. I’m just going to double-check my source files, in case it’s just not my stupid mistake.

Will still give your other methods a run-through. Thanks for your excellent advice. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Cheers,

ALEX

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Hi Darby,

Thanks so much for your very clear and detailed answer. I’ll definitely be taking your advice.

I followed the steps you outlined, and it works, but I get a ‘black fringe’ around subjects. I guess this is akin to After Effects interpreting the Straight Unmatted clip as Premultiplied.

I wonder if there’s a way to get around this?

Regardless, your help is much appreciated.

Cheers,

ALEX

[Alex Kuzelicki]

Hey thanks guys.

Sorry it took awhile to respond to your suggestions. Will definitely try out both solutions.

Very much appreciated.

Cheers,

ALEX