Peter Litwinowicz
Forum Replies Created
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So I posted a project here: https://www.revisionfx.com/tmp/displaceAndREMap.aep.zip . You’ll need to download the RE:Map demo installer (located here: https://www.revisionfx.com/rmapdownloads.htm ).
In the Satz 10 comp, you’ll see there are 4 layers…. two of which are labeled “AE Displacement Map” and “REMap Displacement Map.” The AE Displacement Map’s visibility is turned off. Turn it on to compare our effect with AE’s.
Some things to note: Since you are using a displacement amount of 50, it is advisable to have the project be in 16bpc… you’ll get much more precise displacments whether using our RE:Map or AE’s Displacement Map filter.
Second: we do different things than AE’s filter if the displacement map and image-to-be-displaced are of different sizes. As such, I changed your displacement map to be 1920×1200 (it was originally 1920×1080) so that you could compare the results more directly.
Third: I set RE:Map Displace’s Warp mode to Inverse (the equivalent of AE’s), and set the MaxDisplace (in the Displacement Controls grouping) to 50. Then, because we do our math a bit different than AE, I set the Vector Scale X and Y to -1 so that I could get the same results.
Fourth: in order to turn on anti-aliasing, I set the Antialiasing Sampling to 3×3. This is the key to getting the better result than AE’s Displacement Map filter
Last: we don’t currently offer a wrap-around edge behavior that AE has, so we have a slightly different edge than AE.
Another thing: if you squash the image alot, you would want to set the Mip-Map method to something other than standard (you don’t need it for this project, but you might in the future).
Let me know if you have any other questions,
Pete LItwinowicz
https://www.revisionfx.com -
This is something we’ve experienced over the years with AE’s displacement map filter. basically, it has no filtering to prevent aliasing. Note also, that AE’s corner pinning filter also has this aliasing problem.
In fact, we here at RE:Vision Effects often want to distort or displace things without this aliasing… so much so that we included a filter in our RE:Map product ($149.95) that does displacement mapping, but with all the filtering you need to prevent this aliasing. We’ve also included a corner pinning filter that also eliminates this aliasing (along with other bells and whistles). (and RE:Map has a couple of other filters which I will not go into here.. see https://www.revisionfx.com/rmap.htm ).
I see that you posted the displacement map. Can you post the AE project with the displacement map filter applied (with the comp that creates the stripes, or the image with the stripes as a JPEG file)? If you have an AE project with animation of the displacement map, or the displacement amount, even better (because you will see aliasing much more clearly in the animated result..). Once I have that , I’ll make you a sample project that uses the demo version of RE:Map to show you how much better our filter is.
Pete Litwinowicz
https://www.revisionfx.com -
[AlanEHoward] “I get the impression that the settings should be altered for various situations but my 60 min pieces contain fast moving, slow moving, panning, tripod, hand held shots etc (as do most 60 min pieces I’d suspect). Hence my need for a “Cover all” default setting that will look good for all of the above.
Unfortunately, I think that having a “cover all” setting is generally not going to give you the best results for all footage (that’s why we have the tweakable settings) However, I understand the need for that in your case. If you need something that will look good in most cases you might want to set the interpolation type to “Best 3 Neighbors” and set the Smooth Vertically to 1.0 and Sharpen set to 0.5.
You might consider animating FieldsKit’s settings so that you have a setting per edited segment rather than once for the entire piece. In particular, you might be able to get much better results if one off the segments has a locked-off camera (using the motion detection settings of FieldsKit). Unfortunately the motion masking settings tend to be content dependent, so a “cover all” setting for that is not really appropriate… for a “cover all” setting I would advise you to leave the Detect Motion Mask setting of FieldsKit to “No Motion Mask”.
[AlanEHoward]Whats the normal work flow? I assume that you cut your piece, export as QT Ref file into AE and off you go.. is that the best route?
Yeah, I think this is a pretty good route.
[AlanEHoward] I generally shoot on 16:9 PAL DVcam(why are tutorials always in NTSC?)and the eventual destination is DVD via Encore… “
Why are the tutorials always in NTSC? Because that’s what we work in. The difference between NTSC and PAL for deinterlacing is minimal, no? In both you still have two different fields per each frame, on alternating lines of the frame. The basic concepts of using FieldsKit will be the same in NTSC or PAL.
In any event, if you have any more questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
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[AlanEHoward] “I get the impression that the settings should be altered for various situations but my 60 min pieces contain fast moving, slow moving, panning, tripod, hand held shots etc (as do most 60 min pieces I’d suspect). Hence my need for a “Cover all” default setting that will look good for all of the above.
Unfortunately, I think that having a “cover all” setting is generally not going to give you the best results for all footage (that’s why we have the tweakable settings) However, I understand the need for that in your case. If you need something that will look good in most cases you might want to set the interpolation type to “Best 3 Neighbors” and set the Smooth Vertically to 1.0 and Sharpen set to 0.5.
You might consider animating FieldsKit’s settings so that you have a setting per edited segment rather than once for the entire piece. In particular, you might be able to get much better results if one off the segments has a locked-off camera (using the motion detection settings of FieldsKit). Unfortunately the motion masking settings tend to be content dependent, so a “cover all” setting for that is not really appropriate… for a “cover all” setting I would advise you to leave the Detect Motion Mask setting of FieldsKit to “No Motion Mask”.
[AlanEHoward]Whats the normal work flow? I assume that you cut your piece, export as QT Ref file into AE and off you go.. is that the best route?
Yeah, I think this is a pretty good route.
[AlanEHoward] I generally shoot on 16:9 PAL DVcam(why are tutorials always in NTSC?)and the eventual destination is DVD via Encore… “
Why are the tutorials always in NTSC? Because that’s what we work in. The difference between NTSC and PAL for deinterlacing is minimal, no? In both you still have two different fields per each frame, on alternating lines of the frame. The basic concepts of using FieldsKit will be the same in NTSC or PAL.
In any event, if you have any more questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
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All that FieldsKit Deinterlacer does is convert each frame from 2 fields to 1 frame (in the default setting, as you say). So are you saying that the video is out of sync, or the audio? And you say that some shots that were 3 seconds become 1 second… that’s not something FieldsKit is equipped to do (but I believe you are seing it!).
If you turn off the FieldsKit filter, do you see the same behaviour (that is, I’m wondering if there is some problem going from Avid–>After Effects)?
You can always send us a project and source footage that shows the problem to techsupport@revisionfx.com
Pete Litwinowicz
https://www.revisionfx.com -
All that FieldsKit Deinterlacer does is convert each frame from 2 fields to 1 frame (in the default setting, as you say). So are you saying that the video is out of sync, or the audio? And you say that some shots that were 3 seconds become 1 second… that’s not something FieldsKit is equipped to do (but I believe you are seing it!).
If you turn off the FieldsKit filter, do you see the same behaviour (that is, I’m wondering if there is some problem going from Avid–>After Effects)?
You can always send us a project and source footage that shows the problem to techsupport@revisionfx.com
Pete Litwinowicz
https://www.revisionfx.com -
All that FieldsKit Deinterlacer does is convert each frame from 2 fields to 1 frame (in the default setting, as you say). So are you saying that the video is out of sync, or the audio? And you say that some shots that were 3 seconds become 1 second… that’s not something FieldsKit is equipped to do (but I believe you are seing it!).
If you turn off the FieldsKit filter, do you see the same behaviour (that is, I’m wondering if there is some problem going from Avid–>After Effects)?
You can always send us a project and source footage that shows the problem to techsupport@revisionfx.com
Pete Litwinowicz
https://www.revisionfx.com -
Actually, with FCP 5.0 and later, the file to delete is in ~user/Library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data/Final Cut Pro Obj Cache (note is in the Library folder of your home directory, and not the Library directory found at the top level of your boot volume). You can safely delete this file and FCP will rebuild it upon startup.
Here is the email i sent directly to the person who posted this problem, but the info may be of use to others:
First, once FCP can’t load a plugin, it will never find it even if you point FCP to the proper place. This is a bug with FCP and I’ve reported it many times.
Did you select the install for “FCP on Power PC Macs”? If you look in the folder /Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro System Support/Plugins, do you find it there?
Can you apply FieldsKit on a new clip? I presume not, but I’m wondering if it’s just old projects that don’t work properly. If you can apply FieldsKit from scratch (that is, not using it from a project you already created), then I suggest you remove the previously-applied Deinterlacer filter on yor clip and just start with a newly applied version. Does this work for you?
What version of the OS do you have? Did you just upgrade to Mac OS 10.4.6? If so, you probably want to read this: https://www.revisionfx.com/generalfaqsOSX104.htm
Pete Litwinowicz
https://www.revisionfx.com -
Actually, with FCP 5.0 and later, the file to delete is in ~user/Library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data/Final Cut Pro Obj Cache (note is in the Library folder of your home directory, and not the Library directory found at the top level of your boot volume). You can safely delete this file and FCP will rebuild it upon startup.
Here is the email i sent directly to the person who posted this problem, but the info may be of use to others:
First, once FCP can’t load a plugin, it will never find it even if you point FCP to the proper place. This is a bug with FCP and I’ve reported it many times.
Did you select the install for “FCP on Power PC Macs”? If you look in the folder /Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro System Support/Plugins, do you find it there?
Can you apply FieldsKit on a new clip? I presume not, but I’m wondering if it’s just old projects that don’t work properly. If you can apply FieldsKit from scratch (that is, not using it from a project you already created), then I suggest you remove the previously-applied Deinterlacer filter on yor clip and just start with a newly applied version. Does this work for you?
What version of the OS do you have? Did you just upgrade to Mac OS 10.4.6? If so, you probably want to read this: https://www.revisionfx.com/generalfaqsOSX104.htm
Pete Litwinowicz
https://www.revisionfx.com -
A link to the fix for this is posted on the front page of our website, https://www.revisionfx.com (Apple introduced a bug in the 10.4.6 OS updater).
You can also go directly to the info here: https://www.revisionfx.com/generalfaqsOSX104.htm
Pete