Simon Ubsdell
6
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Peter Silie] “Do you have some additional tips how to do this in detail?”
Is it possible for you to post a frame grab of the shot in question so I could explain how you might go about the task you are trying to achieve?
Essentially what I am suggesting it that you create a rough mask to cover the general area that you are trying to fix. If you have tracking information already then that’s great because you can attach your rough mask to it as your subject moves around.
The idea that I was suggesting depends on their being a reasonably obvious difference in luminance (brightness) or chrominance (color) within the selected area to which you could apply either a Luma Keyer or possibly a (Color) Keyer which can be found under the Keying section of the filters tab. Hopefully this would enable to to refine your selection within the area of the rough mask.
it might not work in your particular case but it could be a possible answer. Beyond that it’s hard to be more specific without seeing the shot, as I say.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Scott House] “I hadn’t been thinking of using the emitter as an image mask”
The nice thing about this technique is you get a totally believable fall-off to the image as all the edges get naturally masked by the smoke outline.
Hope it helps anyway.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
You can get a nice effect of you use the Smoke Emitter as an Image Mask for your video layer* – the brighter areas of the “smoke” wil; show more of your image and the darker areas less of it.
You might also want to consider adding a very subtle Underwater or other Distortion effect to break up the image a bit more.
Depends on the look you are going for of course but I did a quick test and it looks pretty convincing.
* Note that you might want to make a Clone of your smoke layer to act as the Image Mask and apply a Levels filter to it so you can adjust the blacks and whites more aggressively and get a stronger result. If you do use the original smoke layer for the mask, make sure you turn it back on, as adding it to the Image Mask well will automatically turn it off.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
There’s probably a reasonably easy way to do this in Motion – if you’d like to post a frame grab of the shot you are trying to fix it would be easier to recommend the best course of action.
For example if it’s just teeth whiteness you’re trying to fix then it may be as easy as a simple luma key with a very rough garbage matte to isolate the keyed area.
You may well not need something as complicated (or expensive) as a third party plug-in.
It will depend on how the shot is lit and how much separation there exists in the area you’re trying to isolate.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
And one more I forgot – got to your Motion Preferences Cache settings and turn up the value of the Memory Cache to use more of your available memory.
EDIT: And one more one more thing – what’s the codec of your video files? If it’s Animation, Motion doesn’t play nicely with this so you might need to transcode for better performance. Make everything ProRes if you can …
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
In addition to having the right graphics card the key to Motion performance is RAM and lots of it.
Because of its real-time architecture Motion loads everything into memory. If you don’t have enough RAM, it starts using virtual memory which really slows things down.
If at all possible break your project down into smaler sections as the longer it is the more RAM it’s going to suck up.
Here are a few general performance tips courtesy of Patrick Sheffield’s invaluable Motion handbook.
Turn off thumbnail previews.
Don’t have any layers selected when you begin playback – this avoids unnecessary redrawing.
If you’re using RAM preview then clear it often as Motion keeps them all in RAM for use in undos.
Keep motion blur turned off until your final render – this is a major performance killer.
Turn of layers that you’ve finished building if you don’t need them.
You might even think about pre-rendering elements and bringing them back in rather than trying to run everything in real-time all at once. Export a layer or group using Export Selection – this enables you to choose to have the new layer come straight back in to your project.
If you’re using particles keep the particle count to a minimum as you work and only turn the number up for your final renders.
In general try to keep your complexity down as you work especially if you are just experimenting with things. You can always crank it up later.
Make sure you use Fixed Resolution on any groups where you can get away doing this to avoid computing offscreen elements, especially particles.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Here’s where you can check if your graphics card is supported:
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4664
Yours appears to be.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
This is a known issue that Apple don’t seem to have really fixed just yet despite making quite a substantial change in the way that it worked a couple of versions back.
Then only foolproof method is to make a compound clip of the clip you want to use before adding it to the Drop Zone. As you say, things can look fine until you try to export!
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
The Additive Blend makes each instance of the particle that overlaps another become brighter (the pixels values get added together) which is why I mentioned it in this context.
It sounds as though all you need to do is follow my other suggestion which is to reduce the brightness of the middle color in the Color Over Life gradient.
Or you could do something simpler still which is to apply a Colorize filter (or any other color correction filter that works for you) to the whole particle system and adjust it that way.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
What Mark says obviously, but you can also temporarily disable them by holding down the Command key.
Handy tip to know if you also work in FCP X where they can be quite irritating sometimes.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com