Motion Compensation using Vegas.

farss wrote on 8/3/2004, 4:20 PM
I have a new client who has yet to discover why tripods were invented. One of her friends has already had a go at trying to correct the motion in this shot and they've done a pretty heroic job in Premiere but I've been asked to try to get it better.

This is a 'static' shot of a bonfire by the ocean but what makes it really tricky is it needs to be looped continuously on a DVD. All of this is a piece of cake however the horizon on the first and last frame needs to be pixel accurate otherwise there's a pretty noticable jump in the horizon and it's to be projected onto a big screen.

So I've spent quite a bit of time with event pan/crop trying to line it up almost frame by frame against a still I captured of the first frame and I can get it pretty close but still not really good enough. What makes it really tricky is the axis of rotation is nigh impossible to determine and it shifts.

But what I did realise Vegas is missing that would make many of these tasks much easier is the ability to zoom in the preview window. Trying to judge things down to the last pixel is impossible. Sure I know it'd be much easier on a 21" studio monitor but....

And yes, I've tried Dynapel Steadyhand, for what I need, if anything, it makes things worse. I guess AE would be the best solution, from what I remember I can set tracking markers, that would be ideal as no doubt the fire would throw most things off the mark and I have a number of blips on the horizon with good contrast which would be ideal as tracking markers.

Anyone had any experience solving this kind of problem, is it worthwhile investing not only the money but also the learning in AE or are there better solutions for this task?

Bob.

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 8/3/2004, 4:38 PM
To create a loop for a DVD, this is what I do:

1. Place the footage on the timeline and split it somewhere in the middle. The exact location doesn't mater at all.

2. Take the first event and move it to the right until it is exactly after the second event.

If you render these two events, and then loop the result, the only place where it will jump is where the two events touch each other. By splitting and moving the two events as I described in the two steps, you put the two frames that must match exactly next to each other.

If you want, you can move one event to a different track, and then overlap the two events by exactly one frame. Then, temporarily set the opacity for the event on the upper track to 50%. This will let you see both frames at the same time. You can then use pan/crop to move, rotate, and zoom (for the event on the top) until you get both frames to line up. Then, set another keyframe several seconds before this one and set the pan/crop for all parameters to zero. This will give make the pan/crop change take place over many frames, so you won't notice it.

Actually, when I do this, I never bother with the pan/crop. Too much time, especially if it is just for some background loop on a DVD menu that no one is going to pay much attention to anyway. What I do instead is simply overalp the two events after step two which creates a dissolve. If the two events are pretty close, and are of a mostly static scene, like an ocean view, the dissolve pretty much "hides" the jump.

Thus, just cut the event in two, swap them, and then overlap. Render the result and that's all there is to creating a simple, quick loop for a DVD menu.
farss wrote on 8/3/2004, 5:04 PM
John,
a good tip in there, I'll try it out. Still really need to get rid of the wobble though otherwise the gallery is going to need a mop and bucket I think.
Bob.
johnmeyer wrote on 8/3/2004, 6:21 PM
need to get rid of the wobble though otherwise the gallery is going to need a mop and bucket

My daughter went to see The Bourne Supremacy the other day, and was motion sick for THREE DAYS! (She's seventeen, and otherwise healthy). All due to the intense use of purposely shaky hand-held cameras.

If you need to steady the whole thing, and you don't like Steadyhand, I think you already know of the other two choices: Steadymove and Deshaker. Steadymove is available only as a Premiere or AE plugin. The demos on their site (Steadymove ) make it look like it beats Steadyhand by a wide margin. I am less familiar with Deshaker, which is a VirtualDub plugin, but several people in this forum have praised it in the past few months.
DGrob wrote on 8/3/2004, 6:22 PM
John,
ya know, that's a really good idea. I had been thinking of trying that same concept to create looping animated lower thirds, or even animated background loops.
Since you split the event and swqp, the end of the new clip is a seamless butt to the beginning of the next clip. Right? You could take generated media, copy the first keyframe and paste it at the middle and end. Go to the quarter points and create a keyframed animation...hmmmm.
Have to give it a try. Darryl
hugoharris wrote on 8/3/2004, 7:23 PM
Just out or curiosity, would Satish's morphing plug-in, used over a few frames, help smooth the transition at the midway loop point when using John's method?

Kevin.
johnmeyer wrote on 8/3/2004, 11:26 PM
the end of the new clip is a seamless butt to the beginning of the next clip. Right?

Yup, that's the beauty of the method (I didn't invent it). That's also why it doesn't matter at all where you split the clip. Once you have them swapped, you can trim each event to find frames that are nearly identical, or you can, as hugoharris suggests use morphing to mask the loop. Actually, the sky's the limit on what you can do at the loop point: everything from a simple fade to black (and then fade back up again), to doing mirror effects, to running the clip backwards, etc.
TorS wrote on 8/4/2004, 3:16 AM
One some shots it would work to copy the event so that one follows directly after the other and reverse the copy 100%. Then loop both of them.
Tor
Grazie wrote on 8/4/2004, 3:45 AM
Yes, I too thought of that one .. Seagulls flying backwards? Maybe? Nice thought . ..
farss wrote on 8/4/2004, 5:00 AM
Yeah!
Fire looks very interesting going backwards too but not quite what the client had in mind.
For some things splitting and swapping the two halves is a great idea but in this case I'm just moving the issue from one place to the next.

Actually there's two problems here:

1) Get the horizon stable.
2) If 1) isn't possible at least have the horizon match on the first and last frame so there isn't a jump.

Neither of these seem doable. If I was charging for the time I've wasted on this it'd be cheaper for me to fly to the location and reshoot the thing myself.

Bob.
TorS wrote on 8/4/2004, 5:20 AM
The grid on the preview window is a great help, but you probably knew that.
Tor
farss wrote on 8/4/2004, 6:11 AM
I've done a lot better than that, take a still of say the first frame, put it on the track below, set the track of video to 50% opacity and apply the Negative FX as well. That really makes the differences standout!

Problem is on a 15" monitor it's extremely difficult to to judge just one pixels worth of movement.

Bob.
TorS wrote on 8/4/2004, 6:24 AM
You know too, of course, about the preview 1:1 feature. Unfortunately it can not be shifted across the image, but it help in some cases.
Tor
JaysonHolovacs wrote on 8/4/2004, 10:39 AM
I've used DeShaker and it works pretty well. I think it's better than Steadyhand(which I've also tried), but it has a lot of paramters and can be a little intimidating. Both VirtualDub and DeShaker are free, though, so if you have the time it's worth trying out. It definitely improved my video. It does wonders on some things. It rarely hurts the video other than making the blur a little more noticeable. Note the blur is not cause by Deshaker but by the movement of the camera. Just because you stabilize the video doesn't mean the particular frames don't have motion blur.

Although it's not always perfect, it sometimes works miracles. Also, the author was very helpful in answering my questions.

-Jayson
JonnyMac wrote on 8/4/2004, 1:50 PM
I enjoyed The Bourne Supremacy -- except for the "Ooo ... wouldn't it be cool if we shot this big-budget feature like film students who can't afford tripods, dollies, and a steadycam?" aspect.
Massimo Rossi wrote on 8/5/2004, 7:13 AM
I used Deshaker to stabilize a shot used in a music videoclip. It's very easy to use, and free. It made a good job, so I suggest to try it.

Bye.