Mailing List AE-List@media-motion.tv ? Message #41767
From: Jack Tunnicliffe <jack@javapost.ca>
Subject: cool fix
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:40:10 -0600
To: After Effects Mail List Effects Mail List <AE-List@media-motion.tv>
I thought I'd post a fix I had to do the other day for other AE users to look at. I used Paul Tuersley's FrameRestorer script, because it's absolutely the best way to deal with a problem like this. The script is so automated that it takes all the headaches out of generating intermediate frames where frames are missing. I used to do this all manually myself with Twixtor for shots and it would take me hours or even days to fix a really bad shot. 

I received some footage from a project done at another post house in another city. I was shocked when I saw the one scene, a crane shot over a bridge, done with a helicopter and a GoPro camera, so I called the producer. I said, we've got to fix that shot because it sticks out like a sore thumb. I knew what was wrong with it right away but nobody else seemed to.

You see the production was all 23.98 but of course the GoPro camera is a 29.97 device. The editor working on the project just dropped the 29.97 footage into the edit and of course this means every several frames the footage surges ahead and skips a frame to keep time, but at least it's on a consistent pattern. I asked for the source footage so I could do the Fieldskit and Twixtor trick to resolve the 60i footage back to 23.98. That would have worked except the footage had been exported and sent out to a visual effects house to have the helicopter shadow painted out. Hmmmmm? So, nobody knew where the source was.

FrameRestorer to the rescue. I pulled the shot into AE, divided the clip where ever there was a missing frame and just left it blank. Then I rendered this out to disk. I brought it back in, put markers where the missing frames where and then told FrameRestorer to replace the missing frames. In seconds I was done. It took a little paint where some of the frames were a bit interpolated like the flag that sticks up from the cart into the trees, but other than that the replacement frames where nearly perfect. 

All of this took me a total of 15 minutes and I was a hero with the producer. He was told by the post house, a big one that will remain unnamed, that this could not be fixed. Well I won't take the credit. Give the credit to these guys who write these amazing scripts like Paul Tuersley. I use Paul's scripts and Mathias scripts and Lloyd Alvarez's scripts. These guys give us amazing tools to achieve some amazing things with AE. Make sure you support them by buying their scripts. I don't think they make a ton of money off these scripts but wow are they important to us. 

Here's a before and after:

 
Subscribe (FEED) Subscribe (DIGEST) Subscribe (INDEX) Unsubscribe Mail to ListMaster