Optical Flow vs. Twixtor

ok, so i've been messing with fcpx and i've discovered that using optical flow is much easier now than in 6 (i use to have to make a copy of my video file, send it to cinnema tools to conform it, bring it into motion, apply optical flow, let it generate for about 20 minutes, slow it down, render it out, export it, then bring it into final cut)

so it's much easier now, but my question is the quality of it. I know there is a program called Twixtor that has lots of publicity on slowing down footage, but before i go spend the $400 or whatever they're asking for for it, i wanted to know if anyone has experienced using optical flow in fcpx vs. twixtor?

and if so, what sort of tips would you suggest for shooting footage that you know you will later use to slow down in optical flow/twixtor?

Maybe this will help

thanks!

i'm going to kinda ignore the first one, cause it looks like they didn't exactly use the optical flow right in motion, cause i've never seen footage look that bad before. it looks more like they didn't conform it to 24fps, they just retimed it, then added optical flow. to many frames missing.

but the second video was good. looks like motion's blur-blending looked the best AND took less time to render. that's odd.

but twixtor and optical flow both looked just as bad.

maybe a lot of it has to do with getting the right kind of shots that work best for these kinda plugin's.

thanks so much for the posts!

also, side note, i'm using optical flow inside fcpx, not motion anymore. not sure if there are any videos showcasing optical flow in fcpx, or if it's at all any different than optical flow in the old motion

Tidal Flow originally came from Shake. It's still the same. Only difference between FCPX and Motion 5 is that Motion gives you full access to all of the controls so you can tweak the results.

More importantly, you will never get slow motion done in post to look as good as it will when simply over cranked in the actual camera. Even then there are variables that will effect the image quality. But nothing beats using actual original frames.

In post, the more clear and sharp the original frame images are, the better the results with Optical Flow. It's simply analyzing pixels, and creating morph patterns between them. Too much blurry, fuzzy, fast movement will not give it clear enough data to create good morphs. Also, it can create morphing artifacts. AE, Twixtor, Motion all do the same basic morphing process, just different algorithms. Some footage will lend itself to one or the other better than other footage.

You can always try using a combination of contrast, sharpen and blur filters to clean up the shot, export as a QT, then bring that back in to Motion and try retiming with Optival flow.

And sometimes it's simply not the look you really need.

But nothing beats in-camera over cranking. If your cam doesn't do that, just shoot at 60fps, conform that to a 24fps Timeline, export that as a QT file, take into Motion for even slower motion.

BenB wrote: In post, the more clear and sharp the original frame images are, the better the results with Optical Flow. It's simply analyzing pixels, and creating morph patterns between them. Too much blurry, fuzzy, fast movement will not give it clear enough data to create good morphs.

nice tip!

i'm going to try and do some tests tomorrow outside in the sun. i'll try shooting it with a fast enough shutter speed so that i can try and cut down on the motion blur.

one question, do you think it'll be bad if there's just motion blur in the video, or if there is any blurred stuff in the video?

meaning, if i use my letus mini on my camera to get a good depth of field, do you think that will cause optical flow to not work as well because everything behind my subject will be soft and blurry? think i need to not use the adaptor and try and get as much in focus as possible?

i'm going to try and find out. hopefully if i can find what causes the optical flow to not work as well i can try and optimize my shots that i know i want to slow down so i don't have that bad of a morphing after effect in the shot in post once i apply optical flow to it.

Also both twixtor and optical flow tend to look better when things are slowed way down. I would love to see the same footage slowed to 2 or 1% and see if twixtor or optical flow does better.

Yeah minimize as much blur as possible. We tend to do most of our slow down scenes with high crank camera and green screen.

ok, so i shot three different things, it seems like as long as there isn't any blur anywhere (motion blur or depth of field blur) it should work fairly well. also, with a background that is not complex.

and it also seems like the slower i slow it down, the better the shot. i just looked frame by frame until i found a few frames that all had some pretty clear shots that didn't have to much motion blur in it, then used that as the moment i go slow-mo.

the third shot i did worked really well but i think it was because my friend was not punching at full speed. i shot him punching but he was acting like he was already in slow motion, so that there wouldn't be much blur and we could slow it down even further.

PROCESS:
shot in 720/60p
brought into a 24p timeline in fcpx
told the clip to conform to timeline (put it at 40%)
then slowed down to 1% or 10%, and told the video quality to be Optical Flow
waited, added color grades, and exported.

tell me what you think, suggestions...



also, does anyone have the NEW motion? what kind of controls does Optical Flow have on it in there? if it's got some controls on it, maybe i should look into getting motion as well