1000fps for free – using Motion Optical Flow instead of Twixtor
Posted on 07. Jan, 2011 by planetMitch in Software, Video
The other day, we were contacted by Patrick Donohoe from CrumplePop about this method of making HDSLR video incredibly slow – like we’ve posted about recently with Twixtor – and we thought you’d appreciate the info. We’ve been given permission to reprint this here on planet5D.
Patrick sent us this:
“I originally saw Oton BaÄar’s fantastic BMX video (the 2000s fps) posted here and I thought you might be interested in something we had been working on.
We we’re pretty astonished by Oton BaÄar was able to accomplish using twixtor. Being Final Cut Pro (FCP) users, we we’re trying to figure out a way to use the twixtor effect in motion (making it free if you have final cut) and we found a way to do.”
CrumplePop‘s post
We were inspired by Oton BaÄar’s incredible bmx videos on Vimeo to experiment with retiming 60fps video shot on the Canon 60d. Specifically, we were interested in whether an obscure feature of Apple Motion called “Optical Flow†could achieve results that were comparable with Twixtor.
After a lot of experimentation, we came up with a workflow that yields pretty solid results. As is the case with Twixtor, Apple Motion handles some shots beautifully while other shots get turned to ripply mush. Which is better, Motion Optical Flow or Twixtor? It seems to be more or less a draw, with Apple Motion having the distinct advantage that it comes bundled with Apple Final Cut Studio and is therefore free if you already use FCS. Either way, you’ll need to pick and
choose the best bits with the smoothest motion and the least mush.For our test, we used a Canon 60d with a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8, 59.94fps 1280×720, shutter at 1/1600. It’s important to mount the camera on a tripod, turn off AWB, and pick a scene with a relatively simple background (like…snow).
The basic workflow is to 1) Shoot at 59.94fps 2) Bring the footage into Motion and retime to 15%, 3) Export from Motion and conform it to 23.98fps using Cinema Tools. Then bring into FCP and edit.
Here is a tutorial that shows the nuts and bolts:
Tutorial – Canon 60d 1000fps using Apple Motion instead of Twixtor from CrumplePop on Vimeo.
Note that I say we shot on a 7d, but it was actually a 60d. Sorry. And here is the final result:
Canon 60D 1000fps using Apple Motion instead of Twixtor from CrumplePop on Vimeo.
That’s Jed at CrumplePop on the bike, and also playing the music that’s in the video. Jed engineers most of our effects, so if you have ever had technical problems with one of our products, you should especially enjoy the sight of him hitting the ground.
The bike is a Surly 1×1 with Nokian tires.
Normally, we’re trying not to duplicate info from the other top HDSLR blogs – we notice Philip Bloom posted this yesterday – but we already had the post in process and, well, I just don’t like throwing work away LOL
(Photo credit: snap from the video)
7 Responses to “1000fps for free – using Motion Optical Flow instead of Twixtor”
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January 14, 2011
[...] about the Crumblepop guys on their own site as well as over on planet5d. Related:Apple dumbing down Final Cut [...]
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Nick
07. Jan, 2011
Is it just me or do some of the scenes not look that great? In the scene where the guy falls off his bike watch under the bike tire as it hits the ground..has some crazy jello effect..
If Twixtor does this, I haven’t seen it. All this tutorial does for me so far is show me that Twixtor does a better job..
Maybe someone can educate me if I’m off base..
Thanks!
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Rafa_Ga
07. Jan, 2011
Yep, I saw that aswell… On the second shot also, if you look at the tire as it’s spins you can see some kind of trail there…
The 1000fps Twixtor showed none is this problems… And I must say, in the shot were the biker’s in the air doing the spin it seems cleaner and I think it has more movement than THIS test.
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Nick
07. Jan, 2011
I agree with you. Some of those shots in the Twixtor video are amazing.
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Mike Flirt
08. Jan, 2011
I have been testing Twixtor, Chronos and other retiming plug -in in conclusion sometime it work sometime it don’t, artifact weird jello etc etc. I prefer shooting with my 7D in 60 and use cinema tool to bring it back to 24p for nice slow motion without artifact
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Phillip Gibb
10. Jan, 2011
I guess that one of the biggest tricks to this is the 1/1600 shutter. So some bright lighting would be required indoors.
My little attempt failed because I did not setup my lights so I could speed up the shutter – resulting in the slowed down frames containing a lot of motion blur.
Of course you could just limit high speed action.
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Raul
19. Jan, 2011
Theres a lot of warping with this workflow, twixtor has it too but definetely less noticeable.
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