Fluid Morph or Morph Cut equivalent?

Looking forward to giving v12 a day in court as an NLE because we'd love to consolidate editorial and color/finishing into one space. Coming from Avid, we all rely heavily on Fluid Morph to improve the pacing of actors' performances without cutting away. Fluid morph, given the right parameters, is very effective at hiding jump cuts. Adobe has also recently announced Morph Cut for Premiere Pro. We gave Premiere a shot a year ago and it didn't hold up to the demands of cutting a feature-length movie. I was wildly unstable when we tried it.

So I was wondering if anyone was aware of a third party plugin maybe, that would provide the same Fluid Morph functionality within DaVinci Resolve?

Yes,

I could use this on my current edit. I can never seem to properly adjust the Avid one. Is there anything in Resolve 11 like Fluid Morph?

Thanks,
Robert

Boris is available as OFX and "should" work in Resolve. They have a Morph transition effect. Might be worth trying it.

Michael

what might work- i can not check it right now-
try to (ab)use optical flow for that.


1 - Take the 2 frames u want to morph.

2 - Render it as a new clip.

3 - Enable retime on the newly rendered clip.

4 - Set to optical flow in clip properties panel

5 - Start stretching the clip and optical flow will interpolate the (morph)
frames between the frames from step 1. This is a process of trial and error

6 - When you got the desired result, insert the stretched clip in the location where
the frames from step 1 use to be.

Regards,

Remco J

Hey,

Didn't have time to try so far, but what we do to achieve this in FCP is round-tripping to Motion > re-time with "optical flow" selected.
Therefore I'll give a try too, but though what I just read seems to be the same trick, it may be too long...

what might work- i can not check it right now-
try to (ab)use optical flow for that.


1 - Take the 2 frames u want to morph.

2 - Render it as a new clip.

3 - Enable retime on the newly rendered clip.

4 - Set to optical flow in clip properties panel

5 - Start stretching the clip and optical flow will interpolate the (morph)
frames between the frames from step 1. This is a process of trial and error

6 - When you got the desired result, insert the stretched clip in the location where
the frames from step 1 use to be.

Regards,

Remco J

I got the Avid one to give a decent result this time but I will save this for later.

Thanks,
Robert

Any news on this subject? We have a show that's edited in Media Composer where they want to use Fluid Morph to hide jump cuts. We finish and grade is in Resolve and it would be sweet to get the effect over in the AAF conform.

Since Avid clearly doesn't focus on finishing it would be nice of them to convert their AVX2 plugins to OFX for situations just like this one. And yes, I did say that about avid since they clearly aren't pumping resources into the Symphony and killed of the DS.

I wonder if it would be possible to write an OFX wrapper for the AVX2 plugins for use in other host applications. Interesting thought any maybe something for the army of resolve developers to bite into. Would for sure be an advantage over others if they supported all effects in the MediaComposer straight out the box.

Cheers

This is built in to DR12.

It is called SMOOTH CUT and is available in the Toolbox.

It has several parameters that can be adjusted to perfect the transition.

...and Smooth Cut works very well.

Thanks. Will test that. =)

...and Smooth Cut works very well.

actually no, is not even close to what avid is doing, it basically get the first and last frame of the "cut" and morph between them.

avid does a proportional morph for each frame of the "dissolve" length.

almost unusable unless you are doing two - three frames.

IMHO...

Thanks Walter. Have you found anything else that can work as a substitute?

...and Smooth Cut works very well.

actually no, is not even close to what avid is doing, it basically get the first and last frame of the "cut" and morph between them.

avid does a proportional morph for each frame of the "dissolve" length.

almost unusable unless you are doing two - three frames.

IMHO...

[Rohit Gupta]

Thanks Walter. Have you found anything else that can work as a substitute?

...and Smooth Cut works very well.

actually no, is not even close to what avid is doing, it basically get the first and last frame of the "cut" and morph between them.

avid does a proportional morph for each frame of the "dissolve" length.

almost unusable unless you are doing two - three frames.

IMHO...

Check out the Resolve 12 Smooth Cut!

Check out the Resolve 12 Smooth Cut!

Hi Rohit. Thanks. =) But that's what we've discussed here and that it doesn't really work in the same way nor gives the same result as Avid's Fluid Morph.

Cheers

We've done some testing now and yes. Walter is right. Avid's Fluid Morph gives a way more pleasing result.

So the question remains. ANyone seen a thirdparty plugin that's close to Avid's Fluid Morph? To relink to hires in Avid and export isn't a smooth workflow for us. =/

Interesting question, I'll search Sapphire Ofx in Resolve for any potential answer

If Walter says Smooth Cut is not up to what Avid can do, I can't argue. I respect his experience, and I haven't been in front of Media Composer in years. Sure makes me curious to see how Avid makes it happen.

I can tell you that Smooth Cut has saved my bacon lately; I'm grateful the effect is available.

Tom

If Walter says Smooth Cut is not up to what Avid can do, I can't argue. I respect his experience, and I haven't been in front of Media Composer in years. Sure makes me curious to see how Avid makes it happen.

I can tell you that Smooth Cut has saved my bacon lately; I'm grateful the effect is available.

Tom

too kind.

i had to match some offline avid morph cut for a movie and add i mentioned the resolve is not up to par, more like out of the tee.

i think the strategy resolve use is wrong, as i mentioned it just grab first and last crane and progressively morph them.

avid seems to work in a different way:

let's say you have a 10 frames morph and you are at frame 4, let's call frame 1 the start of the dissolve.

resolve will get [A side frame 1] morph 60% strength with [B side frame 10] morph (40% strength)

avid will get [side a frame 4] morph with [Side BW frame 4] with 60% strength to A side.

Thanks for your insight Walter! =) I agree with your analysis of the two operations. Don't get me wrong, smooth cut can work and do wonders. But it's not as elegant as Fluid Morph.

But the pixel nazi in me cries a bit over both. When analysing the result of both up close you for sure see the expected "floating noise/grain" issues that an optical flow operation would give you. That's why I'd like to do it in resolve so we can denoise and renoise and do the operation in between. Might not be possible depending on how resolve deals with the stack of effects though... Not sure. But that's how I'd do it in Nuke anyways. With the amount of cuts we're talking about here we need to streamline the workflow and not lift it out.

But you're saying that you did use Smooth Cut in the end? You didn't find an alternative in Boris or Sapphire?

If Walter says Smooth Cut is not up to what Avid can do, I can't argue. I respect his experience, and I haven't been in front of Media Composer in years. Sure makes me curious to see how Avid makes it happen.

I can tell you that Smooth Cut has saved my bacon lately; I'm grateful the effect is available.

Tom

too kind.

i had to match some offline avid morph cut for a movie and add i mentioned the resolve is not up to par, more like out of the tee.

i think the strategy resolve use is wrong, as i mentioned it just grab first and last crane and progressively morph them.

avid seems to work in a different way:

let's say you have a 10 frames morph and you are at frame 4, let's call frame 1 the start of the dissolve.

resolve will get [A side frame 1] morph 60% strength with [B side frame 10] morph (40% strength)

avid will get [side a frame 4] morph with [Side BW frame 4] with 60% strength to A side.

us i think there where 6, we did all in DS, clean the result with paint, and force editorial redo two of them because they where horribad

Thanks Walter. =)

us i think there where 6, we did all in DS, clean the result with paint, and force editorial redo two of them because they where horribad

I finally searched Sapphire Ofx in Resolve as I promised, and found no equivalence (in Sapphire 9 complete)....
On the other hand, I also didn't test Smooth Cut so... If it is efficient, I may switch from the Motion optical flow workflow to Smooth Cut.

just gave Smooth Cut a shot. not going to cut it. not even close. would be fantastic to have Smooth Cut evolve into something as effective as Avid's Fluid Morph. With beta 12.5, the absence of Fluid Morph is what's keeping me from cutting anything in DR. I use Fluid Morph in just about every cut, daily. But I am getting a little tired of roundtripping between MC8 and DR.

just gave Smooth Cut a shot. not going to cut it. not even close. would be fantastic to have Smooth Cut evolve into something as effective as Avid's Fluid Morph. With beta 12.5, the absence of Fluid Morph is what's keeping me from cutting anything in DR. I use Fluid Morph in just about every cut, daily. But I am getting a little tired of roundtripping between MC8 and DR.

At Avid Connect this hear i talked to one of the product managers of MC. I explained how we use Fluid Morph and that it would be great if they either;

1. Added an OFX near realtime wrapper around their plugins so that they work in OFX capable apps.
2. port their plugs to OFX
3. Talk to other vendors so they can use AVX2 directly in their apps, like Resolve.


My points have sparked an internal discussion but in the end it'll be a business decision. But I do know that at least we would pay premium for having some of their plugs in other applications. I don't expect anything to happen soon but talk to your local avid guys and make sure that the word travel up stream. Or post at avid user group or ACA so that they hear your voices as well.

Cheers

what might work- i can not check it right now-
try to (ab)use optical flow for that.


1 - Take the 2 frames u want to morph.

2 - Render it as a new clip.

3 - Enable retime on the newly rendered clip.

4 - Set to optical flow in clip properties panel

5 - Start stretching the clip and optical flow will interpolate the (morph)
frames between the frames from step 1. This is a process of trial and error

6 - When you got the desired result, insert the stretched clip in the location where
the frames from step 1 use to be.

Regards,

Remco J

Hi Remco,

Could you kindly explain in more details to a beginner like me? I can't find a video tutorial on how to do what you said.

You said: "2 - Render it as a new clip."
Question: How to render as new clip? Do I create a new compound clip or fusion clip?

You said "5 - Start stretching the clip and optical flow will interpolate the (morph) frames between the frames from step 1. This is a process of trial and error"
Question: How do you stretch the clip? This guy (viewtopic.php?f=21&t=65990) said is pretty basic stuff but basic is not basic to a beginner.

You said: "6 - When you got the desired result, insert the stretched clip in the location where the frames from step 1 use to be."
Question: How do you insert the clip in the location? I thought when i do a cut in the middle a clip, I will have two clips now - left and right and i then take a small cut on the frame before the cut and one after the cut and then merge these two tiny cuts into a single clip and speed warp it.

You dont need any of that.

Put two clips together with enough tails
Put the [smooth cut] in the cut with the length you need
In the inspector set it for advance.

Done.