Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

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Julian van Mil

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Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostThu Aug 03, 2017 9:16 pm

I have not been able to properly use resolve 12.5 for any sort of graphic / titling work. The results always have jagged aliased edges (even from resolves own text tool!!). I just was completing an online, and everything was going swimmingly until I had to add the clients logo at the end. A simple .png with alpha rendered out of photoshop, but when scaled or moved, I get horrible jagged aliased edges! What am I doing wrong?

Some things I've tried, that have not worked:

- disabling all LUTs
- disabling all grades
- bringing down whites
- trying every variation of scaling settings in project settings>image scaling
- different output formats and settings (prores, h264, dnx)
- it looks jagged in the viewer, my preview monitor, and the final output file
- changing alpha from straight to premult

Any help would be appreciated.
Last edited by Julian van Mil on Tue Aug 15, 2017 12:39 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Michael Del Papa

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Re: Graphics Scaling & Aliasing

PostThu Aug 03, 2017 9:21 pm

Yeah, I hear you. This is why I don't do any graphic/titling work in DR proper. My suggestion is to render out the PS graphic at the needed size so you can avoid scaling within DR.
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Jamie LeJeune

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostFri Aug 04, 2017 1:57 am

The title tool isn't aliased at all. In the few cases I've had to use Resolve's title tool in a pinch, I turned each one into a compound so I could add a little blur in the color page.
A little blur may help your resizes as well.
I hear you though. BMD really should fix it as titling and graphics is a crucial part of finishing any project. Premiere, despite how much I generally dislike it, has lovely anti-aliasing by default in its title tool. BMD should emulate that.
Last edited by Jamie LeJeune on Sat Aug 05, 2017 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Julian van Mil

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostFri Aug 04, 2017 1:34 pm

I see the blur fix, it's not ideal, although I can see it working in a pinch.

In commercial world, being able to pop in a clients logo and transform position/scale is as about as basic as it gets, and is defiantly expected in a supervised online. Kind of a deal breaker. The way I got by this time was outputting all the graphics already placed from primer as a quicktime with an alpha. Very clunky workflow for something so simple.
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Nathan Allworth

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostFri Aug 04, 2017 3:23 pm

I've noticed that in the preview/program monitor sometimes imported images with alpha (or image sequences) I've done in After Effects will appear as if the alpha channel is 2-bit. This appears as aliasing in the program monitor. When it's rendered it looks correct.

Can you post some examples of what you're talking about so we can see?

Personally I've had no problems with the title generator in Resolve, but it is pretty limited. I do most of my title work in After Effects now and export to PNG+Alpha image sequences.

Edit: to clarify, I do some transforms/scaling on the imported PNGs about 85% of the time. Seems fine in both 12.5 and 14b6.
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Nathan Allworth

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostFri Aug 04, 2017 3:36 pm

One thing to try:
  • Right click on your PNG clip in the timeline
  • Select Clip attributes...
  • On the Video tab find Alpha Mode
  • Make sure this is set to Straight

If it's set to Premultiplied it will look jaggy on almost all PNG+Alpha files. This is because it's expecting some of the alpha information be computed in the RGB values instead of purely in the Alpha channel.
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Adam Archer

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostThu Aug 10, 2017 6:34 am

+1 for text antialiasing


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Julian van Mil

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostMon Aug 14, 2017 1:56 pm

Ok - here are some screenshots demonstrating the problem clearly. As stated above, the eventual work around was to render the graphics directly out of Premier w/ alpha. See the results here:http://imgur.com/a/MwrgD

Image
Resolve - Premulitplied

Image
Resolve - Straight

Image
Premier - drop shadow was added as project progressed. But you can clearly see the smooth edges.
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Dermot Shane

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostMon Aug 14, 2017 3:31 pm

yea constant source of annoyance for me as well, end game for me is to do the same, finish in another program (Avid|DS in my case)

i long have been wishing for vastly better comp and gfx tools -or- better yet, complete intergration with Fusion
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Marc Wielage

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 12:25 am

I have to say, while Resolve is good for a lot of things, the Title Generator is still a weak spot.
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Julian van Mil

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 12:36 pm

I just want to add that we have resolve 14b6 running on a sandbox at the office and results are exactly the same. Looking like resolve can't be used for titles & graphics.
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Jamie LeJeune

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 4:06 pm

Julian van Mil wrote:I just want to add that we have resolve 14b6 running on a sandbox at the office and results are exactly the same. Looking like resolve can't be used for titles & graphics.

As far as I can tell, all Premiere Pro does to anti-alias their titles is add some blur to them by default. With Resolve generated titles you can achieve the same thing by making a compound clip out of the title clip and adding a node with a bit of blur in the color page. It's a pain to do for every title and it would be better if Resolve just had an option to anti-alias by default, but this method does work if you have no other options.
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John Paines

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 4:17 pm

The trouble with making a compound clip is that there's no alpha channel so (for example) you couldn't have a drop shadow. Some workarounds have been discussed in other threads, but it would be nice if compound clips fully cooperated. Maybe 15....
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Jamie LeJeune

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 4:40 pm

John Paines wrote:The trouble with making a compound clip is that there's no alpha channel so (for example) you couldn't have a drop shadow. Some workarounds have been discussed in other threads, but it would be nice if compound clips fully cooperated. Maybe 15....

Good point. I don't really ever use drop shadows, so I hadn't run into that issue.
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MikeMeagher

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 7:31 pm

A big +1 here on this titling topic.
BMD has done a great job trying to morph a great color grading app into a one stop shopping app for editing and grading but the very weak title tools is a sad point. I use the paid version..even would pay a little more if titling was improved.
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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 8:00 pm

Anyone have experience with NewBlueFx's Titler Pro 5?

https://www.newbluefx.com/products/titling/titler-pro/
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Marc Wielage

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostWed Aug 16, 2017 12:56 am

PeterMoretti wrote:Anyone have experience with NewBlueFx's Titler Pro 5?

Slow as molasses and very buggy. Boris Title is a little better, but still extremely slow.
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Annaël Beauchemin

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostThu Aug 31, 2017 3:57 pm

+1 on the text and alpha anti-aliasing problems.

Resolve 14 added alot of cool new finishing features, but having good alpha management and anti-aliasing is a priority.
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Jamie LeJeune

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostTue Nov 14, 2017 2:03 am

I was hoping that 14.1 would include a fix for this, but despite getting a mention in the release notes, text is still not anti-aliased! Ugh.
What we need in Resolve is for text to have a solid anti-aliasing option (perhaps a checkbox in project preferences or in the inspector on a per clip basis). Either that or titles need to be treated like a normal clip in the Color page so we can choose to add a bit of blur on our own.
C'mon BMD! It sucks having to constantly render out a textless copy for import into another application just to get decent titles.
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Jack Swart

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostTue Nov 14, 2017 4:35 am

And a bug from DR11 still persists.

Make a lower third title
Generate a background from the inspector.

The top text is above the background, where it should be

but

the lower text is BEHIND the background and hidden.

Hard to call this a "feature"
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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostTue Nov 14, 2017 9:30 am

Julian van Mil wrote:Image
Premier - drop shadow was added as project progressed. But you can clearly see the smooth edges.


Premiere's text is quite soft compared to FCP7, which manages both smooth edges and sharpness
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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostSat Mar 16, 2019 3:50 pm

Sorry to bring up an old thread however I am running into this issue with version 15.

Has this ever been addressed?

I am hoping there is a setting I am missing but I am seeing this in fusion and resolve where everything has really bad aliasing and jagged edges to the point where it is unusable.

Even in some of my footage I am noticing this now.

I have the field processing set to off and resizing filter set to smoother.

I have built a simple 3d scenes in fusion but all of the models and text have aliasing on them and I can't seem to get rid of it so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!
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ginoamadori

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostFri Aug 02, 2019 2:50 pm

I have the same problem and am running 16b6. Have you found a solution or another thread about this topic? If so please let me know, I currently that problem with PR444 graphics with alpha from After Effects and was forced to use Premiere to insert graphics and animations. It was a real pain going back.
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Igor Riđanović

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostFri Aug 02, 2019 2:58 pm

Nathan Allworth wrote:One thing to try:
  • Right click on your PNG clip in the timeline
  • Select Clip attributes...
  • On the Video tab find Alpha Mode
  • Make sure this is set to Straight


The premultiplication selection is not optional. You must set straight/premult based on whether or not RGB is multiplied with alpha. However, it is true that the incorrect selection will look bad on the screen.
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Igor Riđanović

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Re: Graphics and Text Scaling & Aliasing

PostFri Aug 02, 2019 3:00 pm

Spatial scaling in V12 and V15 is not good. But if you're on V15 you can use Fusion to scale. Fusion's scaling is significantly better.
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