How To Automatically Align Frames From 4 Hyperlapse Clips?

Hello all,

I'm working on a drone hyperlapse project flying the same route during different seasons.

The idea is to seamlessly blend one season to the next during the drone flight (Spring to Summer, Summer to Fall, Fall to Winter).

I'm reducing the opacity from one clip to fade into the clip below it, which would be the next season.

I've been trying to manually adjust the frames using the Transform effect tool so that the video fades seamlessly, showing trees, houses, and other objects in the exact same positions from one season changing to the next.

The results of doing this manually are not that great, and I'm sure there's a better way to accomplish this automatically in Davinci Resolve. I just don't know how to do something like this, and was hoping someone could provide some tips!

Thank You

Didn't you control those flights with a tool like Dronelink or Litchi?
If not, but the flight is aiming at a single object, you could try to stabilise on that.
If not even that, you'll have a hard time…
Get one of those programs and start over for another year.

Fusion is best suited for doing such alignment work assuming you have 1 common point of reference visible for all duration in all 4 season footage.

I asked ChatGPT & it says the following

1. Optical Flow + Speed Warp (Best for Smooth Motion)

In Fusion, use the Optical Flow tool to analyze the motion of key elements and realign them between clips.
Speed Warp (Studio version required): If available, this can interpolate frames intelligently for smoother transitions.

2. Point Tracker (For Precise Alignment)

Open Fusion for each clip.
Use the Point Tracker to track a static object (like a house or tree).
Apply the tracking data to align the next season's clip.

3. Planar Tracker (For Buildings & Flat Surfaces)

In Fusion, use the Planar Tracker to analyze a larger area.
Align subsequent clips using the tracked data.

4. Match Move in Fusion

Use the Tracker node to track key objects in the first clip.
Apply this tracking data to the other season clips to align them.

Didn't you control those flights with a tool like Dronelink or Litchi?
If not, but the flight is aiming at a single object, you could try to stabilise on that.
If not even that, you'll have a hard time…
Get one of those programs and start over for another year.

I used dronelink to record the same route for each season. But even with that, the flight route isn't exactly 100% the same. There are slight deviations along the path that require transform adjustments and stabilization in post to line up the shots.

Fusion is best suited for doing such alignment work assuming you have 1 common point of reference visible for all duration in all 4 season footage.

I do have common reference points in each clip to line up the footage. I've been trying to use trackers in fusion on each clip to track the same reference points.

I've also tried selecting 2 different clips, such as Spring and Summer, and creating a fusion clip. But I still can't figure out how to use trackers on the individual clips and have fusion line them up for a smooth transition between seasons.

If you had reasonable trackble reference among all clips, you could stabilize the clips around it and use that for alignment. Probably best to do in fusion.

Fusion is best suited for doing such alignment work assuming you have 1 common point of reference visible for all duration in all 4 season footage.

I asked ChatGPT & it says the following

1. Optical Flow + Speed Warp (Best for Smooth Motion)

In Fusion, use the Optical Flow tool to analyze the motion of key elements and realign them between clips.
Speed Warp (Studio version required): If available, this can interpolate frames intelligently for smoother transitions.

2. Point Tracker (For Precise Alignment)

Open Fusion for each clip.
Use the Point Tracker to track a static object (like a house or tree).
Apply the tracking data to align the next season's clip.

3. Planar Tracker (For Buildings & Flat Surfaces)

In Fusion, use the Planar Tracker to analyze a larger area.
Align subsequent clips using the tracked data.

4. Match Move in Fusion

Use the Tracker node to track key objects in the first clip.
Apply this tracking data to the other season clips to align them.

Chat GPT and other AI tools have regularly given incorrect information about Resolve functionality. Be careful!!!

3D reprojection might be an option here. If the flight can be camera tracked, then you can stabilize the images and 'reshoot' the shot on the stabilized footage.

3D reprojection might be an option here. If the flight can be camera tracked, then you can stabilize the images and 'reshoot' the shot on the stabilized footage.

This ^ 3D Cam track and projections are in general the most convenient way for aligning any motion where camera actually moves, not just rotates. And it is pretty useful also with rotations as projection onto a sphere helps getting rid of perspective distortion (no, it's not the same as lens distortion).

3D reprojection might be an option here. If the flight can be camera tracked, then you can stabilize the images and 'reshoot' the shot on the stabilized footage.

3D reprojection might be an option here. If the flight can be camera tracked, then you can stabilize the images and 'reshoot' the shot on the stabilized footage.

This ^ 3D Cam track and projections are in general the most convenient way for aligning any motion where camera actually moves, not just rotates. And it is pretty useful also with rotations as projection onto a sphere helps getting rid of perspective distortion (no, it's not the same as lens distortion).

Hey guys, thanks for the help and apologies for not following up sooner.

I've searched all over the place for tutorials on how to stabilize using the 3D camera tracker, "reshooting" the stabilized footage, and aligning tracking data between different season clips.

There's not much useful information out there that I could find for a project like this.

Do you know where I could find tutorials that would cover these things?

For reference, here's a sample of my project. This was all done with frame-by-frame manual alignment during transition. It's extremely tedious and not as smooth as I'd like it to be:

The test of alignment can be tested by hard cut, don't fade in Resolve, that will help you find out misalignment of the 3 different seasons, there after you can try to use Point Tracker (For Precise Alignment)