MagicMask Tracking Data also lost when clip copied

Dear all.
Any body has experience losing magic mask tracking data when copy or duplicate clip?
I should re-tracking magic mask when copy paste clip.
Is it possible to keep magic mask tracking data when copy paste clip?
Thanks.

They are treated as separate masks with their own separate lifetimes.

I once looked at generating a mask output to then import as an external matte - it works and can be useful if you want to reuse the same mask for several shots. It would be nice if Resolve let us lock the mask for reuse.

It not only lost when copy paste.
Whenever i change clip x or y position, the magic mask data tracking lost again...

What do you mean by changing clip's x,y position? You mean a transform? Yes - this changes the image input to the magic mask so it must perform retracking.

I too have found the magic mask to need to be regenerated for a ton of reasons.
Some reasons make a lot of sense, but others have not made much sense. I can't remember right now, but if I recall, putting the clip into a compound clip breaks it too, even if nothing has changed to the clip. But I would have to confirm that again since I cannot remember clearly.
In any case, I second the opinion about a use for some kind of mask lock for copying clips, or even would be nice if it stayed through a timeline duplication too. I often have multiple copies of a timeline for different delivery aspect ratios. It seems like I shouldn't have to rebuild a perfect copy of an entire timeline.

In regards to the transform causing the mask to need to be regenerated, that is an interesting cause and effect. I don't know how Resolve does the magic mask, but it would seem logical that any kind of x, y transform could also be automatically applied to the mask as an xy offset, right?

Love using magic mask, but I must say that it sometimes feels like a beta feature that will be truly intuitive in a future version. For now, even with quirks it's faster than a lot of other masking processes, but I too have at times felt frustrated with basically not being able to touch the clip in almost any way without breaking the mask.

With all that I will say, I've been very happy with the Resolve team and all their hard work. They are truly disrupting this industry and putting amazing tools in the hands of all. Love the whole Blackmagic team!

Do you guys know that this topic pops up every x time here and that the suggestion of treating the MM alone on its own nodes chain (trying to merge it the later you can) is obvious now ?
It's not a real problem, it's just for you to know a lot of answers regarding to MM losing its track are not really related to the actions x or y you make on nodes after or on itself and answers to get around the whole issue are still here around for a while

Thanks for you all.

Do you guys know that this topic pops up every x time here and that the suggestion of treating the MM alone on its own nodes chain (trying to merge it the later you can) is obvious now ?
It's not a real problem, it's just for you to know a lot of answers regarding to MM losing its track are not really related to the actions x or y you make on nodes after or on itself and answers to get around the whole issue are still here around for a while

Would you mind explaining the correct workflow in more detail? I'm not totally following. Thanks

Would you mind explaining the correct workflow in more detail? I'm not totally following. Thanks

Simple really. Magic mask consists of three main components. I would say. At least those to pay attention to.

One is that its color page effect that gets input from node source it, usually from fusion or edit page. So when you move the input the cached tracking frames no longer work for that input, hence they need to be regenerated and reference frames do not, since they work like qualifiers more or less.

Another component is that stroke frames or references frames do not get cached, since they are just for making selections and allow for re-generating other frames. The tracking frames. Cached frames while on disk and doing well, are not longer in sync with the newly edited source.

Tracking frames do get cached for various ways magic mask is made to work, unlike vector masks its a raster based mask, meaning it has to render individual tracking frames to disk for playback. There are advantage sand disadvantages to both, but BMD chose to go with raster system. Comparable feature in Boris FX products is vector based. BMD gives you motion blur tracking, Boris does not and you have to do another pass to generate it.

And last important component is based on the fact that fusion also has magic mask. So when you are doing rotoscoping type work you should do it in fusion with magic mask, because fusion will by default reference the clip on the timeline but source the footage from media pool, allowing you do cut, copy or whatever the clip on the timeline and not lose the mask. That is the beauty of fusion page.

If you are using color page for magic mask, you are meant to do it in workflow after editing has been completed, not move as you see fit, break whatever. So you either use proper workflow or if you have to or want to move clips after you have tracked them on the color page, you than simply make "render in place" on edit page to lock in the magic mask on the color page.

Those are fairly logical and simple rules if you pay attention to how resolve works and how these features work. But people seem to never read the manual, don't care how it all works, they just want whatever they want at that moment, no regard to anything else, and than they break it. Its the equivalent of flying a plane near mountains, pressing randomly all the buttons, crashing in the mountain and than while in after life complain the plane was not designed to your specifications.

There are only few simple rules to follow and unlock the awesome power of resolve, and with those few simple rules you can do so much.

To summarize. If you are done editing, you move to color for magic mask assisted color grading. And you don't touch clips you used magic mask on. If you want to move them either render in place or use magic mask in fusion , for roto or vfx work. The way fusion works will allow for changes to the clips in the edit page. The way color page works will limit this process in some situations.

There are other methods to cache the process via user cache and caching nodes etc but there are three separate caching mechanisms and quite a few variations on the theme depending if you are in user mode or smart more, in what part of application etc. So it can also be done this way, but you need to be familiar with what you are doing. So I just recommend to keep it simple. Render in place. for people who want to edit after tracking and not cache again.

Which is also as some people have found out the hard way, using transitions between clips for which you need handles and than tracking on clips that are with transitions but export them as individual clips and complaining or not realizing that tracking was not on the whole clip. For that there is a special feature in the color page called: Show current clip with handles. its in the view menu. This also applies for other tracking tools like for example face refinement or surface tracker.

Would you mind explaining the correct workflow in more detail? I'm not totally following. Thanks

Simple really. Magic mask consists of three main components. I would say. At least those to pay attention to.

One is that its color page effect that gets input from node source it, usually from fusion or edit page. So when you move the input the cached tracking frames no longer work for that input, hence they need to be regenerated and reference frames do not, since they work like qualifiers more or less.

Another component is that stroke frames or references frames do not get cached, since they are just for making selections and allow for re-generating other frames. The tracking frames. Cached frames while on disk and doing well, are not longer in sync with the newly edited source.

Tracking frames do get cached for various ways magic mask is made to work, unlike vector masks its a raster based mask, meaning it has to render individual tracking frames to disk for playback. There are advantage sand disadvantages to both, but BMD chose to go with raster system. Comparable feature in Boris FX products is vector based. BMD gives you motion blur tracking, Boris does not and you have to do another pass to generate it.

And last important component is based on the fact that fusion also has magic mask. So when you are doing rotoscoping type work you should do it in fusion with magic mask, because fusion will by default reference the clip on the timeline but source the footage from media pool, allowing you do cut, copy or whatever the clip on the timeline and not lose the mask. That is the beauty of fusion page.

If you are using color page for magic mask, you are meant to do it in workflow after editing has been completed, not move as you see fit, break whatever. So you either use proper workflow or if you have to or want to move clips after you have tracked them on the color page, you than simply make "render in place" on edit page to lock in the magic mask on the color page.

Those are fairly logical and simple rules if you pay attention to how resolve works and how these features work. But people seem to never read the manual, don't care how it all works, they just want whatever they want at that moment, no regard to anything else, and than they break it. Its the equivalent of flying a plane near mountains, pressing randomly all the buttons, crashing in the mountain and than while in after life complain the plane was not designed to your specifications.

There are only few simple rules to follow and unlock the awesome power of resolve, and with those few simple rules you can do so much.

To summarize. If you are done editing, you move to color for magic mask assisted color grading. And you don't touch clips you used magic mask on. If you want to move them either render in place or use magic mask in fusion , for roto or vfx work. The way fusion works will allow for changes to the clips in the edit page. The way color page works will limit this process in some situations.

There are other methods to cache the process via user cache and caching nodes etc but there are three separate caching mechanisms and quite a few variations on the theme depending if you are in user mode or smart more, in what part of application etc. So it can also be done this way, but you need to be familiar with what you are doing. So I just recommend to keep it simple. Render in place. for people who want to edit after tracking and not cache again.

Which is also as some people have found out the hard way, using transitions between clips for which you need handles and than tracking on clips that are with transitions but export them as individual clips and complaining or not realizing that tracking was not on the whole clip. For that there is a special feature in the color page called: Show current clip with handles. its in the view menu. This also applies for other tracking tools like for example face refinement or surface tracker.

So in summary you're just suggesting render in place? I personally consider render-in-place a last resort and not a clean workflow. My current project has 140 timelines and dozens of deliverables. Anyways, I just discovered a workaround, will post below.

Thanks for explaining how MM caches though, that's helpful to understand

This is a HUGE problem for me, but behold... I just discovered a workaround - PUT IT IN A COMPOUND CLIP.... I know that doesn't work for every application, and isn't perfectly clean, but if you can put it in a compound clip it won't break. It WILL break when you initially put it into the compound clip, so you'll have to re-track it once(or just create the compound clip before you begin the magic mask, then you aren't ever re-tracking). But once it's in a compound clip, duplicate that compound clip as often as you like and it'll never break again. And that's whether or not you used MM in fusion or the color page, makes no difference. I can even duplicate the entire timeline and the MM doesn't break anymore... hallelujah... my last project had 140 timelines so this was huge. Reminds me of working in premiere, where nesting clips solved a host of issues.

In some instances instead of a compound clip I created the MM from within a "New Fusion Clip" compound clip thing (from edit page, right click the clip > "New Fusion Clip...") and this also had same effect - kept the MM intact.

I had lots of shots of fingers moving across a touchscreen where I had to roto the fingers, replace the screen, then put the fingers back on top of the new screen. Magic Mask in fusion saved me from having to do hours of roto'ing. Ends up not being very time-savvy if you have to re-track every time you duplicate the clip or timeline, so I'm super stoked to have a workaround now.

This is a HUGE problem for me, but behold... I just discovered a workaround - PUT IT IN A COMPOUND CLIP.... I know that doesn't work for every application, and isn't perfectly clean, but if you can put it in a compound clip it won't break. It WILL break when you initially put it into the compound clip, so you'll have to re-track it once(or just create the compound clip before you begin the magic mask, then you aren't ever re-tracking). But once it's in a compound clip, duplicate that compound clip as often as you like and it'll never break again.

Compound clip is nested timeline, do if you track in a protective container like that it won't break that's true and it is yet another way to do it. There is one thing to keep in mind. When you create a compound clip it is added to the media pool. And that compound clip can be copied to other timelines. Or get separated if you are not careful. So you need to keep an eye on that. If you do, it can work. But it adds another level of complexity. But if it works for you, go for it. There is more than one way to skin a catfish.

And that's whether or not you used MM in fusion or the color page, makes no difference. I can even duplicate the entire timeline and the MM doesn't break anymore... hallelujah... my last project had 140 timelines so this was huge. Reminds me of working in premiere, where nesting clips solved a host of issues..

No there is a lot of difference. But that is a separate topic.

In some instances instead of a compound clip I created the MM from within a "New Fusion Clip" compound clip thing (from edit page, right click the clip > "New Fusion Clip...") and this also had same effect - kept the MM intact.

It depends on the work. Fusion clip and compound clips are nested timelines that conform footage and talk to fusion in two differnt ways, with pros and cons. But doing it directly in fusion is not like that. Its very differnt, since the file is sourced form media pool directly. Depending on what you are doing this is very important, but one thing is certain. Not the same thing. This is what gets people into trouble, thinking its all just the same. Nope. I've written a lot about this in this forum because few times a week someone comes with some problem because they think it makes no difference. And than they they break something.

I had lots of shots of fingers moving across a touchscreen where I had to roto the fingers, replace the screen, then put the fingers back on top of the new screen. Magic Mask in fusion saved me from having to do hours of roto'ing. Ends up not being very time-savvy if you have to re-track every time you duplicate the clip or timeline, so I'm super stoked to have a workaround now.

But if you are working in fusion directly, that is the whole beauty of it, no need to make compound clips and all that. Because the file is sourced from media pool. Precisely to avoid this problem. If you have been doing this process with fusion clips, probably you have done the opposite of what should have been done. And if you have done it just by opening in fusion a file, and composting there, than you don't need to worry about edit page breaking the tracking.

Fusion clips are good for some things bad for others, as is the case with compound clips and even opening in only fusion. These features are very differnt and have their pros and cons. Knowing which ones are they and when to use them is what gets you least headache and best results.

Hey
I'm glad you found something which suits you, I don't want to be a spoilsport but the compound clip trick has been out there as a kind of workaround for a while now...
I don't like compound clips, nor nested TLs, AE precomp or whatever stuff like that, I like groups in Color or Fusion that's all but I understand it's convenient. Yet I think it is because you could dig the bag to find the MM back... but Render In Place is also a one-click only solution to "open in TL" and find it again, I don't see any difference then
Anyway, if there was no issue at all in exporting (and re-importing) a bitmap mask as a matte, this would be the best way for me for sure, unfortunately issues exists if you don't take enough time to make the clip TC independent (off topic here but if not, the mask would drift as it is related to the entire clip and not to the very subclip involved in the MM).
So this latter is time consuming and therefore as I don't like compound clips... I use Render in place/
But again, I'm glad your found a satisfying solution for you

Hey
I'm glad you found something which suits you, I don't want to be a spoilsport but the compound clip trick has been out there as a kind of workaround for a while now...
I don't like compound clips, nor nested TLs, AE precomp or whatever stuff like that, I like groups in Color or Fusion that's all but I understand it's convenient. Yet I think it is because you could dig the bag to find the MM back... but Render In Place is also a one-click only solution to "open in TL" and find it again, I don't see any difference then
Anyway, if there was no issue at all in exporting (and re-importing) a bitmap mask as a matte, this would be the best way for me for sure, unfortunately issues exists if you don't take enough time to make the clip TC independent (off topic here but if not, the mask would drift as it is related to the entire clip and not to the very subclip involved in the MM).
So this latter is time consuming and therefore as I don't like compound clips... I use Render in place/
But again, I'm glad your found a satisfying solution for you

Oh haha, welp... thought I was special for a minute. That's good to know. And idk, at least for my current project, which is a cloud project where multiple edits are happening in parallel of one another and everyone is using fusion clips that aren't finished / won't be finished until close to the end of the project, I still think compound clip ends up being simpler, as it's a live/working clip that's being updated as the job goes on?

No there is a lot of difference. But that is a separate topic.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying MM in color vs fusion are the same. I'm saying if you put them in a compound clip, whether you applied MM to that clip from the color page or the fusion page, the MM tracking won't break after duplicating the compound clip. Whereas currently, when I duplicate a clip that has MM on it, whether or not I applied that MM in fusion or color, the MM track breaks.

But if you are working in fusion directly, that is the whole beauty of it, no need to make compound clips and all that. Because the file is sourced from media pool. Precisely to avoid this problem. If you have been doing this process with fusion clips, probably you have done the opposite of what should have been done. And if you have done it just by opening in fusion a file, and composting there, than you don't need to worry about edit page breaking the tracking.

Thanks. Would you mind clarifying exactly what you mean by "Opening in fusion a file". My typical workflow is to open the fusion page when my playhead is hovering over the clip I want to composite in a given timeline within the edit page. Any clips I composite that way lose their MM track if I duplicate them.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying MM in color vs fusion are the same. I'm saying if you put them in a compound clip, whether you applied MM to that clip from the color page or the fusion page, the MM tracking won't break after duplicating the compound clip. Whereas currently, when I duplicate a clip that has MM on it, whether or not I applied that MM in fusion or color, the MM track breaks.

That should not happen. When you duplicate the clip you carry with it fusion effect, magic mask tracking. Because source of the clip that was used for tracking in fusion is not on the timeline per se. Only reference to it is, the clip is sourced from media pool. Unless you change that clip in the media pool, tracking should not break when its performed from fusion, unless you first conformed the clip by putting it in compound clip or fusion clip. Which changes where fusion is sourcing the footage from.

Here is a clip where I open it in fusion, meaning either move playhead over it and open in fusion or right click on the clip and choose open in fusion.

I apply magic mask in fusion. Than in edit page I can duplicate it. I can duplicate it again and shorten it, and as you can see it works, because fusion sources the footage to track form media pool, it only uses clip in timeline for reference which clip to use and few other tings. Mainly lens correction. Everything else, timeline edits etc, are ignored.

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To break this, you would put first clip in compound clip or make a fusion clip from tracks and that would than open in fusion same clip from edit page. But if you just open in fusion than it references the timeline clip but sources the media pool version of the same clip.

Original resolution, color space, frame rate (although fusion works with frame count not frame rate) and because of that process, of using original clip from media pool, magic mask is not broken.

Whereby if you use magic mask in color page, it will be broken, because of the order of processing in resolve.

Thanks. Would you mind clarifying exactly what you mean by "Opening in fusion a file". My typical workflow is to open the fusion page when my playhead is hovering over the clip I want to composite in a given timeline within the edit page. Any clips I composite that way lose their MM track if I duplicate them.

Hmm. Maybe you are compositing using tracks on the timeline. If you just open a clip in fusion, like I mentioned it will reference the clip in the timeline, so it will know that is the clip you want, and than it will find the same clip in media pool and use that in fusion. This is done so that VFX process can be done freely in full source resolution in fusion page and you can also apply tracking and other effects to full lenght of the clip if you want, so later when you extend the edit in the timeline, you don't have to worry of re tracking again or anything.

If you are doing something else. like for example only using fusion to make a mask of something and than composite in edit page on a timeline by layering the tracks over each other. That is a problem, because while simple it may seem you are cutting the link between fusion and edit page, basically instead of having one unified composting environment in dedicated application like fusion you would be breaking that apart and using inferior method. With lots of limitations.

Fusion is originally standalone application and still is, as full blown compositing environment with all you need. Fusion page is just same application imported into resolve, with some extract changes to fit the rest of resolve.

So if you wanted to composite something you can drag it from media pool or use loader node if its image sequance and composite it all in fusion page. Or fusion studio if you like to. So for example this thing you were mentioning.

I had lots of shots of fingers moving across a touchscreen where I had to roto the fingers, replace the screen, then put the fingers back on top of the new screen. Magic Mask in fusion saved me from having to do hours of roto'ing. Ends up not being very time-savvy if you have to re-track every time you duplicate the clip or timeline, so I'm super stoked to have a workaround now.

So in this case if do the compositing of screen to a phone, and all that in fusion you can later take that clip you used for fusion work, and copy it , cut it etc. It will not break anything inside. And if you cache it in fusion it will play in real time as well.

So no need to do compound clips or anything like that.

If you did want to use magic mask on many clips that are similar and all at once, it would not be what MM was meant to be used but you could string the clips together and than apply tracking to one node. I would probably do it by exporting all the clips as image sequance from timeline and re-import them via loader node as image sequance in one node. Than apply magic mask to that as if it is one uninterrupted clip. Like I said, this is more of hack than how MM is meant to be used, but it could be done.

However if you are dealing with only one clip I would just do it in fusion studio or fusion page as a single compositing environment, so all is in fusion, easy to change and protected from edits in the edit page.

If you follow the processing order of operations and you do in each resolve page what is meant to be doing, you can be very flexible and do a lot and not break anything. And there are many clever solutions to how to interact with pages and go back and forth and still keep your sanity.

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magic mask in color page was meant to be not so much rotoscoping tool as more of a machine learning powered assistance to qualifiers and power windows when color grading, so you can select skin and things like that when there are other similar colors around. It was meant to be used either as a separate coloring process after edit is locked . But people being people started using it for other things, so it was added to fusion where it works better in rotoscoping role because of what I explained earlier.

Fusion page was meant for VFX and motion graphics etc, but not depending on edit page for most things, except render range of the composition. That is controlled in the timeline. Unless you are using fusion studio where you have full control, of course. but compositing is best done all in fusion page so you don't have to worry if you want to make changes in edit or color later.

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Ok so this was already noticed.
I posted something similar recently : viewtopic.php?f=33&t=21154

Object Mask caches persist until manually reset or re-analyzed.
This was in 19.1

I did a quick test, and it seems to work: adding nodes "around" the one with the Magic Mask doesn't reset it.

However, duplicating a clip with a Magic Mask on the timeline still doesn't work, it resets the mask of the duplicated clips.

And the magic mask are lost when a whole timeline is copied to, which is not good and should be fixed.
(I mean, it's just the cached mask that should be copied and applied to the copied element)

And here : viewtopic.php?f=33&t=213994 (worth the reading

This cost me two days of work! The masks wouldn't even re-track so I had to start from scratch. It will also happen when render cache is deleted - which sometimes is necessary. Very frustrating