better rotation filter?

Quote
FCP7 User Manual, Chapter 85, Rendering and Video Processing Settings
When you adjust a clip’s Rotation parameter, the clip is automatically rendered using
the Fastest setting, regardless of the option chosen from the Motion Filtering Quality
pop-up menu of the Video Processing tab of the current sequence settings.

I verified the warning. Rotations done with the Rotation parameter in the Motion tab are exactly the same whether Motion Filtering Quality is set to "Fastest (linear)" or to "Best". Method: a black-and-white resolution test clip went through five small rotations and then one rotation back, in separate generations. Both ProRes HQ and uncompressed 10-bit codecs were tried. Sameness was determined by the Difference composite mode.

The rotation results were all really ragged -- aliased and unsharp. A better rotation filter is desired.

It has been suggested to use the filter "Basic 3D" that comes with FCP7. I found that using the "Z axis Rotation" in Basic 3D gives exactly the same results as using rotation in the Motion tab. The test method was as above.

A free filter called "Andy's Better 3D" has been suggested. But from Andy's description of it --

Quote
andymees.wordpress.com/better3d/
It was based entirely on Apple's own "Basic 3D" filter script, but by tweaking a couple
of lines of code it offered just an extra gnat’s whisker of control"

-- it can't be better in image quality.

High quality alias free image rotation (the title of an academic paper from 1996) is possible but not simple. Are there plugins for FCP7 that do a better job of it than the Motion tab and Basic 3D filter? Are there other softwares? What about FCPX?

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

"Are there plugins for FCP7 that do a better job of it than the Motion tab and Basic 3D filter?"

i dont know

"Are there other softwares?"

again, i don't know for sure, but i'd reckon the answer would have to be YES!

things to try:

FCPX
Resolve
After Effects

After Effects has powerful ways to render out rotations based on tailoring keyframing parameters. Load a clip, give that a try.

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytips:
Copy clip Attributes with Command-C
Paste selected Attributes with Option-V
Remove selected Attributes with Command-Option-V !

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