Still-to-Still Morphs with RE:Flex

RE:Vision Effects posted a tutorial on using RE:Flex to do Still-to-Still Morphs (below).

Three somewhat similar tutorials were noted last month in More slow motion from pictures using Pixel Motion.

Motion estimated morphing time-remapping on stills

Lester Banks posted a cool technique from "The Great Zimm" on Vimeo. Untested here, it uses Pixel Motion on a short still sequence in After Effects, which yields some easy motion-estimated morphing time-remapping that was pretty smooth in the later examples that had very little motion. If things don't work the way you want, you may find more control using the Timewarp filter (Chris Meyer says you can check out additional details on this filter in The Foundry's Kronos documentation).

This recalls a recent method shown by Eran Stern that created a video with extreme slow motion using just a few still frames with Twixtor; see Extreme slow motion using still frames in AE. [update: Later in RE:Flex Still-to-Still Morphs in AE, Lori Freitag covers the basics of morphing between still images within After Effects using the RE:Flex Morph plug-in.]

pixel motion tutorial after effects from The Great Zimm on Vimeo.

Update: This technique might also be applied to smooth over jump cuts.

As noted in Morph to smooth a jump cut, Wes Plate uses RE:Flex (Motion Morph) to do this. Seamless smoothing over jump cuts can be quite complicated and may require animating and tracking masks of facial features (eyes as they blink, mouth, dimples, brow wrinkles, nostrils) as well as hair & clothing for the better part of a second on each side of an edit to guide the morph. There's actually a transition for this in Avid, Illusion FX> Fluid Morph, can work in some cases.

Update Oct 18, 2010: see More slow motion from pictures using Pixel Motion.

2D morphing

Morphing is a feature that comes up regularly on a variety of forums and e-mail lists, and this post summarizes a few recent threads. The grandaddy of 2D morphing programs was Elastic Reality, which was discontinued by Avid in 1999. ER might still work in Windows, but more advanced morphing features later showed up in Avid Media Illusion, Avid|DS, Softimage|XSI.

There were a large number of morphing apps created after this effect became popular. Free ones include WinMorph (Windows) and MorphX (Mac), and there's many more but mostly for morphing between stills. There's even a Final Cut Studio plug-in called Morphing FX from CHV-electronics, but it's currently only working in Motion 2+, since the current version of Final Cut Pro does not fully comply to Apple's FxPlug spec.

After Effects has several tools to to do different types of morphs. The main tool is the Reshape filter, but there's also basic mask/text/Shape interpolation, the Mesh Warp filter, and even AE 8's new puppet tool tool which might come in handy. If you're doing text/mask interpolation don't forget adjustable Smart Mask Interpolation and the Set First Vertex command. Chris Zwar did a tutorial for Creative Cow in an earlier version of AE that describes the process using the Reshape filter, which is also covered in books by Trish & Chris Meyer and Mark Christiansen.

Yet another option within AE is a third-party filter RevisionFX Re:Flex that has some more advanced features and perhaps better quality.

I haven't been paying attention lately but the last morphing I remember was in a Rolling Stones video; it seemed to involve 3D moves and frame rate interpolation too, which itself should work better now with optical flow now in common products by Adobe and Apple. Even then Effects Fueled by the Desire to be Seamless (FxGuide) is a lot more complicated now.

Update: Chris Meyer summarized the essentials on 2d text morphing on the AE-List (30 Sep 2007):

"As you noted, we wrote up a few pages on it in Creating Motion Graphics Volume 2 (for those with copies, in the 3rd edition, its pages 82-85; in the new 1-volume 4th edition, it will be pages 180-183). It comes with several example exercises. Here's a quick boil-down:
- Align the First Vertex Point at a similar position on the two shapes, and enable First Verticies Match
- Use Linear Vertex Paths: disabling gives more organic interpolation (especially good for rotating objects), although it can also result in wild swings; enabling will be less twisty
- Bending Resistance: low = more fluid; higher = maintain a more rigid, geometric shape
- Matching Method: Auto works well; use Curve for organic, Polyline for geometric
- Add Mask Vertices: the higher, the more accurate the interpolation; same for Quality
- Use 1:1 Vertex: disable.
There's no one magic setting; just these general rules for stiff/fluid, and experiment/tweak from there."

Chris Roger adds: "Start with simple text morph of the letter "A" to "B" to learn. Create text/outlines in IL and paste into mask keyframes. Make sure the letters have same number of points. Add points with Pen Tool. This will help a more fluid transition. Be sure to define the First Vertex."