Praise and Questions

Hi all,

Yesterday I started using Commotion Pro 4. I admitt, that I had it sitting on the shelf for nearly a year now (It came as a Bundle with my Targa 3K Videoboard). Since I have a Job to do, that is best done with Rotoscoping, I installed Comotion, read through the Manual, the Rotoscoping White Paper, the Archive Forum and actually tried rotoscoping my Files. I must say, that I am very satiesfied with the results (although they are not perfect yet and I have to many points on the Splines and far to many keyframes) and the ease of use of Commotion. I find it very helpful, that the UI is similar to the one of After Effects. I think I will use Commotion a lot for that kind of work in the future.

Since I have to start over my Rotoscoping work, I want to ask a few things that I couldn't find out yet concerning rotoscoping and a few other things:

1) I noticed if I add points on a Rotospline (B-Splines) at a later time, I have to go back and adjust all the previous keyframes. Is that correct or do I something wrong. I assume that is best not to add points, but to start with the spline at a moment in time where the object has the most irregular shape (like a when a head turns from frontal to a profil-shot, to start at the profil-shot, where I have to roto not only the headshape but also the nose that is now sticking out)

2) Is it possible to draw a spline that is only valid for a couple of frames? The Reference-Book (Manual) is very unclear about that. I need to Roto (Mask) out a Person. The Person is standing on the same place, but moves with the upper part of the body. The Legs are mostly apart, but when the person turns the body, the gap between the legs closes. I have drawn a spline for the gap. But what do I do with the spline when the gap closes. Can I turn of my Spline for that moment and turn it on later? I have tried to click the checkbox for the keyframes of that spline, but after klicking on it my whole mask is turned of (that is: the clip is not masked any more in the Comp-Window).

3) Is it possibe to synchronise the clip and the comp window? So if I go back and forth in the clip-window to draw and tweak my splines, the comp-window is automatically synchronised to the time/ frame I'm working in the clip-window. It is possible in After Effects with the Layer-Window and the Comp-Window.

4) I've read in the forum archives, that it is best to deinterlace the footage before rotoscoping. Since the my objects jitter a lot after deinterlacing, I'm not sure where to draw my splines. With that jittering I'm tempted to set a keyframe on every frame. But I can't imagine that this would be the right way to work. Where do you Roto-Pro's draw your splines? Outside of the object with feathering to the inside, full inside the object with feathering to the outside, or on the edge with feathering to both sides? The last would be very difficult with that jittering I mentioned above.

5) It would be very helpful to have a chance to look at a rotoscoped shot and to study the way how the splines are drawn and animated. I have managed to get a manual from commotion 3.0 and there is a tutorial with a rotoscoped ninja (along with rotoscoped motion blur). But I only have the manual not the Tutorial-Files. This tutorial isn't part of the Commotion 4 Manual. Or it is not included with my bundled copy of commotion. Is anyone willing to provide me with an example? Just a few frames and one or two splines?

6) I'm not able to update Commotion Pro 4 to 4.1. The Updater can't find the installed commotion 4 and if I browse manually to the commotion directory it won't install either. What can I do to solve this problem? Is it because I have a bundled version of commotion? (Bundle is written on the splash screen of commotion)

7) Do the PlugIns that come with Commotion (Primatte, Composit Wizard, Image Lounge) work in AE 5.5 and Combustion 2. If not is it possible to have a crossupgrade or something similar? I'm interested to get hold on the full Primate-PlugIn, since I like to have the 16 bit, that the full Primatte provides in AE or Combustion (Is the Combustion keyer not a licensed Primatte keyer? I think i've heard something like that.)

8) Now to the miracle, magic Matt Silvermann Training Tapes. Are the tapes very Commotion specific or can I learn techniques that I can also adapt to over programs like Combustion and After Effects. I'm in need of a book or a training video that teaches me some basic techniques of matte creation. I have the book "The Art and science of Digital Compositing" by Ron Brinkmann, but it is primarly academic overview of compositing and matte creation.

9) And now the last remark. The pinnacle/commotion website isn't really very helpfull. A lot of links don't work and it is really hard to navigate to an information one needs. Will this be fixed in the future?


Thanks for your time

Mirko Echghi