SpeedSix.TrailLive (Discreet Trailz Raptor)

PURPOSE

Trail generation using optical flow based motion estimation. Lines are drawn along the motion paths derived.

INPUT CLIPS

1: Input Clip : Clip to have trails. The motion is estimated using this clip and the colour of the trails comes from this clip.
2: Background : Background to optionally composite result over.
3: Matte : Matte to control trail locations.Areas which have a higher luminance value than specified will be considered for trails.
4: Obscure : A clip that can optionally modulate the trails.

TrailLive CONTROL PAGE

Restart (Pushbutton)
When changing styles or skipping frames, the true image will not be created. The new output image will be using the frame created from the old settings. Therefore to be sure, click on Restart and process a few frames to see the true picture.

Type (List Box Options: Direct | Direct and Save Flows | Only Save Flows | Reuse Flows | Setup Matte, Default: Direct)

Direct:Calculates the flow fields and draws the trails.
Direct and Save Flows: Calculates the flows, saves them to disk and draws the trails,
Only Save Flows: Calculates the flows and saves them to disk. No trails are drawn,
Reuse Flows: Reads saved flows back from disk and draws the trails.
Setup Matte: Play with the liuminance of the matte clip to define zones where trails will be drawn.
Note: Currently all the saved flows are put into a fixed location with a fixed name.
Windows:The location is S6_HOME_DIR\SpeedSix\flow_store\flowa_<4digit_number>.ts6
The usual value of S6_HOME_DIR is C:\Program files\SpeedSix
Linux or Irix: The location is S6_HOME_DIR/SpeedSix/flow_store/flowa_<4digit_number>.ts6
The usual value of S6_HOME_DIR is /usr/local/SpeedSix

Image (List Box Options: Full Frame | NTSC Fields | NTSC Fields (Rev) | PAL Fields | PAL Fields (Rev), Default: Full Frame)

This specifies whether the images in the input sequence are frame based or fields based. If they are fields based (interlaced), it also specifies the field order (based on the TV system type). Output images will be frame or field based to match the input image type as selected here.
Full Frame: Images are not interlaced. This is the case with film and progressive video formats (and is, of course, the One True and Proper Way).
NTSC Fields: Images are interlaced, with fields in the normal order for the NTSC television standard.
NTSC Field (Rev): Images are interlaced, with fields the other way around from the normal order for the NTSC television standard.
PAL Fields: Images are interlaced, with fields in the normal order for the PAL television standard.
PAL Fields (Rev): Images are interlaced, with fields the other way around from the normal order for the PAL television standard.
Note: "PAL" and NTSC" don't necessarily imply anything about the image resolution in this case.

Luminance Low (Number Min: 0.0, Max: 1.0, Default: 0.8)
Only area in the Matte clip with a luminance value greater than the chosen amount will be considered for trails.

Luminance High (Number Min: 0.0, Max: 1.0, Default: 1.0)
Only area in the Matte clip with a luminance value lower than the chosen amount will be considered for trails.

Brightness (Number Min: 0.0, Max: 10.0, Default: 1.0)
Tweak the luminance value to be used to encompass the area to create trails.

Plugin Status (Text String)
This gives you information on what the plugin is doing, and displays error messages if appropriate. Keep an eye on it as itis very useful to know what is going on especially if you have any problems.

Transparency (Number Min: 0.0, Max: 100.0, Default: 50.0)
Transparancy factor to control the density of the trails. Lower values give thinner trails.

Fade Rate (Number Min: 0.1, Max: 10.0, Default: 1.0)
Rate at which the trails fade out.

Shutter (Number Min: 2, Max: 100, Default: 10)
How many frames the "shutter" is open for. The higher the value the longer the trails.

Step Over (Number Min: 1, Max: 20, Default: 1)
When testing the result using a value greater than 1 speeds up the processing. The image is stepped over by the chosen amount only drawing the trails found at the stepped locations.

Use Blur (Checkbox Default: Off)
Use the Blur value to soften the trails.

Obscure (Checkbox Default: Off)
Use the Obscure clip to modulate the trails.

Composite (Checkbox Default: Off)
The trails can be directly composited over a chosen background or output onto black.

Blur (Number Min: 0.0, Max: 10.0, Default: 1.0)
Blur the trails created to soften them as desired.

Obscurity (Number Min: -1.0, Max: 1.0, Default: 0.0)
The amount the trails are obscured. Positive values: White is opaque and Black transparent.Negative values: White is transparent and Black is opaque

Restart On Process (Checkbox Default: Off)
If available turn On immediately before processing to ensure that the first frame is taken from the clip with no flowing affecting it.

Tuning CONTROL PAGE

Flow Resolution (List Box Options: Full | Half | Quarter, Default: Quarter)

Resolution at which to compute optical flow. The basic algorithm used by TrailLive System is optical flow. This treats brightness in an image as it it were a sort of fluid (like water), and it tries to see in which direction the brightness has flowed out of each pixel from one input frame to the next. To capture big motions, it does this on a "pyramid" of image resolutions, starting from the very small and refining the estimates up to a fairly high resolution (potentially the full image resolution). The maximum image resolution it will use for this pyramid is called the Flow Resolution.
Note: This not the resolution at which your result images are computed!

Show Vectors (List Box Options: None | Forward | Backward | Both, Default: None)

None: Motion vectors will not be drawn.
Forward: Draw forward motion vectors (from the earlier image of a pair to the later).
Backward: Draw backward motion vectors (from the later image of a pair to the earlier).
Both: Draw the forward and backward motion vectors.

Index