The parameters for this plug-in are described below.
Analyse - This is a push button which will trigger an analysis of the input clip and calculate a corner pin. Interrupting the analysis will not delete the corner pin keys that have already been calculated.
Render During Analysis - If set, this toggle will cause the effect to update the time line and render a freshly analyzed frame so you can see the progress of the effect. Doing so will slow down the analysis somewhat, so toggle this off to speed up the general analysis.
Clear Analysis - Pressing this push button will delete all key frames from the corner pin parameters, allowing you to force a re-analysis if you feel the need to.
Analysis Range - This controls the range of frames any analysis will be run over. It can be one of:
• Specified Range - which will look at the parameters Analysis Start and Analysis Stop for the range of frames to analyze,
• Source Clip Range - which will automatically determine the range of frames to analyze from the length of the input clip.
Analysis Start - The first frame to analyze from if Analysis Range is set to Specified Range.
Analysis Stop - The last frame to analyze from if Analysis Range is set to Specified Range.
Scale - A toggle that indicates whether the calculated corner pin can include a scaling factor.
Rotate - A toggle that indicates whether the calculated corner pin can include rotations.
Translate - A toggle that indicates whether the calculated corner pin can include translations in x and y.
Perspective - A toggle that indicates whether the calculated corner pin can include perspective transforms.
Analysis Region - This is the region analyzed to calculate the four-corner pin. This is especially useful when doing any form of frame locking, in which case, go to the lock frame, look at the reference clip and position the box over the area you want locked.
Analysis Region BL - controls the position of the bottom left corner of the analysis region.
Analysis Region TR - controls the position of the top right corner of the analysis region.
Advanced - the lesser used refinement controls.
Mode - This parameter controls whether F_Steadiness is smoothing the shot while keeping the overall camera motion, or locking the shot to a single frame to completely remove camera motion. It can be set to:
• Incremental Lock - in which case, it will calculate the pin that takes each frame to the lock frame. This calculates the pin by working from the lock frame out to each frame, calculating the GME between each frame incrementally and accumulating it to create the corner pin.
• Absolute Lock - this also calculates a pin that takes each frame to the lock frame. However, it does so by doing GME directly from the frame in question directly to the lock frame.
• Smooth - in which case, we are smoothing the shot for a range of frames described by the Smoothing parameter. This is the default value. It can be used to keep the overall camera motion, but to smooth out sharp bumps and kicks.
Incremental locks work better in some situations, whilst absolute locks work better in others. However, absolute locks, when they work, are often more accurate. If, for example, you want to get a lock between frame 0 and frame 100, try using absolute lock first. If absolute lock doesn't work, it can be because frame 0 and frame 100 are too different. In this case, incremental lock can help if there is a gradual spatial progression from frame 0 to frame 100.
Smoothing - This controls the range of frames to average motion over when Mode is set to Smooth. The default value is 10.
Lock Frame - This controls the frame which will be locked to when Mode is set to either of the lock modes. By default, this is set to 0. Note that what is frame 0 for F_Steadiness is frame 1 in NukeX. Therefore, if you are looking at frame 3 in the Viewer and want to use that frame as the lock frame, you need to enter 2 as the Lock Frame value.
Accuracy - This controls the time/accuracy trade off. The higher this is, the slower the analysis, but you have a better likelihood of a good result.
Filtering - Sets the filtering quality.
• Low - low quality but quick to render.
• Medium - uses a bilinear filter. This gives good results and is quicker to render than high filtering.
• High - uses a sinc filter to interpolate pixels giving a sharper repair. This gives the best results but takes longer to process.
Invert - If set, then the inverse of the calculated four-corner pin is used during render. This works best with the lock modes, and can be used to track static locked-off plates back into a shot.
Auto Scale - To smooth out or remove camera motion, F_Steadiness translates and rotates the frames in the source clip. This leaves black pixels around the image. The Auto Scale parameter lets you fill in the black gaps at the edges by scaling the output image up. A value of 1 (the default) scales the image up until no black is visible, whereas a value of 0 disables scaling and leaves the black edges untouched. Auto Scale uses the minimum scale necessary to remove the black gaps at the edges to preserve as much detail as possible.
Four Corner Pin - The corner pins calculated during the analysis pass:
Bottom Left - the lower left corner pin.
Bottom Right - the lower right corner pin.
Top Left - the upper left corner pin.
Top Right - the upper right corner pin.