Silhouette 2020 now features even more advanced options for motion tracking challenges.
Boris FX is pleased to announce that the integrated Mocha tracking panel, which was previously
a paid option, is now included free, with all Silhouette 2020 upgrades and new licenses.
In the tracking panel, choose from point tracking….
Silhouette’s greatly improved planar tracking…
OR Mocha tracking… to drive your paint and roto needs.
For users that wish to do more with Mocha, Boris FX now offers a new bundle option at
great value: purchase Silhouette + Mocha Pro together to add new effects and compositing
workflows to Silhouette 2020.
The Mocha Pro plug-in option can be run inside Silhouette and features a streamlined user
interface, the ability to export tracking and roto data to most industry standard formats
and advanced modules that add functionality when used inside of Silhouette.
We will apply the Mocha Pro 2020 plug-in to our shot.
We launch the the Mocha interface and use the X-Spline tool to create a search area.
For screens with reflections, we can create multiple search areas using the add to X-Spline
tool.
We can create multiple shapes to avoid the reflections.
Display Mocha’s surface tool and select Perspective Tracking.
Lets increase the percent of analyzed pixels for tracking precision.
Lets track forwards.
After tracking, we want to ensure that our surface does not drift.
The AdjustTrack module is designed to give more user refinement for match moves and difficult
tracking shots.
We can create multiple reference points to add a 2nd level of correction keyframes, which
are interpolated on top of the Surface track.
Mocha Pro can export the AdjustedTrack data to most industry standard effects applications,
including Nuke, After Effects, Flame and Fusion.
Instead, we will channel a 2nd input and apply the screen graphic to our tracked surface.
Back in Silhouette, we can choose which Mocha Pro module will render to the effects tree.
In this case, instead of a composite, we can choose the Insert Cutout option, to process
RGBA for more compositing in our shot.
Silhouette is full fledged compositing application with 145 nodes for effects finishing.
We’ll add a Math Composite to comp the cutout back on top of our background and dial the
opacity settings to retain some reflections.
We can add more filters such as a blur node to simulate the depth of field and now we
have a simple but realistic screen burn in.
Here we’ve done the same for the other monitor, using the Mocha Pro plug-in, a math composite,
set to screen and a blur filter.
Mocha Pro’s Lens Module provides Silhouette with an excellent solution for lens distortion.
Here we have a shot with noticeable distortion.
We are going to use Mocha to “undistort and flatten the shot.
We want to retain all the pixels, so we will add the DOD node which is new in Silhouette
2020.
The DOD node allows us to pass a larger than raster workspace through a Silhouette session.
We’ll increase the canvas, then match that in the viewer ROI.
Now when we launch Mocha Pro, we have access to a larger project canvas.
The Lens Module gives the user interactive tools to calibrate Lens Distortion.
Select Locate Lines and Mocha Pro will analyze the shot.
Select New Line (or the N keyboard shortcut) and join a few lines.
We’ll repeat this step a few times.
Now we can display the grid tool and select calibrate.
The grid will now appear distorted to match the lens for this shot.
We can render a test frame to see the flattened undistorted shot.
If the selected lines are straight, we will exit Mocha Pro and set the plug-in to render
the UNDISTORTED LENS view.
Now we can add any node to our tree and for paint, roto or compositing in an undistorted
view.
To add the original distortion back, simply duplicate the Mocha node and add it to the
end of the composite.
We’ll change the render output to DISTORT and now we have an efficient UnDISTORT / DISTORT
workflow for SILHOUETTE.
One of Mocha Pro’s most powerful features is the remove module which provides an automatic
process for removing unwanted foreground objects.
On this clip, we’ve added Mocha Pro and tracked the background plane.
We also have a loose roto mask on the foreground dancer.
The Remove Module uses temporal frame analysis to automate the foreground removal based on
planar data.
We can render and export OR channel the render back to Silhouette for more compositing.
Mega Plates is Mocha Pro 2020’s newest feature.
We’ll track this background, then set the linked spline to be much larger than the workspace.
The Mega Plate module will generate a larger than raster, stitched frame.
We’ll export this file and import back to Silhouette.
When combined with Silhouette’s DOD node and the new detail separation brushes, Mocha’s
extended Mega Plates can provide an innovative way to access more pixels for cloning and
cleanups.
This is only a small introduction to what can be accomplished when pairing Silhouette
and the Mocha Pro plug-in.
To learn more about the newest versions of Silhouette and Mocha, visit us at BorisFX.com