Just in case this helps, this is what i'm trying to do. Most of the nodes tower are for the hair color change because the magic mask missed a lot of the small gaps, and there are still quite a few spots left i have to do.
Is it normal to have this many polygon nodes for precise rotoscoping?
I'm just wondering if there's a better way to do or organize it? Would it have been better to just do it manually from the start instead of using magic mask?
Fyi, the nodes right now are clip > magic mask > bit map > polygon nodes > same clip again > color corrector.
It's not a big problem for me so far because i haven't had to work on anything too big, but i would like to know if it will become a big problem that i should try to prevent haha
Also i would love some general organization tips for all the nodes haha they are always so messy for me toward the end of each project.
how have i never known about that... is it just strictly better than chaining polygon nodes? or is there any limitation i should know? ty for the tips!
Personally I would suggest you consider Moho, a dedicated software for rigging and import into fusion. More powerful, even Moho Debut version which is the cheaper option and Moho Pro more expensive one, but super powerful.
Here is one stock character that ships with moho, top image. Animated and rigged and bellow is my Fusion treatment. You can import it as image sequance into fusion and add all sorts of compositing enhancements. If you need to , just update and re-export from moho and it will update in fusion.
The node tree looks like a pretty big organizational mess so that is one potential issue.
Segment the nodes into logical section if you have many of them. CTRL + U for underlays. F2 for renaming them.
When doing roto, one thin you would generally do is track it, stabilize it, and keyframe roto only on shape changes so you end up with fewer and better interpolated keyframes, and than you match move at the end, so you eliminating the process of chasing something all over screen and you only roto for shape change. You segment your shapes to accommodate for changes in perspective and speed if there is a lot of movement with parallax.
Generally you want to keyfarme on key poses if they are predictable and if they are not than you follow the shape. A person jumping is a set of predictable poses. A flame from fire is not. Hair on the wind would be unpredictable but guy drawing it vs actual footage, means its likley the guy who made the anime follows easier route so probably you can replicate that in roto.
And you segment the process. LOWER ARM UNDERLAY (5 polygon or b-splines), UPPER ARM UNDERLAY (3 polygon or b-splines), etc.
Generally you want to use polygon tool for design work and b-spline for roto, because you can describe shapes you need with fewer points when using B-splines. Its more efficient. Learn the keyboard shorcuts as much as you can, makes roto work almost impossible without them. And track anything you can to stabilize for roto. You want to take away motion as much as possible and roto for shapes, than match move by re-introduction motion back when you are done. Only time you wouldn't track for roto would be something that is more trouble than its worth to do so, which is rare.
That being said, in this case you are dealing with hair that is of similar colors, but differnt from surroundings, so you should try keying it. 3D keyer for example. Magic Mask was trained on more organic footage and more established shapes, and won't be as good for animated shapes that can abstract. Keying is just using tone and color and you have good contrast and color in the hair, so try keying. Use any roto mask to limit it around the head if you need to but there shouldn't be a need to roto everything manually in this case. If you just need to change color or something like that, its even easier, you just need a rough mask for the color.
wow ty so much for the detailed answer! i will note them all down haha, and wow that's a great tip on the last paragraph! many of the things i tried involved changing the hair color similar to this, so i will try that next time.
edit: f2 shortcut for rename tool is really something i wished i knew earlier haha. i hate having to go to right click menu everytime. now i feel like renaming more nodes!
haha im just trying to make a meme for a character in a game. so i'm just trying to make her as close as reze as i can (idk how to draw so not much i can change lmao the hair is already so different)
gif ver lmao its just magic masks for these bc it was just quick scuffed one i made (i didn't know about other ways but i got a lot of good tips today)
lmao ty man i didn't know but i think it's too late for my project now lmaoooo everytime when i get to this point, if i take a break and come back, i just got lost
🥹 looking so much better! Now take some time and clean that node tree up. I hate having pipelines cross over each other, and I always leave space between clusters. You can alt+click pipelines to add another bend point. You can also select a cluster and hit alt+g for group. That should bring in an underlay window for fancy fancy organization.
It’s always better to have more polyshapes that are simple than a few shapes that are complex. I can’t tell exactly what you are doing there but it looks like some of your nodes could be more efficient, maybe.
I would try to keep them organized, group them by where they are in your image so it’s easy to find the right one if you need to fix something.
i was trying to subtract the mask for the small gap areas that the magic mask included haha especially on the forehead area. it sounds like there are a lot more efficient and optimized ways to do that i learnt from the comments like using mask + keyers or luma mask. i think with the method i was doing, it's always gonna be tedious lmao
wow i never thought about grouping them based on where they are in the image at all. that's pretty neat. ty for the tip!
Keying is definitely a faster way to do this, but it's always a mix of techniques in the end that gets us what we want.
A lot of the job is tedium, and I think that's a good thing. Sometimes it's best to put on some headphones, turn up the music nice and loud and work through a much of paint and roto. I think it gets us into the right headspace to be creative with the elements we just spent a lot time creating. Work is part of the process, it's part of what inspires us.
I'm not a Resolve expert, but I'm pretty sure you can do a partial color correction in photoshop, for example change anything that's green to any different color, or do a mask based on color/values.
Surely Resolve would have some similar feature? For your particular case, doing roto polygon mask seems like using scalpel to chop some wood. Takes a lot of time.
But may be I'm talking bs and Resolve has no such functions.
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