Roto Brush 2 Not Propagating Full Clip

Report · Jan 06, 2021

I'm having issues with this. The roto brush will only propagate half of the clip and then it just stops.

I realized the end of the clip needs some touching up but I can't even get to that part because it stops propagating around the halfway mark and all I see is a black screen. I try to go frame by frame but it doesn't even load anything besides the black screen after the halfway point.

How am I supposed to edit the mask if it won't even let me get to that point in the clip? It's only a 14 second clip as well, so it's really frustrating. I've tried for hours to see if it will continue propagating so I can access that part of the mask to no avail.

The green bar showing the propagation just stops after a while and all I get later in the clip is that black screen so nothing is letting me edit the mask.

I have a decent computer but this is definitely eating up all my RAM, but what's the point of it doesn't even allow me to correct the mask?

If there are any fixes or there is anything I'm doing incorrectly, please let me know.

Report · Jan 06, 2021

Hi @TheeRedEyedJedi,

Thank you for reporting this issue. I'm sorry to see you're experiencing this problem with Roto Brush. Would you mind posting your system specs, as well as the resolution of the clip you're using with Roto Brush? Do all clips exhibit this problem, or only a specific one?

A screen recording would be helpful in diagnosing the problem. It would be even better you could share the project and footage with us by collecting the project file/footage and sending a link to rotobeta@adobe.com. This would allow us to see the problem firsthand.

Thank you again for reporting this issue and for using the After Effects (Beta),

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Jan 07, 2021

Thanks for the reply.

My system specs are as follows:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9400F CPU @2.90 GHz 2.90 GHz

32.0 GB of RAM

64-bit Operating System, x64-based processor

I'm about to get a screen recording to share to the provided email address along with the project and footage.

Thanks,

Report · Jan 07, 2021

I've just sent the project and footage to the rotobeta@adobe.com address.

Thanks again,

Report · Jan 07, 2021

Thank you @TheeRedEyedJedi, we've received your project and will be taking a look.

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Jan 08, 2021

Hi @TheeRedEyedJedi,

Thanks so much for sending your project and footage. I think I'm seeing some of the same behavior visible in the screen recording. The clip takes an extremely long time to propagate due to the 4K image size, which is a known issue with Roto Brush in its current version, especially when using Best Quality. Something that might help is rendering out a lower resolution version of the shot and use Roto Brush on that instead; consider what the final output size of the clip/finished piece will need to be. You could even potentially create a lower-resolution proxy and create a matte from that, depending on how much fidelity you need.

A second issue is showing up as well; the footage is showing two almost-completely green frames at frame 176 and 178 in the composition. This seems like a glitch in the footage or with the decoding. When Roto Brush reaches this frame, it both loses its matte and also chugs for a while on this frame trying to find the edges which aren't there. Do you see this same glitch in the footage? Re-encoding the footage in a format like ProRes may help with that as well.

In your screen recording, the lack of anything displaying in the Composition panel looks like a possible GPU issue when drivers are not up to date. The blank Libraries panel also points to this. Check if your drivers are up to date, especially if you are using an NVIDIA graphics card.

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Jan 08, 2021

Thank you!

I will attempt roto brushing a lower-resolution version of the clip and see if that helps. I'll try the other fixes as well.

Report · Jan 08, 2021

I did see a green screen in the footage as well but I thought it was due to the roto-brushing. I will checck again.

Report · Jan 08, 2021

Thank you!

I will try these fixes.

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*Malcolm A. Maurice | Freelance Graphic & Web Designer, Writer,
Videographer & Editor* *|*

direct: 443.355.1291 | email: m.maurice331@gmail.com

Report · Jul 18, 2022

In the latest version (v22.5), Roto Brush doesn't work at all. I have confirmed with several other studios that they have switched to other tools already. The behavior is consistent across both Mac and PC. Roto Brush will track for about 30-40 frames and then lose all of its tracking and start over from the current position. It basically creates rotoscopes in "chunks" and loses them along the way, never piecing together a single, fluid rotoscope for the entire clip. And this happens on low resolution footage as well (2k and below). In general, very disappointing.

Report · Dec 01, 2022

Roto Brush propagating 2 of 25 for like 4 hours, crashed 8 times on a video of 1 second recorded at 59 frames. I have a Mac Studio, M1 Max, 64gb Memory. What would be the solution?