Roto Brush flickering

[Guest]

It is very annoying that the picture flickers every time I paint the mask with the roto brush. After each brush stroke, the picture disappears for a second and appears. Apparently reboots with new data. But when you work with a long segment of video, these blinks are very unnerving and strain your eyes. Smear - blink, smear - blink, corrected smear - blink ... Please fix this blink so that the picture does not disappear, but simply update the roto brush mask.

[James Landy]

Good catch.  It occurs when the layer is clipped as a result of zooming, which is almost always the case when using roto brush to define segmentation.  This is a known problem that we're actively working on fixing.  Should be addressed soon.

[James Landy]

Fixed in build 17.5 x10.  Please try it and report back if you're still encountering this problem.  Thanks. 

[Guest]

Hello. Still encountering this problem. You are great, and in beta 17.5.0 (10) it got better, but the picture is still blinking. I made a test. If you work in HD, then with each brush stroke, the picture no longer disappears so often. Can blink after 20-40 frames. And if you work in 2K, then the problem remains. Every time at the beginning of a fragment it is not noticeable and does not interfere with working if the fragment is small (2-3 sec). But if the video is long (10-30 seconds), then by the middle of the fragment there is blinking with each brush stroke and the picture disappears for 1-2 seconds. And therefore eyes get tired and working hours are delayed. I am using multiple computers (mac) and the problem is the same on all computers.

[James Landy]

Another good catch!  I can reproduce what you're seeing, although it's intermittent for me.  But you're correct, a flash frame does occur.  It has something to do with adding background/foreground strokes at a non-base frame location after propagating a lengthy clip (around 30 seconds).  We're working on fix.  Thanks for your help.

[SundayGladiator]

Hello..

Was this flickering issue ever fixed in Ae with roto brush masking?

My issue is a roto brush mask on a clip (clip exported out as Quicktime, RGB + Alpha, ProRes 4444) then imported into Pr and size of clip is increased by say 20%.

The flickering is every so slight when exporting out the .mp4 movie from Pr, yet noticeable for OCD editors like me. 😄

Thanks for any insights.

[James Landy]

Hi SundayGladitator,

We fixed the flash frame issue for most cases, except for a few intermittent edge cases that are difficult to reproduce.  The flash frame only occurs while adding foreground/background strokes on non-base frames in the layer panel, meaning you should not be seeing flash frames during propagation or when previewing propagation results.  

Are you seeing a flash frame/flickering when previewing in Ae after using roto brush?  Or do you only see the flickering after exporting a comp through the render queue?  

If issue occurs during preview, then this could a render thread problem.  If issue occurs on output, then this could be a formats problem.  

Please report back with your findings.

Thanks.

[SundayGladiator]

Thanks James for the quick response!

The flickering in the roto brush mask is in the rendered Quicktime clip (using RGB + Alpha, ProRes 4444 codec).

I can't find out if this flickering is in the preview within Ae, because I just don't have the horsepower with my dinkmo MacBook Pro to see the preview of this animation in real-time.

The roto brush mask I'm using is also using the refine edge tool, which Ae further interpolates throughout the animation as a roto brush mask.

Outside of posting the actual clip on YouTube on this flickering, this is the best I can verbally describe the issue.

[James Landy]

This is sounding more like a problem with formats.  Try exporting the same comp without RB applied to any layers, then see if you still get the flickering with the rendered QT clip.

[SundayGladiator]

Yeah, that's a dealbreaker. I need the roto brush mask in order for it to work in this Pr project I've got going.

Maybe it's a roto brush/refine edge issue or technqiue I'm not doing right there. I'll see if I can jump into another post re the issue.

[James Landy]

Just to be clear, I'm not saying to not use RB in your production.  I'm trying to get your help isolating the cause of the issue you're encountering.  For example, If the issue doesn’t occur when RB is not applied, then we can eliminate RB as the culprit. 

[SundayGladiator]

Correct. When the RB is not applied, the clip has zero flickering.

[James Landy]

Sounds like a RB bug.  I'd like to try and reproduce in-house.   Please DM me if you can provide a sample project and source footage.  Thanks. 

[Pinguinoverde]

Hi James,

It is 2024, it is still happening.

Cheers.

[James Landy]

I 'm not able to reproduce the flash frames with Ae 24.2 beta 74 on macOS 14.2.1 (M1).  
What version of Ae and Rotobrush are you using? 

[jesst90162058]

Yup 2024, April. 
It is still happening. 

[jesst90162058]

Video settings of the video that was imported to AE 

[jesst90162058]

[jesst90162058]

Composition settings.

[James Landy]

Thanks for providing the screen shots. That helps.
Let's see if we can figure out what's causing the issue.
If possible, please post a screen recording of the RB workflow that results in flickering.
If you can provide the source and project, that would assist in our attempt to reproduce the issue in-house at Adobe.