P: Morph cut - Analyzing in Background never completes

[mbpm]

I have a simple headshot cutting to the same head, same everything a few seconds later.

All other transitions work find. I try morph cut and see 'Analyzing in background.' Never see sign of progress - should I see it chewing through frames somehow?

I have gone to project settings. Tried both rendering settings. One thing - When I do GPU acceleration my still frames look like garbage - example:

http://www.screencast.com/t/rPiWL6yL

Software acceleration looks fine. No idea if these items are related.

Have run through all preferences. Don't see anything that might be turned off. BTW - working with MBP 15" late 2013. Latest OS.

[Simon24441138undf]

When I use morph cut in premiere it works fine during the preview, when the timeline is red, but when I render, either a preview or exporting a file, I get a simple fade transition instead. I click "analyze background" on the morph cut, that section of the timeline goes from green to red, and the cut works properly again.

I have tried rendering different formats, exporting using previews, and disabling "render at maximum quality" which seem to be the go-to's for troubleshooting morph cut problems but none of these have worked.

I'm using premiere pro 2024 version 24.0.0 on a macbook m1 max running sonoma 14.2.1. I've attched a file I've made that exemplifies this problem (the png's are the media sources for the file, what I'm trying to morph between).

[Ann Bens]

Morph cut is designed for fixed shots that have a single talking head and a static background (for best results)

So I am not surprised its not working.

Best is to use After Effects for morphing.

[Simon24441138undf]

Thank you for your response. I understand what you're saying and I'm okay with a glitchy-looking morph. If you look at this very short screencapture I did doesn't it seem strange though? these two clips are exactly the same except the first one I clicked "analyze background" on the morph cut after rendering the entire sequence in to out (first clip is what I want the second is the simple fade transition I get when rendering) . I just find it weird that it's displaying the desired morph effect before I render it.

[Ann Bens]

Which preview codec is used?

[Simon24441138undf]

Apple ProRes 422 LT. I just tried rendering previews with all available codecs (everything except DV25NTSC thru DVCPRO HD 720p60 which was greyed out) and the results were the same. Changing "maximum bit depth", " maximum render quality" and "composite in linear color" doesn't have any effect either. Here are my sequence settings if that helps:

[Ann Bens]

Well i will stick with my first comment: morph cut is not suited for what you are trying to achieve.

[wisaq]

Thank you for this snippet of info. About to move to Resolve right after this current morph cut Adobe nightmare is over

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi @wisaq,

I read that you are having trouble with the morph cut effect. Please provide the community with more information so we can help. I'm sorry for the frustration. You can take steps to ensure the effect works much better, such as using a simple background, short clips, and avoiding scaling with clips vs. sequence settings (choose to nest). I hope the ideas help.

See:

• Morph Cut – Tips & Tricks for Best Results
• Applying the Morph Cut transition in Premiere Pro
• Troubleshooting the Morph Cut transition

Cheers,
Kevin

[BrownFish]

Y'know...I've been a part of this thread for years now - constantly getting emails about other user's frustrations. 

From my own experience, morph cuts sometimes work. Sometimes they don't.

They often work most reliably when frame rate of the timeline matches the source footage exactly.

It's not a guarantee.

The complaints, confusion and frustration continue.

For years.

I think Adobe treats it like doctors treat patients with back problems. They suggest the patient do something, then they don't hear from the patient again so they assume "ahhh, it's fixed." When really, it didn't work. The result: the patient doesn't trust the doctor anymore.

This Morph issue is clearly demonstrates:

a) continued, unresolved problems with this effect

b) a genuine need for the effect to work; to be useful - by many, many users

c) a lack of a software update from the programmers at Adobe to fix the issue. Perhaps, it's just not a high priority.

So when there are responses from Adobe in the user forum that appear to be 'surprised' by a user's experience (like this last one), even though there are 4 PAGES OF RESPONSES going back years without an effective solution or a new version of PP to finally resolve the issue, you can't help but roll your eyes. It really undermines the morale of the community user base.

I'm going to suggest two things for Adobe to so to help themselves and everyone else:

First: when you apply the effect, an orange progress striped bar appears in the program monitor indicating the effect is being processed. But it lies. If the morph effect is stalled and will not actually work, you end up staring at it for an extra long time before you give up. It never tells you "This will not work. This can't happen". It will keep that orange bar there until the next power failure. This leads to user frustration. It leads to people just giving up on the effect. Trust is eroded. And in the world of interface design, that's just wrong. I humbly suggest Adobe adds a progress status in the effect panel; something that denotes that the effect is actually being processed - in the same way Morph Stabilizer does. Y'know, percentage, threes dots blinking, etc. Pick something. That will at least tell that users they are not wasting their time or that they are.

Second: after you have done the above, read the responses in this post and figure out why sometimes the effect works and sometimes they don't. Again, much like adding Warp Stabilizers to clips that have speed effects, flash up a warning that indicates it won't work and WHY so the user can find an alternate route. 

I think these are reasonable requests for this long-lasting, annoying issue.

We're not asking for the moon here. Please help.

Thank you for listening.

><((º>

[Michael Grenadier]

what are your source properties and sequence settings? Have you tried
"render and replace" before exporting?

--
Michael Grenadier
917-362-3396
*www.michaelgrenadier.com <>*
mgrenadier@gmail.com

[Michael Grenadier]

gotta say I find morph cuts dependable. fwiw, I use it with mezzanine (all
iframe) formats. and I'm working on an entry level 2022 macstudio with 32
gigs of ram... but never had any serious problems on earlier hardware and
versions of premiere... Yes, there can be issues, but at least in my
experience, they are a result of excessive movement in the clips... With
locked down interview shots with limited subject movement, it has been very
dependable. Never seen the message bar in an export...

but what's not dependable is the way this thread works... it's a very long
thread and usually I can't find the post I'm trying to reply to... so
I'm replying using "reply to this message".

--
Michael Grenadier
917-362-3396
*www.michaelgrenadier.com <>*
mgrenadier@gmail.com