Turning Video Into Vector Graphics
 

On the Adobe Production Studio site, under features, it shows exporting a clip with movie as individual bitmaps, the tracing them with Live Trace in Illustrator, and using the images back as a movie.

Does anyone know if there is a guide how to do this? I can't find anyway for Illustrator to automatically process multiple images, or how to pull them back into a video...at least an easy way. Individually opening each frame, setting the trace options, tracing, saving, importing into PP, then setting the length to one frame works, but takes ridculously long.

Thanks,

David

Well, this is what I found out so far:

1. As we already new, exporting as movie has the option of saving each frame as a bitmap.
2. Adobe Bridge allows you to perform live trace in batches of 10 frames each. This is a bit of a pain, since you could need 3 batches/second.
3. Bridge restricts you to just picking a preset tracing option. So you first pick a representative frame, adjust tracing for the desired affect, and save the preset.
4. Then the frames are imported in bulk. Preferably into their own bin!
5. they can be dragged in batch to the timeline

Unfortunately, they default to 5 seconds per frame. Is their a way to adjust the out point in batch? Can this be done in After Effects and the result saved as a single composition to be imported into PP?

david

Sounds like an idea they haven't figured out how to do in a useful manner yet.

It is shown on their website as a demo, and on the video training included with the software. So I think they have it down. And they did provide a batch interface in bridge.

It is possible I'm missins something, or the missing feature in in AE which I don't know that well

It will still take a long time, but I would export from Premiere as a filmstrip, convrert to psd in Photoshop, import into illustrator, do the live trace,(take a small vacation while Ill works), impoer the vector frames back into Photoshop, flatten the image, save as filmstrip, import back into PremierIt will still take a long time, but I would export from Premiere as a filmstrip, save a copy as psd in Photoshop, import into illustrator, do the live trace, (take a small vacation while Ill works), import the vector frames back into Photoshop, place in the original filmstrip file, flatten the image, import back into Premier. You could do as many frames as you like, or your computer can handle. The filmstrip file format retains the time code and frame order. I use this method for rotoscoping mistakes in my video files. Hope this helps some,
Jon
FOTG Films inc.

This actually isn't that hard to do. Although I've used Photoshop and Premiere for a number of years now, I'm new to Illustrator...and I managed to figure it out in an hour or two by reading Help and experimenting a little. True, using the Batch command in Bridge limits you to 10 frames at a time, which is maddening.

- Export your clip from a PPro sequence to bmp or TIF files (I used TIF) in a folder.

- In Illustrator, make sure your Live Trace settings are defaulted to whatever preset you want (you can create your own presets).

- Create and save an Action in the Action Pallet:
-- Open (set the path to your folder of bmp files)
-- Select All
-- Tracing>Make
-- Save As
-- Close

- Run the Action

- Import the new AI files into PPro, making sure the "Numbered Stills" checkbox at the bottom of the Import dialog is checked.

That's it. I'll attach a jpg of my Actions Pallet with a script that ran about 90 frames successfully. I down-rezzed the PPro output to 640x360, did LiveTrace in a custom 4-color trace, and once I had created the Action, execution of the whole LiveTrace and import process took, I think, about a minute.

Jon...I'm not sure of the sequence of steps you are recommending. I haven't found anyway for Photoshop, Imageready, or Illustrator to use filmstrips. However, ImageReady will change an animated GIFcreated by Premier into a layered Photoshop file. However, I haven't found anyway for Illustrator to process it as individual, independent layers. Or to recover it in Premier.

Pete, that is pretty much the workflow I came up with. But the 10 frame thing is a killer. The conversion is pretty quick (really, the frames are pretty low res as photos go), but 10 at time means 12-15 batchs for 5 seconds of video. What an unnecessary pain in the... Also, there is no cancel button once the trace is activated from Bridge. So if you picked the wrong settings, you are in pretty deep!!!

Thanks,

David

this works great, try it.
 

Sorry my other post was copied 2x......
You can export the timeline in premiere as a filmstrip file.
1) Select the timeline you want to export.
2) Select File, Export Movie.
3) Click the settings tab.
4) Under the General screen select file type.
5) From the file type dropdown select film strip and save.
6) Open the filmstrip file in PS.
7) Create a duplicate of the file and save as PSD.
8) Open the PSD file in Illustrator, do your trace.
9) Save the trace Ill file.
10) Open the trace Ill file in PS.
11) Copy the trace Ill file into the original filmstrip file you exported from premiere.
12) Flatten the filmstrip file and save.
13) Import the filmstrip file into Premiere.
14) Save your work.
I would export the filmstrip file small, like 100 frames or so, unless you have a really fast computer.

Hmm, are you sure a filmstrip is the best approach? I'm guessing you want to export each frame as a separate image file. Then, create an Illustrator batch command, convert all the files, and then import them back into Premiere, recombinded as a video clip.

Best,
Christopher

Jon,

I got to step 9, then problems. What settings did you need to save the filmstrip in ai? It goes from a 4MB PSD to a 80kB AI file. However, I can't get Photoshop to open it.

Thanks,

David

P.S.
It is certainly fewer steps to trace, since it bypasses the 10 frame limitiation in Bridge.

If you are using Adobe Studio 8 "the new Adobe stuff" you can use the Adobe Bridge. With Dynamic link, this will automate the whole process. Saw a demo of it 2 weeks ago in San Francisco and they did it with Live Trace.

Limited to 10 frames at a time...less than useful. I imagine 72-120 frames are pretty much the minimum. If you used it during credits, you could need 100s of frames.

David, are you still having problems doing this? All three solutions outlined in this thread should work.

I haven't tried Jon's method, and I agree that the Bridge batch process is pretty limited in its usefulness because of the 10 frame max. But I have used the method I described earlier and can verfiy that it works, and only takes seconds per frame to process. The Action should take only moments to create since you can see exactly how to do it in my previous post.

There were only saw two methods. The first, from Adobe, saves the image as bitmaps—bmp, tiff, etc.—sets a trace preference in Illustrator, uses Bridge to trace 10 frames at a time, then imports into Premier.

The second, Jon's method, I haven't gotten to work. Saved as a filmstrip. Used ImageReady to convert to PSD. Illustrator to trace. But then had an Illustrator file that I was unable to convert to a filmstrip or to a PSD to a filmstrip.

So, while I have a process I can make work, I don't really have a setup I'm comfortable with.

David

David, then perhaps you should consider the third approach, using a simple AI Action, that I outlined earlier. As I said twice before, I have tried this and it worked simply and quickly on over 90 frames. If the jpg in my first post that depicts the AI Action Pallet isn't visible to you, let us know.

Pete, apparently I inadvertantly skipped your first post. Oops!

I am a neophyte when it comes to Actions. So I am reading up on them. Haven't been able to get them to work in batch from Illustrator saving to a raster image of some type.

Was able to create the action. How do you execute it in batch and setup the batch dialogs? Apparently, you can't execute the Illustrator Actions from Bridge in the current version.

Thanks,

David

Ok, I'll attach jpg files of both the script with all the steps scrolled open and the Batch dialog settings.

I ran the same Action using a B&W default on 67 frames of 640x360 TIFs and the Action itself took about 1 second per frame to LiveTrace.

Parenthetically, I got Illustrator really only because it was added to the Production Studio (wasn't part of Adobe Video Collection) and I kind of wondered if I'd ever really use it. As I barely scratch the surface, it is becoming clear to me that, yes, being able to do this kind of vector stuff really is going to help me create cool video stuff I otherwise wouldn't be able to do. Worth getting to know, which will take some time even as a long-time Adobe customer.

Chris may want me to remove the WMV soon due to bandwidth, but that little clip's history is this:
- Canon XL H1 60i pointed at our league hockey championship game
- Capture in Cineform AVI into PPro 2
- Export Work Area to TIF (67 frames) at 640x360
- Run the existing LiveTrace Action with B&W default settings to create 67 Adobe Illustrator files
- Import into a PPro 2 sequence with "Numbered Stills" checked
- Export to WMV 720x 480, PAR 1.2. (Which was the slowest part of the whole process, of course).

With the Action already written, getting it onto the timeline in PPro was about 5 minutes total time. Another 5 minutes to encode to WMV.

EDIT: You get to the Batch dialog from the little right-pointing caret in the upper right of the Action Pallet. You don't use Bridge at all.

Thanks!!! And a very nice affect on the video.

In my current project, it is 3 13-year old girls dancing at a party. It may also help recover some footage for another project that had a heavily overexposed backgroud (sun coming through the window in its own schedule).

Our Action scripts are similar, except that I exported as bmp, set a destination folder in batch, and did not override open, save, or export commands. Additionally, I find that after taking a test frame, tuning a live trace, and saving the setting, it is necessary to make that setting the default and make sure the swatch library is open before the batch executes.

It worked for me (once). Clearly, this is way preferable over converting 10 frames at a time in Bridge. However, I must be doing something wrong in an inconsistant way. Sometimes I get a dialog for every frame in Illustrator. Othertimes, PP shows it as a video of the correct length, yet only displays the first frame.

Still debugging.

When you captured to Cineform, was that converting an HDV file with AspectHD or ingesting HD-SDI with ProspectHD and an AJA Xena card? The impact of when and what you capture the ProspectHD on final image quality.

Thanks again,

David

P.S.
What do you think of Cool Edit Pro...err...Adobe Audition?

You're correct about needing to set the default for LiveTrace (and I suppose the color pallet, although I've left that at default myself) ahead of time. It appears that the Action Pallet only drills down to the menu item level; looks like whatever is the current setting for any menu item in an Action, that's what it'll do.

To batch save to a different folder and file format (eg, save as AI from bmp), the help specifically says to use "Save As..." (not "Save") in the Action and "None" for destination in the batch dialog. I suspect that specifying a destination in the Batch dialog is why it is asking you to save each frame. If you set Destination to None -- thereby letting the "Save As..." and "Close" steps in the Action do their things -- it should crank straight through your stills.

The only thing I can think of for PPro to show just the first frame is that you forgot to check the "Numbered Stills" box in the Import dialog. It doesn't stay checked; you have to enable it for each import.

I currently just use HDV over firewire. Since AI files are vector graphics, one can take advantage of that for these kind of projects by batching much smaller still images (faster processing) and then importing them into AE (rather than PPro), where they can be continuously rasterized if necessary to keep edges looking sharp even with substantial up-scaling.

Adobe Audition? I'm not too knowledgeable about sound processing and I haven't much tried other audio applications, so others here may be able to compare it better to competing software. But as a greenhorn in audio, I have found that Audition more than serves my needs. I use the spectral views, various noise and filter tools, and normalization on every project, often ending up with very nice clean tracks from originals that were all but unuseable. I love the tight integration with PPro. I'm under the impression that serious audio folks tend to favor other software, but I don't see myself outgrowing it.

I can't help wondering if a similar effect to Live Trace couldn't be achieved inside Premiere Pro by simply bumping up the contrast to an extreme level.

Maybe in certain situations, but in general probably not. LiveTrace can be tweaked to give a many, many different looks; what I did was just a quick-n-dirty default setting. And it is vector-based, so you can scale your output really easily in AE.

I see. I only used Live Trace once a little while ago, so I'm not really familiar with it. And good point about scaling the vector output in AE. That could definitely be useful.

Doesn't it scale as vector drawing in PP also? For that matter, launching PP seems to launch AELinkServer.exe and and AfterFX.exe programs.

No, as according to the Premiere Pro 2.0 Help file, "Adobe Premiere Pro converts path-based Illustrator art into the pixel-based image format used by Adobe Premiere Pro, a process known as rasterization."

That is probably because Premiere Pro 2.0 can import and link After Effects sequences directly into the Premiere Timeline. Premiere Pro would need to access the After Effects engine to be able to play back and render the After Effects sequence.