Morphing Faces 1

[Jiggerman]

Afternoon Folks

Can any kind person out there give me some advice, I'm looking to morph one picture into another-then another-then another etc. I'm not sure whether you can do it in premiere, but can anyone recommend another program that could do it (Flashes vector morphing really doesn't cut it in this situation).

I know that a few years ago there was a few bits of Software that did the trick but I can't think of any now.

Any idea's are greatly appreciated.

Thanks very Much

 

[Pixelchik]

Hi Jiggerman,
Premiere alone can't do the morph, but Adobe After Effects can. Check out this link for info:

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/zwar_chris/morph/

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Jiggerman,

You can sorta' do a morph using Premiere and Photoshop if you don't have After Effects:

Say you have a scene where a guy crouches down, changes into a wolf over half a second, then springs away.

First, nail the tripod to the floor (well, whatever you need to do to lock it down)! It is very important to lock down tripods for effects such as these, as well as lights, etc.

Second, shoot the empty floor. Be sure that your lighting is good here. You might prefer aiming for sharp shadows, which are easier to work with in Photoshop.

Third, bring a wolf in (check the Wolf Store at your mall. Alternately, use a housecat) and get him to gallop through the frame in the same direction the guy will be facing. Shoot it all.

Fourth, shoot the guy coming over and crouching. Have him hold the pose for a second or two. Have him review the Wolf footage to get a good idea of where to crouch. Men take direction better than Wolves (or housecats).

Now, import your footage. You'll have three clips: Man.avi, Wolf.avi, and Empty.avi.

Place Man.avi on the timeline. Make the out-point the exact moment you want the morph to begin. Export that frame as a single image, say Frame01.bmp. Now place Wolf.avi on the timeline after Man.avi, with some space between, in this case, one-half of a second (15 frames -- I'm assuming you want a half-second morph at 29.97 fps). Make the in-point of Wolf.avi the exact frame you want it to be fully "Wolfed" (or housecatted). Export that frame as a different file: Frame15.bmp. Stick Empty.avi somewhere on your timeline. Export a frame from that one: Frame_Background.bmp.

Now you open those three frames in Photoshop.

Make one document with 16 layers, the bottom layer (Background, or Layer 01) is Frame_Background.bmp. Layer 01 is Frame01.bmp. Layer 15 is Frame15.bmp.

Now is the fun part.

For the next 15 layers, use all your various distortion tools and whatnot to draw the progressive shapes of the man/wolf. Leave the background of each frame transparent. In this case, you'll probably start by doing frame 07 and making it approximately a split between the two extremes -- image-wise. The smarter you do this, the better the final result will look, so pay attention to detail and be careful. You can get away a lot with using erasers set to airbrush, etc. If your Wolf or housecat is all one color, such as black, this'll make your job easier, too. There are different ways to do this, but basically, you're going to draw 15 critters. The first one will basically look like a guy. The last one will basically look like a wolf. This will be the hardest part of the job. This will be where you discover that a 1/2 second morph is so much easier than a 5-second morph.

So, now you have all 15 frames drawn. You obviously have already "exported" Frame01.bmp and Frame15.bmp, so you still have to export Frame02.bmp, Frame03.bmp, etc. Use the Background as the same background for each of the "morphed" outputs. Save all 15 files in a directory called "MorphFrames".

Now, open your Premiere project back up. See that 15-frame hole between Man.avi and Wolf.avi? You're gonna fill it up.

Set Project >> Preferences >> Still Image duration = 1 frame.

Import-a-Folder, specifically the "MorphFrames" folder. It'll show up in your clips bin as a little folder. Place that little folder right into that 15-frame hole. It should fit perfectly.

Now, before you forget, set Project >> Preferences >> Still Image duration back to whatever it was (probably 30).

There's only one thing you might want to do next. Chop the last frame from Man.avi and the first frame from Wolf.avi (you've essentially transferred those images to your morph block). Nudge everything back such that there are no gaps (gaps show up as black flicks)

Save the project!

Do a preview.

Enjoy!

Cheers,


Edward

Like Lovecraft? Know Photoshop? Got time for the Unspeakable?

http://www.petting-zoo.org/Movies_Dreamquest.html

 

[Akribie]

There are some morphing add-ins around for Premiere. WinMorph is one of them.

 

[Pixelchik]

Kool! didn't know about WinMorph. I'll download and give it a whirl. How well did it work for you?

 

[Akribie]

I've only had a brief play, so I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.