Hiya guys.. I don't know if this will be of particular interest to anyone, but I've been experimenting, trying to achieve a realistic motion blur in LFS. This is the result: http://www.ukct.net/dlfiles/rb4.wmv

I recorded the video in FRAPS at 0.25x @ 60fps, then imported straight into Sony Vegas. I set the playback speed in Vegas to 4x (to get the clip back up to 1x speed), and then exported to 30fps WMV. The net result is 8 frames of blur per single frame and it's as close as I think I can get to a natural motion from LFS. To me, it's pretty close to film. I added a bit of lighting effect, to maximize the illusion of celluloid.

Unfortunately, I can only get 60fps from FRAPS in single player. Multiplayer is too processor-intensive to get more than 25fps recording.

Anyway, if anyone's trying to achieve the film effect, this is my attempt and the steps taken to achieve it.

Oh.. and ignore the driving and the camera angles.. the mission was to get motion blur, not to create an LFS movie

I don't see a blur to be honest. Yes yes there is something there, however I figured this is normal from using such a low FOV and with how you compress/encode your video file. I do think it looks pretty nice though, and felt pretty real. The low fov just makes things look like this, because the objects are bigger and they move faster across the screen, so you will get a lot of blurring or ghosting between frames from bypassed objects.

If this is an experiment for STCC, tone down the dark edges a bit, it's a bit too dark and artistic . But if you are doing some cool video, make sure you get a nice blue sky (don's skies) in the shot. Because a dark haze on the top of the sky looks really hot! (Top Gear style).

I’ve done that effect accidentally messing with Vegas settings, but with my wide camera angles it didn’t look so cool.

It may not be exactly motion blur because everything even the “subject” of the frame is blurred but it looks nice and realistic

Quote from Tweaker :

I don't see a blur to be honest. Yes yes there is something there, however I figured this is normal from using such a low FOV and with how you compress/encode your video file. I do think it looks pretty nice though, and felt pretty real. The low fov just makes things look like this, because the objects are bigger and they move faster across the screen, so you will get a lot of blurring or ghosting between frames from bypassed objects.

If this is an experiment for STCC, tone down the dark edges a bit, it's a bit too dark and artistic . But if you are doing some cool video, make sure you get a nice blue sky (don's skies) in the shot. Because a dark haze on the top of the sky looks really hot! (Top Gear style).

It's not an STCC experiment (although maybe leading up to an STCC teaser, long-term ) it's purely an effort to find the best way to achieve a film-type motion blur - if it's even possible.

I've done another render, one half using the 8-frame technique, and the other half just using Vegas's blur. Vegas does add quite a nice blur without being asked, but I think the 2nd half of this clip is definitely a lot less "realistic", because the blur is only a 2-frame merge, rather than the 8 frames I've forced.

See if you can spot the differences between them. They're both separately shot.. I tried to match up roughly, but I only spent a few moments capturing the 2nd half. Don't forget, it's not about angles but about feel http://www.ukct.net/dlfiles/RB4-a.wmv

[edit] Version without the lighting effect.. bit clearer. http://www.ukct.net/dlfiles/RB4-b.wmv

the problem with this type of blur is that its actually ghosting instead of blurring

that said its the smoothest high motion 30 fps vid ive seen yet

Quote from Shotglass :

that said its the smoothest high motion 30 fps vid ive seen yet

Agreed, that is nice.

cool i like it

Now that's some pretty smooth and nice looking video.

Quote from Shotglass :

the problem with this type of blur is that its actually ghosting instead of blurring

You're right, that's precisely what it is . Since each frame in LFS is perfectly in focus, regardless of the framerate, the mission has been to use the ghosting effect (merging/overlaying of multiple frames) to emulate the blur you would see on film.

Good stuff- I like the 8 frame blending.

The blending makes a huge difference, everything is soo smooth. The 1x clip seems to skip after watching the .25x clip. Great work.

I love it. The only thing it would need is some color correction and it'd be dead on. Colors in LFS are way too crisp. They need to be washed down a bit, I use a very subtle correction, but it really looks better.

But this is definately the closest to real-life camera blur I've seen. It's awesome.

Samh, the "realistic blur effect" is more easy that you think (in Adobe After FX is called "Blending" and is more easy to use).

To do it, you must olny activate the blending switch in every layer that you want, in the layer's palette.

Then when you do the video render, After fx will insert a "mixed frame" between all the frames, and the result is an input with a 25 fps (the original capture) and a 25 fps output with blur

This option is more used by the 3d animation studios, because normally they don't record nothing with cameras because all is virtual.

You can see the result here. (maybe you're seen this video)
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=15206

Cheers

PD. sorry but with the Sony Vegas can't I help you because never I use it.

Yay! I finally managed to get a working download of your movie! That's an awesome movie, well done!

I don't have After Effects, so I can't use that method.. and After Effects is beyond my budget, so I can't plan to The way it works is clearly the same as the way I do it, but automated rather than "constructed".

The biggest difference between the two movies (yours and mine) shows me that the software can only achieve a result by blending existing frames. Because I've slowed down the recording to 1/4 speed and shot at 60fps, there are more frames available to blend/merge, thus I think the effect is a little smoother - there is less gap between the pixels that changed in each frame. I'm not sure if I'm making sense! LOL

How do you get it in 16:9 without borders? I've got Vegas but haven't worked it out

Hiya.. I figured it'd be easiest to make some pictures. See attached

Sam, you are indeed.... the man

makes perfect sense, gonna go try that yes sir.