AutoOverlay (PKA AutoAlign) discussion

[deleted user]

@Colek

Just watch out with the color matching for scenes that have blown out highlights, especially when matching the blown out version to the non-blown-out. Can produce ugly artifacts.

[Stamper]

Wow looks cool. I noticed the 4K & 2K remasters of T2 have different framings, so it could help to overlay any extra info on the borders to get the most image, preserving 4K as the main.

[spoRv]

Is there a way to let the image "touches" the borders? I mean, using three sources, to touch top/bottom with 1.33:1 image, or left/right with 2.35:1 BD when 1.33:1 is "included" into the 1.78:1

If not, it could be made a script that says something like "the three spots near top and bottom borders are black, hence the image should be resized to touch the left/right borders" - got the point?

[random.next]

Is there a way to let the image "touches" the borders? I mean, using three sources, to touch top/bottom with 1.33:1 image, or left/right with 2.35:1 BD when 1.33:1 is "included" into the 1.78:1

If not, it could be made a script that says something like "the three spots near top and bottom borders are black, hence the image should be resized to touch the left/right borders" - got the point?

Try mode=2 in the last OverlayRender. but keep in mind it fills empty angles like in mode=4. In the future it will be configurable.
As for matrix. First combine BD and OM to 16:9 with mode=3. Then overlay it on 4:3 in mode=2.

[spoRv]

I'm really impressed of this plugin, I love it... thanks again, random.next!

But, as usual, I'm always a pain in the... neck, so here I throw few ideas for eventual addition to this fantastic plugin...

• custom background color - I know that it's possible to obtain it using a different mode, but it would imply using more than one instance, and it will increase computational time... this could be useful for many things, from mask for inpainting (and not only), or to let more evident borders in very dark shots; black borders are difficult to spot when the image is black, too...
  
• vertical centering - if, for example, I overlay BD (2.40:1) to HDTV (1.78:1), the HDTV is centered, and the BD is "floating" up and down... it would be great to have the BD centered, and the HDTV floats, so a YAO hack could be used to mask everything but the BD; yes, I know it will be even more noticeable to let the open matte floats instead of few portions of the letterbox...
  
• touching the borders - using three sources, it would be great to have the images with the greatest width to touch left and right borders, while having the ones with greatest height to touch top and bottom borders
  

[williarob]

Hello, I'm hoping somebody can help me figure out how to use this plugin. I'm quite competent with AVISynth scripting (and scripting in general since I am a programmer), but this plugin has a lot of moving parts and I'm attempting to use it to do something slightly different...

Here's the situation. I have a scan of a 35mm print and in the middle of a scene there are about 20 missing frames. I did my best to align the bluray of the film and spliced in the frames from the bluray, but there is an obvious change in quality between the two sources. So then I thought I'd use frames from a different scan of a different 35mm print hoping that the transition would be less noticeable. With me so far? Ok, now I was about to start manually aligning the frames, when I stumbled upon this thread. I downloaded the plugin and I used the sample script to load my sources and open the Overlay Editor, but now I'm not really sure how to proceed.

What I want to do is take my new source, align every frame and then render that out. My hope is then that I can overlay that on top of the original, and just have it fade in gently and fade out gently to cover the gap.

To help you out here are the files in question (I'm loading prores versions of these using QTInput() but that's a much bigger download!):

https://we.tl/KQ8bxebsSZ

Alt-Tech.mkv is another Technicolor Scan and this is the footage I want to overlay on top of:
Current.mkv which is what we currently have in beta 4 - mostly the main Technicolor scan, but with 20 frames or so near the end, (around "Situation Normal") that have been swapped out with blu-ray footage.
BD.mkv is the Bluray, color matched to Beta4, and upscaled to UHD, but I haven't added any grain or anything to try to match it more closely.
LPP.mkv is, as the name suggests, the Spanish LPP. This has been color matched to Beta4, sharpened, and upscaled to UHD, but I didn't do any digital cleanup of dirt and dust yet.

Here is my script so far:

Code:

OM=QTInput("Alt-Tech.mov").ConvertToYV12() # YV12 clip
WS=QTInput("current.mov").ConvertToYV12() # YV12 clip
config=OverlayConfig(subpixel=2, minOverlayArea=95) #+ OverlayConfig(angle1=-0.5, angle2=0.5) # rotate only if needed
OverlayEngine(OM.ConvertToY8(), WS.ConvertToY8(), configs=config, backwardFrames=0, statfile="G:\temp\R4-Boring-Conversation\stats.txt") # ConvertToY8() for better perfomance
return last # uncomment for analysis pass
OverlayRender(OM.ConvertToYV24(), WS.ConvertToYV24(), debug=true, noise=50, upsize="Spline64Resize")
ConvertToYV12() # from YV24
# Prefetch(4) uncomment after analysis pass

Can anyone help me with what to do next?

[spoRv]

But... can't you simply use the other print for the whole shot with the missing frames?

[williarob]

But... can't you simply use the other print for the whole shot with the missing frames?

Yes I think that's what I'm going to have to do. I wrote a script to align all the frames in Photoshop using the Auto Align Layers feature, and that worked pretty well, but the slight differences in color and luminance still give away the transition, so it's probably best to just replace the whole shot.

However, I would still like to learn how to use this plugin - because sometimes I have a print with an alpha channel (dirt map) and being able to overlay that on top of another source (e.g. bluray) allows the dirt to be filled in from the layer below - but it only works if the two sources are aligned (and color matched).

[spoRv]

I can give you my impressions of using this great script, but of course the author would surely help you more.

Think this: during my last AAP-AR test, I've noted that cutting one source by few pixels top and bottom (even only one or two) would lead to perfect alignment, while before it one or few frames were misaligned. Or, leaving the lower resolution "as is" would result in misalignment (sometimes) while upscaling it at the "right" dimension (read: find manually the upscale settings where one frame of the low res image is spatially aligned with the hi res) would solve this. Beware, I'm talking about digital sources, that luckily align really well - The Matrix BD/WEB/SDTV, while DVD/HDTV have different angles.

I think it would be almost impossible to align perfectly 35mm scans, due to different angles and geometry primarily; of course different colors and/or contrast don't help either. I'm aware the script could deal with angle rotations, but I'm pretty sure it can't deal with different geometry - where, for example, the center part of the image is wider/narrower than the borders, and it happens sometimes.

[CSchmidlapp]

Code:

OM=AVISource("BD.avi")
WS=AVISource("DVD.avi")
config=OverlayConfig(subpixel=2)
OverlayEngine(OM.ConvertToY8(), WS.ConvertToY8(), configs=config,editor=false)
OverlayRender(OM.ConvertToYV24(), WS.ConvertToYV24(), debug=false, noise=10,\
upsize="Spline64Resize", mode=3, gradient=10,coloradjust=1,width=1920,height=1080,opacity=0.5)
ConvertToYV12()

So I installed the plugin as directed.
Tried this script, and it has no idea what OverlayConfig is?

To be fair I'm fairly lost as to what I'm looking at lmao
I just want a script that I can align and overlay a bluray over a open matte dvd.
If anybody can help it would be appreciated