Software to "vectorize" videos

[eXhale]

Does anyone know a good software which could convert video samples to vectorized Flash animations without too much hassles? What I need is NOT a serie of bitmaps like the software Vid2Flash (www.javakitty.com/vid2flash) does. Rather, I need the images to be vectorized first. I remember of an Adobe software which can vectorize images (anyone know the name?) but I'd rather use a software which can process videos directly.

Cheers :)

[hyperdimensional]

Adobe Streamline (http://www.adobe.com/products/streamline/main.html) vectorises images. But from my understanding of it, it is only good for black & white images and sketches. Although I maybe wrong.

Have you tried flix (http://www.wildform.com) to convert videos to flash? Not sure whether this uses bitmaps or not.:confused:

ben

oh yeah, and flash has its own trace bitmap function................

[eXhale]

Thanks Ben :) Actually petewarden just told me about Flix Pro on the chatroom and from this page (http://www.wildform.com/flix/flix_pro.php) they say it's the "only software that saves animators countless hours by automatically turning any video into an animation". And it supports "full color, grayscale, two color and outline output options". Exactly what I was looking for :) Gotta love the fast answers on this forum... I'll give the demo a try and get back with the results.

PS: Adobe Streamline is the one I was thinking about. I tried it a while ago and I remember that it did support full-color images although there are some images which will obviously never look good vectorized.

PPS: The outline output option could be interesting too.

[eXhale]

The first tests have been excellent, this software takes a lot of time to get used to but it can produce really interesting results and I particularly like the two-color option. The batch option looks promising too. Expect a review at VJCentral very soon :)

If you try it, don't forget to select "Vector" on the export options of the File tab, it took me a while to figure out why the output wasn't vectorized :D

By the way, it's available for both Mac and PC.

[eXhale]

Here's one simple example of what can be done with this soft:

http://www.videkaos.com/files/dance.head.man.021.swf

[vjpixylight]

Interesting...
I have been vectorizing vids of the euro tour I took since getting back, with Flash MX and Flash 5, (a bit of a routine), and really see the potential in doing this form of media..(add to that the ability too attach sound files)

The only thing about doing this all in flash, is that the better the resolution, the more time it takes...I have actually gotten 30 FPS video quality, vectorizing animations, but it really takes a while to render...how does Flix pro do in this regard???

Also, maybe you could set up a trading page for Vectorized video that we make, and we could share flash files that we make.:)

Flash files are so easy to send across the wire...

[vjpixylight]

well after giving flix pro a try, I have to say I am not all that impressed...
although it was nice and fast in rendering, the vector quality was disappointing..(had it set at all the best qualities)..
I didn't try the 2 color mode as Exhale had done, but the full color mode didn't seem to vectorize the video that well.
I started with an avi that was 800x600, making it a 320x240 .swf vectored file, and noticed that when zoomed up, it had the jaggy's..(even tho I selected all the optimizing functions)

The other big problem with the outputed flash files, was their size..They were as big as the original avi file...:(

I have to think that this is because Flix doesn't use a compression scheme to make the starting video smaller.

I guess I will just have to keep doing the long and drawn out process of using flash MX with Flash 5 to make the nice rez, low file size flash movies that I want...

That said, Flix does do what it proports, and does it fast...

[petewarden]

Any chance of posting some example swfs pixy?

thanks,
Pete

[eXhale]

Originally posted by vjpixylight
Interesting...
I have been vectorizing vids of the euro tour I took since getting back, with Flash MX and Flash 5, (a bit of a routine), and really see the potential in doing this form of media..(add to that the ability too attach sound files)Ohhhh a Flash only show :) Do any of these Flash-based VJ software supports sound?


The only thing about doing this all in flash, is that the better the resolution, the more time it takes...I have actually gotten 30 FPS video quality, vectorizing animations, but it really takes a while to render...how does Flix pro do in this regard???On my 866Mhz computer rendering 180 frames (12 seconds at 15FPS) takes 2:30 so it's pretty long and I doubt that making the conversion live on a VJ software will be possible soon :( (petewarden is working on it though, good luck pete!) But there is a batch option with Wildform Flix which makes things easier, you can put all the files on the list and go do something else... Here's the result for that 180-frame video:

http://www.videkaos.com/files/texture.fluid.011.swf


Also, maybe you could set up a trading page for Vectorized video that we make, and we could share flash files that we make.:)

Flash files are so easy to send across the wire... Yup, this is the file exchange section I'm planning, where people will be able to share small files such as Flash animations, VisualJockey compositions, winamp presets, PD shemes, etc, etc. :)

On the other hand, I think that Flash-only visuals would be a bit boring, mixing them through Resolume with more-or-less abstract videos makes everything a lot more interesting to watch IMO.

[eXhale]

Originally posted by vjpixylight
although it was nice and fast in rendering, the vector quality was disappointing..(had it set at all the best qualities)..
I didn't try the 2 color mode as Exhale had done, but the full color mode didn't seem to vectorize the video that well.Hmm did you try to change the settings at the bottom of the Vector tab? I haven't understood them all but some of them make quite a difference depending on the value you set. And if you disable them all it's a lot more ugly. Using a relatively low value for all of them (10?) works well.

BTW the two-color option doesn't work at all if the whole image is pretty much the same color. You need strong contrasts.

[vjpixylight]

Hmm did you try to change the settings at the bottom of the Vector tab? I haven't understood them all but some of them make quite a difference depending on the value you set. And if you disable them all it's a lot more ugly. Using a relatively low value for all of them (10?) works well.

Yea X,
I used a value of 1 on all of them..(maybe the wrong thing to do)

Ohhhh a Flash only show Do any of these Flash-based VJ software supports sound?

Yes, Motion Dive 3...

On my 866Mhz computer rendering 180 frames (12 seconds at 15FPS) takes 2:30 so it's pretty long and I doubt that making the conversion live on a VJ software will be possible soon

I was doing this on a G4 DP 450 MGHz, and if I wanted the best quality, that is making the vectored flash look like real video, well it takes a loooong time..I have been going for a medium vectoring size cell, and get some ok results...I have done the vid to flash conversion using the sorrensen compression in MX (spark) @ 30 frames per second and @ 320x240 frame size...from there I open them in Flash 5.0, vectorize them one frame at a time, (I know, alot of grunt), and then I can zoom them with no jagges at all as big as my computer can handle...(at this point the biggest is @ 1600x1200)

Pete, I will post some of the vectorized video I have done soon..(need to figure out a way of getting them off the G4, as it doesn't have a cd burner, or even a floppy disk)

[LEVLHED]

wow, those examples look pretty cool...I've been seeing more and more "video to flash" kind of stuff in TV commercials and the like...I was wondering how one might go about doing such a thing..question though, did you guys buy the program outright? I'd kind of like to try it but don't see a demo available...and I just don't have $150 do buy it (post-AVIT syndrome:( )

[eXhale]

Originally posted by vjpixylight
Yea X,
I used a value of 1 on all of them..(maybe the wrong thing to do) 1 is too small I think, too much details so that's why the file was so huge for you and why it's so slow. There are some interesting parameters to use to reduce the size and improve the quality, for example the "Remove Stragglers" option deletes all small dots if the value is high enough.

Here's an example where most parameters have been set to 20, I should edit the sky because it looks messy (large shades of colors always tend to look like this unfortunately):

http://www.videkaos.com/files/fast.surfer.follow.05.swf

Anyway, it's not super easy to find the right parameters... I'm looking forward to see what your "manual" vectorization looks like pixy, but I'm not sure I'd have the patience to do the same myself. Maybe I'll stick with easy-to-vectorize contrasted videos until some better tools comes out :o

[vjpixylight]

yea man,
I have to agree with Lev..it does look pretty damn good...What kinda file size is the surfer.swf, Ex?

It might be worthwhile to use Flash MX to compress the video in Spark, and make it a .swf file, then use Flix to vectorize the .swf file, which would be much faster to do than manuel processes...
(not to mention that Flash MX has no batch functions to do thiswith multiple files).

Ex, have you been able to get a more video like look to those files by playing around with the adjustments? The surfer looks like it's maybe 16 color, and has a 'trace bitmap' of around 56-112 range...
Can you get it to look a little more like video without to much render time?

Oh Lev almost forgot your question..There is a demo version at the sight...you should give her a try:)

[LEVLHED]

doh! yeah I found the demo then...
this is cool shit I think...I've had a chance to mess with it now and realize that (as eX said) that some video converts better than others...

but, now that I've tried it and want to use it more (or possibly exclusively), I'm wondering what options are out there for mixing Flash? I know resolume and MD3 have it, but what about flash-only mixer apps? Aren't there a few free ones?

Also, I'm wondering how much CPU/RAM does mixing flash require? That is, just how cheap/obsolete of a lappy could a guy use if he were so inclined?

[stevefromNewcastle]

I love vector video, and it makes the most insane overlays, I have been useing it a lot and is slowly getting adopted into my style of doing things

[many2]

visualJockey isn't free but it's also allowing flash playback with the booster pack 01. The SWF files must be without interaction : just a timeline with a sequence of frames. It also plays any sound included in the SWF. There are dynamic controllers for bypass, sound volume, time modulation and reset movie. You can then set any of these parameter to one or many channels of your choice among beat/sound detection, keyboard, mouse, MIDI, etc. Mixing between multiple swf files can be achieved by placing a multilayer node under the two SWF loader nodes and specifying an apply mode (add, multiply, blend, mask, lighten, etc.) If all you want is to play back SWF files without any further effects, vJo must not be the best solution, but if you want to take this to a second level and add some real-time processing and effects of your own on your flash sources then vJo is the best tool you can have since the flash loader is integrated in a much larger set of powerful graphic tools. Give it a try.

Many-2

[LEVLHED]

thanks, glad to know vJo does flash too

anyone with knowledge/experience as to the relative CPU/RAM demands of mixing w/ vectorized video?

[elbows]

Flash can actually use a lot of CPU sometimes, ceratinly when PC's were only like 233, 300Mhz etc I remember there was difference between different PC's and how fast they played the files, which was bad lol. But I guess the flash code is better now. I'll do a test sometime when I can, but I imagine it will vary quite a lot more depending on how complicated the clip is.

[eXhale]

Originally posted by LEVLHED
anyone with knowledge/experience as to the relative CPU/RAM demands of mixing w/ vectorized video? it really depends on how complicated the animation is but most of the time flash will take more CPU than a video since the software has to "build" the images in real time, as opposed to just feeding data. however if it's too slow there is always the possibility of converting back to a video (you just have to limit yourself on the resolution).

edit: oops just saw elbows' post

[hamageddon]

Originally posted by LEVLHED
anyone with knowledge/experience as to the relative CPU/RAM demands of mixing w/ vectorized video?

extensive use of the "duplicatemovie clip" function and running several instances of a complex clip (alpha channel operations, scalings etc) in a flashfile at the same time are real performance killers here.
have a look at the explode fx on the wildform SwfFx thing http://www.wildform.com/demos/
and u see what i mean.

i think the most common flashmixer apps are the one from vlight and frameframers flashmixer, both free i guess and revju:ed on vjc.

arkaos vj support flash files too, but
i wouldn't consider using it just for that purpose, the implementation seems lame to me, like a bitmap conversion.....

[wondergirl]

hey,

The other big problem with the outputed flash files, was their size..They were as big as the original avi file...

there is a program "optimaze" which can optimize the vwctor content of flash files for smaller size. maybe u give it a try?

w.g.

[eXhale]

Wildform Flix 3.1 has just been released, although I don't think there is improvements for the vectorization. :( BTW check this nice website with vectorized video that I found on the Wildform newsletter:

http://triplandesign.com

[elbows]

Woohoo Pete added a Vectorize effect to his free visualJockey plugins and its great :) Use realtime variables to increase the number of colours and whoa I was very happy :) It does eat framerate but its still very nice and lower framerate doesnt look too bad with vectorized stuff. Ive just been playing with it and a llive camera feed and Im very happy indeed :)

[burstingfist]

Originally posted by elbows
Woohoo Pete added a Vectorize effect to his free visualJockey plugins and its great :) ...

Dang, Pete is off the hook! I just purchase Flix Pro, but I am sure I can use both of these technologies in conjunction...

[many2]

Pete's vectorize plugin is still in development so if any of you has seen an interesting vectorizing feature from one of the apps available on the market and want to see them in vJo, just send Pete some feedback about wanted new features or improvements : you might just see them implemented for free, and in a real-time environment.

This is not to say the plugin isn't interesting by itself right now - try it now !

Many-2

[petewarden]

Yep, like Many2 says, Vectorize is just a week old and very much still in development. Let me know how you get on with it, and of course any bug reports. The email address is petesplugins@petewarden.com

I'm especially interested in features from other apps you find useful.

thanks,
Pete

[Meierhans]

Hiho :p

Would be cool to see a flash output option somewhere :rolleyes: