After Effects Stabilizer
Ahmend Studioz
Unless you are a professional cameraman, recording something with perfect steadiness is a daunting challenge. Even so, professionals often rely on equipment such as a gimbal or Steadicam to stabilize motion and produce footage that isn't shaky.
Luckily, amongst the many other wonders that modern video editing programs make possible for us, fixing shaky footage is also on the list. This means that with the necessary know-how, you can turn an amateur recording into something that looks professionally made.
Sometimes, even in top-production films, we see deliberate camera shaking and handheld movements, so if they're not bothering with stabilization, why should an amateur creator pay so much attention to it?
For example, if you're recording a group of soldiers running through the heat of the battle, and you're following them with your camera, the whole scene would look a lot more immersive if there were natural hand movements or even deliberate shakes added. Stable, drone-like footage is simply not the best choice for such a scene.
In this example, an unstable and "shaky" recording would further contribute to the portrayal of how chaotic and tense war is. Camera shakes caused by running or explosions and gunfire create a natural "effect" here.
However, if you're recording something for a real estate agency, such as a tour of a house, for example, and even better, adding a segment that showcases the neighborhood where the house is located, using a camera stabilizer (or a stabilization effect in post if it was recorded handheld) is certainly a much better decision.
In this example, the viewer will be able to focus on important details, such as viewing the condition of specific elements within the house. Here, we wouldn't benefit from shakiness. Instead, smooth and controlled camera movement would symbolize harmony and professionalism.
With that said, sometimes you need stabilized footage that was supposed to be recorded that way, but it wasn't due to unavailable equipment, for example. In such cases, resorting to motion-stabilizing effects is what you need to do.
In this section, we'll show you how to use AE's features to make your recorded footage look more professional by stabilizing the motion, making it look as if it was recorded professionally or with the help of a Steadicam or gimble.
Once the analysis is complete, you can preview the stabilized footage by playing it back in the Composition panel. You can also use the RAM Preview feature. Make sure to check for any unwanted artifacts or warping.
Then, playback and see the result. If the tracking starts becoming a bit "off" throughout the video, hit the stop button and readjust the box. When satisfied with the results, click the "Apply" button and save the changes. Then, export your composition.
The Warp Stabilizer is getting stuck and won't continue working (although it displays the message "1 minute remaining"). I'm editing 4K video and am trying to use the Warp Stabilizer, which always worked perfectly before the latest version (18.4.0 (Build 41)). My frame rate is 29.97, which matches that in the original. I have 128GB of RAM, AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4GHz Sixteen Core, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 24GB working on Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. The system is new and this is the first project I've run on it; unfortunately, I've had more frustration than expected.
I've deleted the Warp Stabilizer from the comp, purged all memory, restarted AE, restarted the computer, and added the Warp Stabilizer back to the file (it happens on various files - although one did stabilize properly once). I'm looking for other ideas of how to get it to work, but mostly, I'd really like Adobe to fix this issue - when the user must do workarounds to get component of the program to work, it's a bug that needs fixing.
Some shots are not good candidates for Warp Stabilizing. Some will not work at all. It all depends on the shot. Sometimes the format (codec) of the footage has a lot to do with the failure or crashing. This is especially true with footage from consumer devices because they are almost always heavily compressed and many have variable frame rates.
I'm working on long footage (1600 frames) and I was having the same issue, but unchecking Fast Analysis box under Advanced Menu, seem to work (AE 22.0.1). I've also applied some Color Levels on the precomped footage to help the stabilizer.
Still happens to me on every other clip. Crazy thing is, you can work around it by simply clicking in the blank area of the Warp Stabilizer effect controls. Everytime you click it advances a few frames...it obviously related to the UI and nothing to do with the back end.
I also have had this issue, even after having run the stablizer on the clip and it completing. God forbid if I change some of the parameters, then it starts becoming less responsive, finally freezing up at some percent and saying "2 minutes remaining"
I have a timelapse that I've stabilized using manual stabilizing trackers. I render it with lossless settings, then try to put it back into AE and use Warp Stabilizer to do some final stabilizing, but it won't initialize. It'll be stuck at frame 1 of x at 0% if I'm lucky. Otherwise, it gets stuck at the "Initializing" stage. I've tried the obvious and reinstalled the software, disabled multi-frame rendering, cleared all caches, and reset preferences. It's not a corrupt project because I've tried repeating this with different projects and different footage. Same issue.
I have projects I need to finish and I've been desperately looking for a solution for over 2 months now, Adobe customer support hasn't been useful. Sincerely appreciate the help. attached are pictures for context of what I'm doing
Ok... so AE versions previous to 22.5 would begin analyzing footage just by applying Warp Stabilizer with default settings (in almost all cases). Versions after 22.5 require the "Detailed Analysis" button to be checked when applying a Warp Stabilizer effect to a precomposition that has some form of stabilization done within the precomp. Otherwise, if the Detailed Analysis button isn't checked, it won't stabilize. See attached image for Warp Stabilizer settings I use.
That probably doesn't make a lot of sense workflow wise. Easily possible that the stabilizer is unable to detect any actual motion patterns that fit it's algorithm and gets in a death spiral trying to do so. Otherwise I have no idea beyond what we already told you in your other posts, unfortunately. The only way to even check if this isn't your computer would be to tryn another system...
I was just troubleshooting this myself. Warp Stabilizer wouldn't get past Initializing. I quit After Effects and saw that MacOs had a dialog box open in the background and was waiting for me to approve "Screen Recording" for AE. Once I did that and restarted AE, Warp Stab starting working fine. So if that MacOs dialog hasn't popped up for you, you might check your MacOs System Settings/Privacy & Security/Screen Recording and see if your Adobe apps are authorized to record the screen... Hope that helps.
I'm making a time lapse video. Due to the specific circumstances, the camera is shaking a little when taking the time lapse photos, which is slightly noticeable in the video. In order to remove the shake, I'm using warp stabilizer effect in Adobe Premiere Pro, which works very well.
That creates a very weird, crazy looking scene, but aside its artistic value, I want warp stabilizer to focus on getting the background still, while letting the foreground object move because of the wind.
If warp stabilizer effect doesn't have this feature, how can I help the effect to get it right if I have to shoot the time lapse again? For instance, would it help to include a ruler in the photos as a reference of a stable object (the ruler then being cropped after applying warp stabilizer effect)?
What I do is masking out unwanted object. But you cannot do that on same clip, since Premiere will serve naked frame to the stabilizer tool. So what I do is put some effect on clip that masks moving parts. It can be title, power window, crop, or draw a mask in newer Premieres. Whatever suits you and track with a shot.
Then you make Nested sequence out of this clip and put stabilizer on that. It will be served with image that is masked out. Not track clip. When done, just go back to original clip inside Nested and tick masking effect off (disable png, or whatever). It will be clean image again and properly done. If You need to change something and re-process it, just enable the underlying effect again.
It is dirty and fiddly but that is how I did it well before Warp was added to premiere with other tools. I would like that would be implemented in the tool itself. Free tools on internet all have masking, but premiums do not bother to serve us better.
I'm a film director / editor and I'm really struggling with it in some aspects of my editing in Adobe Premiere Pro. The majority of my workflow is great, but just when it comes to rendering and also adding effects (mostly warp stabilizer) it takes a considerable amount of time.
For example I've just nested & then rendered a 15-second shot, 4k shot, and the analysising & stablising took 2 minutes 8 seconds! The mystifying thing being that every other aspect of the performance is lightning quick, scrolling through 4k footage, whizzing through RAW photos on Lightroom, it's just this one, considerable, sticking point.
I have the same issue. MacBook Pro M2, 64 GB. Everything is so much quicker than my PC other than warp stabilizer. It seems like this process is 10x longer than my PC was. For a 10 second clip it can be a half hour.
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