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I have render settings set to their highest for a ProRes 4444 export - yet i am getting noticeable gradient banding. The following threee images are the frame in Motion (perfect) - the frame when exported (banding) and then export settings used. This is Motion 5 on LION on an i7 iMac freshly installed bougth yesterday from the store. Any ideas?
Some additional information:
• I have found the same result if i export a still TIFF.
• I have also found that if I change the render settings in the canvas to "Normal" the banding will occur in the canvas exactly as it does in the output.
• If I keep the canvas render settings to Best and press play the banding will appear until I press stop. If I render the area the banding goes away.
It seems I just can't get Motion 5 to output at best render settings.
I really need some help now - this is due out to client today and he is complaining about the banding - with good reason!
Try adding a slight amount of grain or noise to the gradation.
Then render and see if that removes the banding.
MtD
Thanks for the reply I appreciate it...but adding noise sounds like a bit of a "bandaid" solution.
Shouldn't I be able to export at the same high quality that Motion 5 is showing me in the Canvas?
ProRes HQ, being 10 Bit, should be able to deal with gradients like this...or am I mistaken?
First of all the easy fix is to add the Reduce Banding filter.
It seems most likely that your render settings are not set for Floating Point. (doesn't show in the settings tab you posted).
If you're rendering in 8 bit, you will see banding.
That sounds like the answer I was looking for 🙂
How do make sure I am rendering in floating point?
I'm sorry - my bad - supposedly Mo5 is all FP. That setting has been removed. But it looks just like Mo4 when you had 8 bit render selected instead of FP.
Try the Reduce Banding filter (I think it's under Video - I don't have Motion open ATM).
Darn - I really thought you nailed it there. Yes - I thought it looked like an 8 Bit setting too and that I just couldn't find a float setting.
So - given that it is on float setting should I not expect to be able to render at the quality i am seeing in the canvas?
Surely if the result I want can be seen inthe canvas the result I want can be exported to a file given the correct settings...
(also, there is no Reduce Banding Filter is Motion 5 as far as I can see)
Wow, I'm really striking out here - I'd heard of the other filters they'd left out - EdgeWork, Vectorize, etc... but I didn't know they'd left out Reduce Banding - it's in Mo4 under color correction. And you're right - not in Mo5 at all.
Geez, sorry.
Patrick
No worries Patrick. I think looking to reduce banding is beside the point anyway. What I am trying to figure out is which setting i should use to avoid the banding in the first place.
Am i wrong when I say "if it shows without banding in the canvas set to Best Setting, there must be a way to to output it to a file without banding"?
Is there a flaw in that logic?
One would think.
Banding occurs whenever there is a shallow monochromatic gradient that the bit depth can't handle - i.e. there aren't enough "steps" to express all the levels between two similar colors.
This happens all the time in 8 bit, but should never occur in Floating Point - which Mo5 is supposed to be (in all processing). Which is why they left out the Reduce Banding filter, I guess.
Except that it doesn't seem to be working that way.
If you export it without the alpha channel - how does that work?
And if you have Motion 4, have you tried that?
OK. I think I am getting more clues.
The gradient with the subtle tonality is actualy a 1920x1080 image that comes with an FCPX template.
It also happens to be a PNG file.
If I open it in Preview I see banding.
If I drag it into a new Motion 5 project I also see the banding. Until I press play and then stop again ..and then the banding goes away!
So i opened the PNG in photoshop. It sas It's 16 Bit. I see banding. I change the mode to 32 and I still see banding.
Then I change it back to 16 but I get a warning:
"Reducing the document depth can affect the appearance of layered HDR images. Merge layers before changing depth?"
I select Don't Merge. Now the document is 16 bit again...and banding. Then I change the mode to 8 bit. *no* banding! Change to 32 bit - no banding. And now no more banding no mater what combination.
I know it makes no sense, but it's true.
You can try it yourself - the file is called "BKG Gradient.png" and comes with FCPX / Motion 5
I think there's a whole lot more going on here than I had originally thought...
Love to hear thoughts on this.
I wish I had an answer, but I don't even have speculation.
Good fix, though - thanks for sharing...
Patrick
I am having the same issue and am very curious to know if you ever found a solution to get rid of banding in Motion 5.
I am desperate!!
Cheers,
Mike
I spoke with a Motion engineer and he said they left out the banding filter because it just added a little noise. Which you can do with the noise filter.
Patrick
Thanks for the response Patrick.
Adding noise doesn't seem to solve the problem for me.
Seems strange that there is no way of exporting a gradient without banding in Motion or FCP
Cheers,
Mike
Motion 5 ProRes4444 export shows gradient banding (Pics)
