ImageBorders & FrostyBorders Scripts

[thebib62]

Thank you for fixing that issue with Fcropresize! I was going crazy trying to figure out why my previous settings were not being applied correctly.

The banding that's present in that screenshot is exactly how it shows up in my video player. The JPEG that I shared does not appear any worse than it does in my video player. I do notice the banding issue regardless if the video is full-screen or not.

I've noticed that the banding issue that I brought up seems to only happen when there is a texture value applied. If the texture value is set to zero, then I don't notice the severe banding that was illustrated in the screenshot above. I'm using the latest version of AddGrainC (v1.8.3) https://github.com/pinterf/AddGrainC/releases

I still have the test versions of crop resize that you've uploaded if you need them.

CropResize(640,480,frosty=true)
H = height( last)
FCropResize(Clone=2, Feather=30, Blur=H/20.0, VBlur=H/20.0, Texture=0)
CropResize(960,540,frosty=true)



CropResize(640,480,frosty=true)
H = height( last)
FCropResize(Clone=2, Feather=30, Blur=H/20.0, VBlur=H/20.0, Texture=5)
CropResize(960,540,frosty=true)

[hello_hello]

thebib62,
I'm not sure why AddGrainC should cause banding. I'm still using version 1.8.2 so I'll download the current version to see if it's any different.
In the meantime I've just uploaded new versions of CropResize and FrostyBorders, both dated 2021-10-22 (another bug fix).

Edit: I tried AddGrainC 1.8.3 and I still can't reproduce your problem. In fact there's banding in the picture here that's not as easy to see in the borders. You might need to upload a sample video.
You could also try neo_f3kdb. https://github.com/HomeOfAviSynthPlusEvolution/neo_f3kdb
It'll add the texture instead of AddGrainC when GPlugin=2. It does debanding but I think I disabled that and just used it to add grain. If I did, maybe I should change that.

CropResize(640,480)
H = height( last)
FCropResize(Clone=2, Feather=30, Blur=H/20.0, VBlur=H/20.0, Texture=5)
CropResize(960,540, frosty=true)


[Attachment 61394 - Click to enlarge]

By the way, did you check out the negative values for Blur, VBlur and Texture(C) in the help file. They're designed to do something similar to Blur=H/20.0.

And not that it's likely to be a problem, if the source is 4:3, but you've enabled frosty borders for the first CropResize too (in your example above).

CropResize(640,480,frosty=true)

Another Edit:
Give this version a spin with GPlugin=2 and compare it to the current CropResize, also with GPlugin=2. For this version I've enabled f3kdb's debanding and dithering (default settings). Texture and TextureC should work as before.

FCropResize(Clone=2, Feather=30, Blur=H/20.0, VBlur=H/20.0, Texture=5, GPlugin=2)

CropResize Test.avsi

PS. With all that blurring and texture your clone borders are looking a lot like frosty borders now.

[hello_hello]

Fixed an error message when Clone=3 and the ResampleMT plugin wasn't loaded.
Made Clone=3 play nice with YV411.

There's a link for FrostyBorders 2021-10-22 in the opening post.

[thebib62]

I went ahead and tried the new versions of Fcropresize and frostyboarders and the test version of cropresize. all of which still produced the banding issue. I even switched video players. I've been using potplayer this whole time, and I tried media player classic, same result. I even downloaded the Neo_F3 KDB plug-in you linked to and it made no difference.

I've noticed this issue with multiple video files, I'm assuming it would apply to any video file. I will share the video file with you.

[hello_hello]

If your video card and/or PotPlayer is doing any picture enhancing, you may have to ask them to stop. If you compare the screenshots below to the ones you uploaded there's an obvious difference. Why it's only happening when you add texture I'm not sure, but I suspect the banding probably happens (more) with video that has out of range levels. These are all PNGs so you can see exactly what I'm seeing.

This is a screenshot taken with MPC-HC, so it should be the video untouched from the script output (with Histogram), aside from a conversion from TV to full range levels for the screenshot (image formats are full range, so the player should save a screenshot that way). It matches what I'm seeing when I view the video so I'm confident what I'm seeing is correct. The only thing that's happening to the video I see is a conversion to full range RGB by ffdshow before it's sent to the monitor (my monitor is set to expect a full range input). As you can see there are out of range levels. Anything in the brown areas is outside TV range. Normally that shouldn't be an issue. When the video is converted to full range, anything outside of the TV range would be clipped to black or white.


[Attachment 61401 - Click to enlarge]

MPC-HC and the ffdshow script.
Source
H = height( last)
FCropResize(Clone=2, Feather=30, Blur=H/20.0, VBlur=H/20.0, Texture=5)


[Attachment 61402 - Click to enlarge]

MPC-HC via a script (no ffdshow)


[Attachment 61403 - Click to enlarge]

MPC-HC via a script (no ffdshow or texture)


[Attachment 61404 - Click to enlarge]

PotPlayer via a script (no ffdshow)


[Attachment 61405 - Click to enlarge]

I don't think it's a TV vs full range levels issue as such, because without the full range conversion the video looks more "washed out", but your screenshot doesn't look like that. I suspect there's some sort of picture enhancing happening.


[Attachment 61406 - Click to enlarge]

[thebib62]

Interesting, thank you for looking into the issue for me. I will try to do some more bug testing on my end to see if I could figure out the exact cause of the banding after adding the texture value. It's strange that it works perfectly on your end. The only other difference I can think of is perhaps you're using the 64-bit version of FFD show? I'm running the 32-bit versions of every plug-in and media player to get frostyboarders up and running.

I will definitely look into the video settings of each player to see if it's changing are enhancing the image at all. I'm assuming everything was at default settings while running pot player for those example screenshots that you posted?

EDIT:
Eureka! Wasn't expecting to find the solution so quickly after making my previous post. I went into Intel graphics settings and found an option that's labeled "noise reduction"... And lo and behold after disabling it I am no longer experiencing the banding issues.

[hello_hello]

PS. I keep meaning to mention....

I think you said something about an A/V de-sync when adding FrostyBorders at times. Do you have the checkbox in the ffdshow Avisynth filter labelled "Buffer back/ahead" checked? Doing so seems to fix any slight A/V de-sync for me.

[hello_hello]

Interesting, thank you for looking into the issue for me. I will try to do some more bug testing on my end to see if I could figure out the exact cause of the banding after adding the texture value. It's strange that it works perfectly on your end. The only other difference I can think of is perhaps you're using the 64-bit version of FFD show? I'm running the 32-bit versions of every plug-in and media player to get frostyboarders up and running.

Nah... I'm still running XP and a 12yo video card.

I will definitely look into the video settings of each player to see if it's changing are enhancing the image at all. I'm assuming everything was at default settings while running pot player for those example screenshots that you posted?

I think so but I rarely use it.

EDIT:
Eureka! Wasn't expecting to find the solution so quickly after making my previous post. I went into Intel graphics settings and found an option that's labeled "noise reduction"... And lo and behold after disabling it I am no longer experiencing the banding issues.

Awesome! I didn't think it'd be that easy either. Kind of ironic though. You add noise and the video card causes banding trying to remove it.

[thebib62]

I have a couple of microsized computers that are used strictly for local video playback. The computers are low-cost, cheap and subsequently have low performance. I've been using a stripped down version of Windows 10 on these devices to squeeze better performance from them. Unfortunately for me, these special versions of Windows 10 do not include window store. I need to have access to the Windows store in order to download the Intel graphics control panel's, so I can disable the noise reduction option that's been causing me these banding issues. So, after realizing I would not be able to reinstall the window store without formatting my computer, I did just that. I completely reinstalled Windows, upgrading it to Windows 11 just so I could use frostyboarder without any problems. I just thought you would like to know that.

I think you said something about an A/V de-sync when adding FrostyBorders at times. Do you have the checkbox in the ffdshow Avisynth filter labelled "Buffer back/ahead" checked? Doing so seems to fix any slight A/V de-sync for me.

This option was disabled by default. After following your advice it seems to no longer be an issue, so thank you very much for that solution! Are both boxes set to 10 ?

By the way, did you check out the negative values for Blur, VBlur and Texture(C) in the help file. They're designed to do something similar to Blur=H/20.0.

I have not. But I will, and take the time to play around with it. Thanks for the heads up.

Nah... I'm still running XP and a 12yo video card.

That's commendable. I loved XP and in my opinion, it was the best operating system Microsoft ever made. I would still continue to use it if the majority of my software wasn't incompatible with it.

[hello_hello]

I just thought you would like to know that.

That was certainly enthusiastic of you.

This option was disabled by default. After following your advice it seems to no longer be an issue, so thank you very much for that solution! Are both boxes set to 10 ?

10 is the default for both. I don't think I've ever needed to change them, but if you hover the cursor over each there should be a tooltip explaining what each one is buffering.

That's commendable. I loved XP and in my opinion, it was the best operating system Microsoft ever made. I would still continue to use it if the majority of my software wasn't incompatible with it.

Yeah it's getting harder to keep using it. I have an old laptop running Win7 and I've tweaked it so it's tolerable, but I still prefer XP, and I'm not a fan of using a laptop compared to a desktop (my other half sits on the sofa for hours with the laptop on her lap, but I can't do it).
I have a spare copy of Win7 so I can upgrade XP to that if need be, but I'm still contemplating going straight to Linux. I played around with Linux Mint a while back and quite liked it. It's XP-like and fairly user friendly. I've been procrastinating going either way though, until I build a new PC, which I've been planning to do for years now, but something always seems to come up just as I've got enough spare cash, so I'm still plodding along with XP.

Edit I just noticed a mistake in the Blur description in the CropResize help file for frosty borders and negative values. If you read the whole section you'll follow what it means.

"Height and width above refer to the height and width of the picture used to create the borders, which may be
the source before it's resized when upscaling, or after it's resized when downscaling."

That doesn't apply when CropResize is adding frosty borders as it always crops and resizes before the borders are added.
The stand-alone FrostyBorders function has the luxury of not being expected to crop (aside from maybe cropping a pixel here or there to prevent aspect error), so it can take pixels from either the source video or the resized version for borders.
I'll delete that part from the CropResize help file for the next version, which is in the works already. I'm adding FMTConv as a resizing and color conversion option and new chroma placement arguments so it'll be able to resize formats with sub-sampled chroma without the slight chroma shift Avisynth's resizers introduce. And maybe some other stuff...

[thebib62]

Windows XP seems to never want to die. I still see it out in the wild here and there. It seems to be more commonplace that old Windows users migrate over to Linux because they are unhappy with the direction Windows has been going in, past the release of Windows XP. I'm not sure if the development of Frostyboarders would be affected if you were to migrate over to the Linux.

Exciting to hear that you are working on a new version of crop resize already. There's certainly a lot for me to play around with and learn the values of. I been having a blast watching my shows with FrostyBorders enabled. I wouldn't have it any other way.

[thebib62]

I was looking through the original thread that you had linked to in your readme file crediting riffraff.
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/385341-avisynth-how-to-add-borders

I noticed a post that caught my attention. I was wondering if you had played with the idea of that particular feature in frosty borders? I don't know how well the effect would work in Frostyboarders. I think the idea of having a gradient value start from zero and go to 100% would be an interesting implementation. I would have the blur and texture values start off at zero and slowly make their way to 100%.

I don't know how time-consuming it would be to implement this feature or if it's even worth implementing in the first place. Would you happen to know any way to experience this effect?

This will create a 256x256 greyscale RGB ramp that increases from brightness 0 on the left to 255 on the right.

Code:
function GreyRamp()
{
black = BlankClip(color=$000000, width=1, height=256)
white = BlankClip(color=$ffffff, width=1, height=256)
StackHorizontal(black,white)
BilinearResize(512, 256)
Crop(128,0,-128,-0)
}
Name: ramp.png
Views: 2022
Size: 1.9 KB

You can then manipulate that as necessary (for use as a mask with Overlay(), etc.) This works with AviSynth 2.6 but may need to be changed for earlier versions where the exact behavior of BilinearResize may vary.

[hello_hello]

Howdy.

The greyscale ramp isn't hard, I'm using something similar to do the feathering, although with FastBlur rather than through resizing.
There's a couple of examples in this post.
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/393762-ImageBorders-FrostyBorders-Scripts/page2#post2632715.

For FrostyGradient=true, the border is a line of 8 pixels of whatever the border color should be, then another 80 pixels of black, then with the right amount of FastBlur it creates a nice gradient which is resized to the border dimensions. It's just a colored gradient though.

The FrostyGradient=true method would probably work, but no matter how you blur it for the gradient, you'll probably end up with pretty blurry borders, picture-wise.

To do it with the overlay-mask you'd probably need to have the picture overlayed on pure black, then use the mask to fade from black to picture. You could even add texture to the mask itself for a textured gradient, which may look super good or super bad, I'd have to try it.....

After trying it, the effect is pretty much the same as adding a black/colored border and feathering it into the picture, only it'd be the border being feathered. Doing the blurring might be easier with a resizer in this case, so the gradient's predictable, and changing the black/white proportion in the mask before blurring might look better, but here's a quick suck-it-and-see on a 4:3 picture (I didn't try adding borders, I just wanted to see what it'd look like).

A = last
Black = BlankClip(A)

HalfWidth1 = width(A) / 4 * 2
HalfWidth2 = width(A) - HalfWidth1

Mask = BlankClip(A, width=HalfWidth1, color=$FFFFFF)\
.AddBorders(HalfWidth2, 0, 0, 0)\
.ColorYUV(Levels="TV->PC")\
.FastBlur(100, y_blur=0, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.AddGrain(var=5, uvar=5, constant=true)

# return Mask
return Overlay(Black, A, mask=Mask)

[Attachment 61541 - Click to enlarge]

I guess the alternative might be to use a dark version of the picture for the overlay, rather than a completely black picture, but do either of them float your boat? Any other thoughts?

A = last
Dark = A.Tweak(Bright=-50, sat=0.5, cont=0.5)

HalfWidth1 = width(A) / 4 * 2
HalfWidth2 = width(A) - HalfWidth1

Mask = BlankClip(A, width=HalfWidth1, color=$FFFFFF)\
.AddBorders(HalfWidth2, 0, 0, 0)\
.ColorYUV(Levels="TV->PC")\
.FastBlur(100, y_blur=0, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.AddGrain(var=5, uvar=5, constant=true)

# return Dark
# return Mask
return Overlay(Dark, A, mask=Mask)

[Attachment 61542 - Click to enlarge]

To also feather them into the clip would probably require two overlays, which might be a bit slow. For feathering I'm not sure how easy it'd be to create a gradient from black to white and then back to black. At least one that could be controlled easily gradient-wise, regardless of the border/picture size.

Have a play with the above scripts if you like. Maybe you'll come up with something better.

PS. To have the gradient fade from dark to light and also have the blurring decrease with the graident. I guess you could also blur the dark version of the picture, but I haven't tried that yet.

Edit: Yes I have.

Dark = A.Tweak(bright=-20, sat=0.75, cont=0.75).FastBlur(10, y_blur=10, iterations=3, dither=true)

It goes in the opposite direction to what you'd want though... I think. It gets less blurry as it get brighter. To do it the other way around would probably require two Overlays with opposite masks, overlayed on each other.

Edit2. I don't think the "adding some black and blurring it" method will work well (similar to the FrostyGradient method).

When it's just black to white it seems okay.

SomeVideo
CropResize(40, 540)
A = last
BlankClip(A, color=$FFFFFF)\
.AddBorders(80, 0, 0, 0)\
.FastBlur(30, y_blur=30, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.AddGrain(var=5, uvar=5, constant=true)

[Attachment 61543 - Click to enlarge]

But after replacing the white with picture the gradient isn't as smooth because the brightness of the picture isn't constant. Plus, it has to be blurry as it's part of the gradient.

SomeVideo
CropResize(40, 540)
AddBorders(80, 0, 0, 0)
FastBlur(30, y_blur=30, iterations=3, dither=true)
AddGrain(var=5, uvar=5, constant=true)

[Attachment 61545 - Click to enlarge]

[thebib62]

You are pretty quick at implementing these ideas. It looks like you have the foundation of what I'm looking for set up but, rather than having it fade into black, I'd rather it fade into different levels of blur. I've attached a screenshot to better illustrate what I'm picturing in my head. With the screenshot shown below, the first section has a blur value of 10, then, 30 and then 60.

Allow me to explain in detail. We would have the original 4 x 3 video with frostyborders enabled. Then, have a blur value of zero, then have it gradually increase to the blur value of let's say 60 as it reaches to the end of the video frame.

So in other words, the closer frostyborders is to the original video the clearer it is, and the farther away from the original video the blurrier it becomes. Again, with a gradient value applied.

I'm not sure how difficult it would be to implement this feature with blur. Also I'm not sure the type of performance impact this type of feature would make on lower end computers.


I apologize for the delayed response, I was not notified of your reply.

[hello_hello]

Those examples were easy enough to do. I just copied and pasted the mask and feathering from FrostyBorders and modified it a bit.

I'm pretty sure I messed around with gradient idea when we were discussing the borders in the other thread, but I couldn't get them to look the way they looked in my head, so I gave up.

The gradual blurring should be easy enough to do with a blurred border and a mask, although a linear gradient doesn't look linear as an overlay mask to me. The mask in the example below looks like this.


[Attachment 61615 - Click to enlarge]

Making the blurring "fade out" for borders is pretty much the same as feathering a blurred border into the picture, only it doesn't overlap into the picture itself.
Have a fiddle with the script below to see if you can come up with anything better. Changing the ratio of white to black in the borders probably makes as much difference as adjusting the amount of blurring (AddBorders is adding the white). The total of black and white in the border should be 128 pixels for this example. Or maybe you'll like it as it is. I'm not crazy about it myself, but each to their own.
Edit: I don't think I added grain to the mask before I took those screenshots, so try it with and without as you prefer.

Clip = last.CropResize(704,528)

Left = Clip.Crop(0,0,-576,0)
Right = Clip.Crop(576,0,0,0)

BlurLeft = Left.FastBlur(10, y_blur=10, iterations=3, dither=true)
BlurRight = Right.FastBlur(10, y_blur=10, iterations=3, dither=true)

MaskLeft = \
BlankClip(Right, width=118)\
.AddBorders(0, 0, 10, 0, color=$FFFFFF)\
.ColorYUV(Levels="TV->PC")\
.FastBlur(30, y_blur=0, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.AddGrainC(var=10, uvar=0, constant=true)

MaskRight = FlipHorizontal(MaskLeft)

OverlayLeft = overlay(BlurLeft, Left, mask=MaskLeft)
OverlayRight = overlay(BlurRight, Right, mask=MaskRight)

# return Left
# return BlurLeft
# return MaskLeft
# return OverlayLeft
# return Right
# return BlurRight
# return MaskRight
# return OverlayRight
return StackHorizontal(OverlayLeft, Clip, OverlayRight)

[Attachment 61616 - Click to enlarge]

I wonder if it'd look better if you swapped the masks for the overlay? And of course you can increase/decrease the amount of blurring for the burred version of the border.


[Attachment 61617 - Click to enlarge]

Edit: I just realised I did the math on the borders based on the wrong picture size for a total of 16:9. I don't know what I was thinking.
The following would give you a 4:3 picture with 120 pixel borders for a total of 16:9. I also added some grain along with the blurring of the borders rather than add grain to the mask. Maybe I did that for the previous screenshot too. I've confused myself.
The total of black and white in the border should be 120 pixels for this example.

Clip = last.CropResize(720,540)

Left = Clip.Crop(0,0,-600,0)
Right = Clip.Crop(600,0,0,0)

BlurLeft = \
Left.FastBlur(10, y_blur=10, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.AddGrainC(var=10, uvar=0, constant=true)

BlurRight = \
Right.FastBlur(10, y_blur=10, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.AddGrainC(var=10, uvar=0, constant=true)

MaskLeft = \
BlankClip(Right, width=100)\
.AddBorders(0, 0, 20, 0, color=$FFFFFF)\
.ColorYUV(Levels="TV->PC")\
.FastBlur(30, y_blur=0, iterations=3, dither=true)

MaskRight = FlipHorizontal(MaskLeft)

OverlayLeft = overlay(BlurLeft, Left, mask=MaskLeft)
OverlayRight = overlay(BlurRight, Right, mask=MaskRight)

# return Left
# return BlurLeft
# return MaskLeft
# return OverlayLeft
# return Right
# return BlurRight
# return MaskRight
# return OverlayRight
return StackHorizontal(OverlayLeft, Clip, OverlayRight)

[Attachment 61618 - Click to enlarge]

A different black/white ratio and blurring amount for the mask. More blurring and no texture for the borders.
It's hard to get the gradient right. Let me know what you come up with.

BlurLeft = \
Left.FastBlur(30, y_blur=30, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.AddGrainC(var=0, uvar=0, constant=true)

BlurRight = \
Right.FastBlur(30, y_blur=30, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.AddGrainC(var=0, uvar=0, constant=true)

MaskLeft = \
BlankClip(Right, width=110)\
.AddBorders(0, 0, 10, 0, color=$FFFFFF)\
.ColorYUV(Levels="TV->PC")\
.FastBlur(20, y_blur=0, iterations=3, dither=true)

[Attachment 61619 - Click to enlarge]

[thebib62]

Thank you, this is exactly what I had in mind. I'm going to see if I can play with the values to get a more gradual blur result.

Edit: I'm quite happy with the example scripts that you've posted above. That's pretty much how I would want it. I'm sure I'll come up with some type of future request or an idea to further improve on it. Would this new feature be making its way into Frostyboarders?


Is feathering the borders into the main video still possible with this new feature?

[hello_hello]

Edit: I'm quite happy with the example scripts that you've posted above. That's pretty much how I would want it. I'm sure I'll come up with some type of future request or an idea to further improve on it. Would this new feature be making its way into Frostyboarders?

I don't see why not. I'm still messing around with the new CropResize when I'm motivated, so I'll try to add it to the next version while I'm at it. It won't be too hard to then add it to the stand-alone FrostyBorders script too.

Is feathering the borders into the main video still possible with this new feature?

Wouldn't that just be feathering that doesn't completely hide the border? Or did you have something else in mind?

Clip = last.CropResize(720,540)

Left = Clip.Crop(0,0,-600,0)
Right = Clip.Crop(600,0,0,0)

Mask = \
BlankClip(Right, width=712)\
.AddBorders(124, 0, 124, 0, color=$FFFFFF)\
.ColorYUV(Levels="TV->PC")\
.FastBlur(40, y_blur=0, iterations=3, dither=true)

BorderClip = \
StackHorizontal(Left, Clip, Right)

BlurClip = \
BorderClip\
.FastBlur(30, y_blur=30, iterations=3, dither=true)

Overlay(BorderClip, BlurClip, mask=Mask)

The black to white is the other way around this time because I overlaid the clips in the opposite order, but same thing.
Once again, it's hard to get the gradient right and I think the current feathering probably looks better.


[Attachment 61636 - Click to enlarge]


[Attachment 61637 - Click to enlarge]


[Attachment 61638 - Click to enlarge]

[thebib62]

Wouldn't that just be feathering that doesn't completely hide the border? Or did you have something else in mind?

I want to use feathering to hide the border between the original video and Frostyboarders. I've attached a screenshot to better illustrate what I have in my mind.

Essentially I would like to apply the existing feathering options that are currently implemented in Frostyboarders along with the new gradient blur feature that we are currently discussing.

[hello_hello]

I'm trying to get my head around your second screenshot. How did you do that exactly?

It looks as though it'd take at least two overlays. I'm not sure how easy it'd be to do with just one, or even possible, as there's two versions of the border as best as I can tell. One that's not very blurred but feathered into the picture, and another very blurred version of the border for the gradient.

I'll have to think about that one as how to do it isn't obvious to me at the moment.

[thebib62]

I made the second screenshot using a video editor. I did not edit any of your code to achieve the desired effect.

It's a screenshot using your last bit of code for this effect, then imported into a video editor, I duplicated the screenshot two times. And feathered the left side and right side until the desired effect was achieved. Shown in the screenshot

[hello_hello]

I'm not adverse to the way it looks but my main concern is it'll be hard to get the mask right regardless of the resolution (although I could probably create a mask that looks right and then resize that as needed) and that the feathered version will probably need two overlays so it might be slow.

I can't promise how quickly I'll do it, but I will have a play with the idea some time in the near future.

[thebib62]

Okay, that sounds good. Excited to see how it turns out. Again, your time and expertise is greatly appreciated. Take your time. I will be using how Frostyboarders is currently(amazing), in the meantime. It's good that your testing out frosty borders on an older Windows XP computer, and I mainly use it on microcomputers that are pretty slow. Essentially, if Frostyboarders run well on our devices, it should run well on any device.

[hello_hello]

Well I gave it a go but apparently I'm not clever enough to make a gradient that's effective enough to make it worth the effort. I tried different amounts of blurring and I adjusted the mask for the gradient well over 500 times, but I just can't get it to stand out, especially when the blurred borders are being blended into borders that already have some blurring. This is what was happening.

1. Feathered clip
2. Extra blurry borders
3. Overlay mask
4. The end result

It'll probably take a bit of work to shoe-horn it in and have it work correctly for every type of border, but it's probably not worth it, even when Blur=0 (which prevents feathering).


[Attachment 61692 - Click to enlarge]
[Attachment 61693 - Click to enlarge]

[thebib62]

I adjusted the mask for the gradient well over 500 times, but I just can't get it to stand out

I definitely appreciate your dedication. If it is a feature that's too difficult to implement, and the end result is not a desired one then we can just forget about it.

My knowledge of AVI synth and coding in general is very minimal. So, I wouldn't have any idea of the amount of time or effort that would go into some of the requests that I have made. Up until this point, you've been able to go above and beyond with every single feature that I wanted. So for that I thank you. I also thank you again for trying very hard to get this to work.


Would you be able to post the latest code that you use to produce the screenshots with? Maybe I can get lucky and play around with some of the settings myself. If I come up with anything that looks promising I will give you an update.

Edit:
your main issue with the examples you last shared stems from the fact that you're trying to feather the borders between the main video and Frostyboarders? I was quite happy with how the gradient looked with the non-feathered borders example you posted earlier. If that could be expanded upon without too much hassle that could be a good alternate method. With that being said, I don't have any ideas to expand upon it myself. Other than it being implemented into the main Frostyboarders script.

[hello_hello]

I didn't use the standard frosty borders for the example in my previous post. They were Clone=1 borders with Feather=12. For the second screenshot I blurred them a lot more.

It's a bit hard to post the exact script I used because I modified the FrostyBorders function, and there's variables that won't make sense outside of the function. You should be able to duplicate it this way though.

The first screenshot.

SourceVideo = Last.CropResize(720,540)

BorderedVideo = \
SourceVideo\
.FCropResize(Clone=1, Feather=12)\
.CropResize(960,540, Frosty=true)

For the second pic I used the Clone=1 borders, blurred them more and added some more grain.

GradientVideo = \
StackHorizontal(CloneBorderLeft\
.FastBlur(80, y_blur=80, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.AddGrain(var=5, constant=true), \
SourceVideo, \
CloneBorderRight\
.FastBlur(80, y_blur=80, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.AddGrain(var=5, constant=true))

If you don't want to crop off the borders and blur them individually, you can just blur the whole first clip.

GradientVideo = \
BorderedVideo\
.FastBlur(80, y_blur=80, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.AddGrain(var=5, constant=true)

The gradient mask was this. I kept the total width 88 pixels (24 for the blank clip and 64 for AddBorders) because that's what worked for FrostyGadient=true, but you can change the ratio between the blank clip width and AddBorders to change the black/white ratio, and of course you can change the amount of blurring.

GradientMaskLR = \
BlankClip(SourceVideo, width=24, color=$FFFFFF)\
.AddBorders(64, 0, 0, 0)\
.FastBlur(25, y_blur=0, iterations=3, dither=true)\
.ColorYUV(Levels="TV->PC")

GradientMaskL = FlipHorizontal(GradientMaskLR).GaussResize(width, height)   # resize to the left border dimensions
GradientMaskR = GradientMaskLR.GaussResize(width, height)   # resize to the right border dimensions
# 120x540 for both borders based on the source dimensions above

GradientMask = StackHorizontal(GradientMaskL, BlankClip(SourceVideo), GradientMaskR)

And the output:

Output = Overlay(BorderedVideo, GradientVideo, mask=GradientMask)
StackedOutput = StackVertical(BorderedVideo, GradientVideo, GradientMask, Output)

return Output
# return StackedOutput

I haven't checked what I just wrote, but I'm pretty sure it's right.

[thebib62]

Thanks for the code. I'll try playing around with it to see if I could get anything better from it.

There is another issue that I notice with the script. When I'm using the clone options, I notice a type of shimmering effect that happens on the borders. It only seems to happen when the blur value is higher than 15. The higher the blur value, the more apparent the shimmering is. This also happens with the default Frostyboarders settings.

I was wondering if this is happening to you as well? If so, is there a way to remedy this issue?


If you have a look at the example video I posted before in regards to the banding issue I was experiencing, you'll notice the shimmering effect quite easily. I'll provide the Frostyboarders settings and I'm using currently so you can reproduce on your end.

https://forum.videohelp.com/attachments/61395-1634908754/example.mp4

CropResize(640,480,frosty=true)
FCropResize(Feather=50,clone=2,blend=0,texture=22, vblur=30,blur=20)
CropResize(960,540, 10,0,0,0, frosty=true)

[hello_hello]

I can't say I'm seeing anything I'd call shimmering in the borders.

The video itself isn't spectacular. Is there a deblocking and/or denoising option for your video card that might be trying to denoise or deblock it? That's the only reason I can think of off the top of my head, but it's really just a guess. Does the texture on the borders shimmer? It's very static for me.

How do these look? I ran a filter on the video to clean it up a little before adding the borders. It's not spectacularly different, and maybe a bit blurrier, but do you see the same shimmering?

[thebib62]

I can't say I'm seeing anything I'd call shimmering in the borders.

The video itself isn't spectacular. Is there a deblocking and/or denoising option for your video card that might be trying to denoise or deblock it? That's the only reason I can think of off the top of my head, but it's really just a guess. Does the texture on the borders shimmer? It's very static for me.

How do these look? I ran a filter on the video to clean it up a little before adding the borders. It's not spectacularly different, and maybe a bit blurrier, but do you see the same shimmering?

I still see it with the example file you provided. If you look at the bottom left and right corners of the video between 38 seconds and 43 seconds you should see what I'm talking about. It happens with low quality medium quality and high quality videos that I've watched so far.

What I'm witnessing may even be the limitations or behavior of fast blur and not necessarily Frostyboarders.

The issue that I'm describing seems to only happen at the very corners of the video. Another way to describe what I'm seeing is the image appears to be wobbly. It's not consistent, depends on the scene. And the blur value.



I know the GIF file that I provided introduces banding, that is not present in the final video. I hope that the shimmering effect that I described is clearer to see. It's almost as if the horizontal or vertical blur argument is too high and stretching the image during certain scenes and creates this shimmering effect. My issue with this shimmering effect is that it's very distracting and it pulls my attention towards the borders rather than focusing on the main video.




Notice the left edge of the video as well.

Using these settings makes the issue very apparent

CropResize(640,480,frosty=true)
FCropResize(Feather=50,clone=2,blend=0,texture=0,blur=70)
CropResize(960,540, 10,0,0,0, frosty=true)

[hello_hello]

The mp4 has so much encoder blocking in the borders it's hard to tell what's what, but if I'm seeing what you are, I guess I'd call it flickering rather than shimmering. I think it's caused by part of an object appearing in the border and disappearing quickly, and being blurred in the process, which makes it more noticeable. Plus it's a single shot with a hand held camera, and the camera moving increases the likelihood that sort of thing will happen.

I also suspect the more you blur, the more temporal softening is required to reduce it, but that's probably not a bad thing because the more you blur, the less noticeable the temporal softening is.

Mind you I find borders that size more distracting than any flickering, which is why I tend to zoom in a bit and make them smaller, but is it as noticeable in either of these?

example1

CropResize(640,480)
FCropResize(Feather=50,clone=2,blend=0,blur=70,TSoft=5)
CropResize(960,540, 10,0,0,0, frosty=true)

example2

CropResize(700,480, 0,10,0,-30)
FCropResize(Feather=20,clone=2,blend=0,blur=20,TSoft=2)
CropResize(960,540, 10,0,0,0, frosty=true)

[hello_hello]

By the way, even if you're watching the video via a script, you can still use the ffdshow function to automate the aspect ratio and cropping.

FCropResize(Feather=20,clone=2,blend=0,blur=20, TSoft=2)
CR_FFDShow(960,540, 10,0,0,0, CropDAR=1.55, frosty=true)

The main difference between that and the standard CropResize, it the ffdshow function will crop more from the bottom than from the top for the specified CropDAR, rather than crop them evenly.

Of course if ffdshow is involved in the decoding, you don't need to do it in the script.