Premiere opacity changes causes permanent invisibility, playback oddities.

[Ashley7]

Apparent bug CC2017.1.2...

I project with two sequences, one hosting the other, works fine until I make an opacity change to the first opacity keyframe after which layer becomes permanently invisible and playback experience becomes jerky with timeline indicator hopping forward (not smooth) and nothing apparently playing. Screenshots from good to bad state as described...

main sequence things are fine...

Inner sequence adjustment layer, things are fine...

Inner sequence vignette layer, things are fine...

Inner sequence jpeg layer, things are fine...

For main sequence move opacity to 0% then back to 100% things remain invisible (BUG?) Playback jerks forward past second 100% keyframe still invisible... only restarted Premiere returns visibility...

Any thoughts?

[R Neil Haugen]

I'm puzzled looking at this.

It appears from your first image that the vignette is applied to the "Inner Sequence" ... and that image is what we see in the program monitor in all but the last. So I have no clue what you're doing with the other layers ... and also, what seems the base of the image (Inner Sequence on V3) becomes "Blank jpeg" in V3 in your second pic.

So ... I've no clue what you're doing here, or really, what you're trying to achieve.

Neil

[Ashley7]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/R+Neil+Haugen  wrote

I'm puzzled looking at this.

It appears from your first image that the vignette is applied to the "Inner Sequence" ... and that image is what we see in the program monitor in all but the last. So I have no clue what you're doing with the other layers ... and also, what seems the base of the image (Inner Sequence on V3) becomes "Blank jpeg" in V3 in your second pic.

So ... I've no clue what you're doing here, or really, what you're trying to achieve.

Neil

Hi Neil, I am not following your confusion fully but let's start with you're not understanding what I'm doing...

I'm following a  Lynda.com tutorial for applying a blurred vignette. You create a solid layer and use a mask for the basic vignette, then you use an adjustment layer above with gaussian blur that itself has a mask that allows one to blur the outer edges of the vignette. It works fine until I mess with opacity on the outer sequence... the one which does *not* have all that stuff I just described.

So first, is there a better way to do the same thing? Maybe that will allow me to move forward. I was successfully using AE for a photo montage but went to Premiere given it's supposed to be simpler but the first vignette tutorial I found mentioned the described method so I went with it... I could give up on it but it seems it works at first and it itself is not breaking... Premiere seems to break after I mess with a difference sequences opacity.

In my screenshots above, I'm showing the inner layer several times, each time selecting a different layer so you can see the effects controls... maybe that wasn't clear. Not sure what yyou mean by "becomes "Blank jpeg" in V3 in your second pic." ... Blank.jpeg is always blank.jpeg which is a white jpeg with blank text saying "Blank" ... that is fine and doesn't change or "become" ... so I'm confused there.

Thanks for any thoughts!

[R Neil Haugen]

Well ... looking at it again, you go between one sequence in the first image, to the other sequence, then back to the first in the last. Is the second sequence nested in the first?

Neil

[Ashley7]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/R+Neil+Haugen  wrote

Well ... looking at it again, you go between one sequence in the first image, to the other sequence, then back to the first in the last. Is the second sequence nested in the first?

Neil

In the screenshots, "OuterSequence" is nesting (hosting) "InnerSequence" ... inner has all that blurred vignette junk, while outer is fairly simple... I change opacity for the layer in Outer hosting Inner and it causes Premiere to make the layer perm invisible... all things are invisible from that point forward, and playback is broken as described must restart Premiere.

[R Neil Haugen]

Ahh ... so changing the opacity setting of the main sequence breaks the link to the nested sequence functionality.

This is one way to do this, though I'm wondering if say Ann Bens​ might have ideas on accomplishing this ...

Neil

[Ashley7]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/R+Neil+Haugen  wrote

Ahh ... so changing the opacity setting of the main sequence breaks the link to the nested sequence functionality.

This is one way to do this, though I'm wondering if say https://forums.adobe.com/people/Ann+Bens  might have ideas on accomplishing this ...

Neil

Thanks Neil... it would be great to hear any variations on a blurred vignette. I found one workaround which seems to avoid the breakage. In the example from Lynda.com (in the above), an adjustment layer is used to blur above the vignette layer, but it works if I paste the blur effect right into the jpeg layer (below the vignette layer), deleting the adjustment layer. With the adjustment layer gone, things are working, not stucky or perm black. But it would still be nice to hear any variations on a blurred vignette. Good old adjustment layers offering some Premiere surprises.

[R Neil Haugen]

I was a bit intrigued by adding an AL to put the blur on separate from the image itself ... it just seems to add complexity, and I've not figured out what capability you get for the added complexity, which is why I "pinged" Ann. She would probably know.

Neil

[R Neil Haugen]

Oh ... and what's the title of the lynda-dot-com tut, and who's the teach?

Neil

[Ashley7]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/R+Neil+Haugen  wrote

Oh ... and what's the title of the lynda-dot-com tut, and who's the teach?

Neil

Here is the link...

Creating vignettes in Premiere Pro

It's a video within Video Post Tips Weekly dated around 10/2015.

[R Neil Haugen]

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look as Ann has done. Seems a little convoluted, or unnecessarily complex but I'll see if there's some useful capability added by the complexity.

As with most things, there's several ways to do it in PrPro. And this sort of thing Ann is quite good at, and I doubt there's a way of  usefully doing it she doesn't know about!

The Lumetri vignette is pretty decent, but with the caveat that it ​only​ works as a centered one. You can't move the center at all. Using various types of masks of course allows one to put it anywhere.

Neil

[Ashley7]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/R+Neil+Haugen  wrote

The Lumetri vignette is pretty decent, but with the caveat that it only works as a centered one. You can't move the center at all. Using various types of masks of course allows one to put it anywhere.

Neil

Good to know... yeah I needed to move it around and have non-centered behavior. Interestingly, I found that I can use a Track Matte Key with the Luma setting and referencing an empty track.

[Ann Bens]

There are many ways to make a blurred vignette.

To tell you the truth I am little lost in your example.

I see some sort of rectangular and the cirle is not round and I see a double mask.

Does the vignette need to be animate like from small to large?

The most simple way to make a vignette is to use the one from Lumetri.

A link to the tutorial would be nice.

[Ann Bens]

Or like this:

[Ashley7]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Ann+Bens  wrote

Or like this:

This appears to only offer blurring ... is there a vingetting happening here which darkens? Thanks for the example.

[Ann Bens]

I recreate the tutorial and your timeline. I cannot reproduce the issue (applying opacity keyframe on nest which results in black screen).

does it also happen when turning to MPE software?

[Ann Bens · Accepted solution]

Old fashioned way:

V1 clip + effect to make it darker and gaussian blur,

V2 track matte set to V3,

V3 title with white oval and gaussian blur added.

[Ashley7]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Ann+Bens  wrote

I recreate the tutorial and your timeline. I cannot reproduce the issue (applying opacity keyframe on nest which results in black screen).

does it also happen when turning to MPE software?

Thanks Ann, that's good to hear! Guess what? ... This morning the issue does not occur for me and I have a hunch I know why. Long story very short, yesterday I tried to resolve the issue of this thread with a graphics driver update... in fact, I updated all drivers that needed it for my system. My guess is that the older graphics driver may have had issues affecting the type of graphics operations used to meld all of these layers today. Not sure, just a guess. I have the isolated project that definitively reproduced this issue each time yesterday before the update... it works fine now... so something has changed... the only thing that sticks out (because I had rebooted and everything yesterday to no avail) is the graphics driver update. I'll post back if I see it again but I'm guessing it was a system anomaly.

Having these various ways of doing vignettes will be very helpful to reference... thank you!

[Ashley7]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Ann+Bens  wrote

There are many ways to make a blurred vignette.

To tell you the truth I am little lost in your example.

I see some sort of rectangular and the cirle is not round and I see a double mask.

Does the vignette need to be animate like from small to large?

The most simple way to make a vignette is to use the one from Lumetri.

A link to the tutorial would be nice.

Link to video posted above in prior post. My example screenshots come from a water downed example that doesn't have any aesthetic value... it's not really going to show you the problem per se... other than the blank program monitor in final screenshot.,,that's what I actually see yet opacity is 100% and what you can't see in screenshots is that the playback behavior is weird meaning the time indicator sits still for a few seconds, jumps ahead, sits still, jumps ahead, and there's no video or audio. I ended up using a Track Matte Key ... but I didn't know Lumetri had an options... thank you for pointing that out. Track Matte Key worked out nicely because it leaves the areas surrounding the mask transparent which is nice for overlapping animation of two or more photos.

[shooternz]

No one suggested the easy and simple solution - Lumetri >Vignette

This single effect applied directly to a single clip on a single layer has simple  parameters to lighten or darken the corners of the frame as well as blur the edge of the vignette.

[Ashley7]

Both Ann and Neil did above. But thank you too!

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Ann+Bens  wrote

There are many ways to make a blurred vignette.

...

The most simple way to make a vignette is to use the one from Lumetri.

A link to the tutorial would be nice.

https://forums.adobe.com/people/R+Neil+Haugen  wrote

...

The Lumetri vignette is pretty decent, but with the caveat that it only works as a centered one. You can't move the center at all. Using various types of masks of course allows one to put it anywhere.

Neil