How to stop a reverse effect snapping into the shot
Tell Vizard Agent the reverse snaps. It splits the clip at the turn, ramps the speed down through the frames before it and back up through the frames after, and places the turn on a beat. The motion pulls back, reverses and pulls forward again rather than jumping from one direction to the other in a single frame.
What do you type into Vizard Agent?
Describe the shape of the speed rather than asking for a reverse. A reverse is a single instruction with one obvious implementation; a ramp into and out of it describes how the motion should behave, which is what you're missing. Name the moment by the action, like the ball leaving the foot, because that is the frame Vizard Agent has to hinge the effect on.
Prompt
What does Vizard Agent actually do?
Reversing a section and cutting straight into it changes direction in one frame, which the eye reads as a glitch rather than an effect. Slowing into the turn and accelerating out of it makes the same reverse look deliberate. The ramp is built as a series of steps rather than one speed change, which gives it its shape. In the session behind this article it:
- Found the exact frame in a sports clip where the action turned, and split the clip there.
- Ramped the speed down across the frames leading in, started the reversed section from the slowest point, and ramped back up across the frames coming out.
- Found the music's beat grid and moved the turn to the nearest strong beat.
- Rendered the section, reviewed it frame by frame and checked the join on both sides of the turn.
- Smoothed the ramp where the steps were still visible, then checked it in motion rather than on stills.
When does this not work well?
Ramping needs spare frames to ramp across. Footage shot at a low frame rate gives Vizard Agent very few frames to slow down into, so the deceleration either happens too fast to register or turns into visible stepping. Very fast action passes before the turn registers, reversed speech is unusable, and long reversed sections stop reading as an effect.
Common questions
Why does a plain reverse look wrong? Because the direction changes in a single frame, which the eye reads as a fault rather than an effect.
Can the turn land on a beat? Yes. Vizard Agent finds the grid and places it there.
Does the clip get longer? Slightly, because slowing adds time. Tell Vizard Agent if the length is fixed.