Randy,

I just did this - took each puzzle piece (muted other tracks around it) and saved out a .png file - took that into photoshop and applied a smooth bevel to the edges. Worked pretty good.

As you move them together though, the drop shadow (at the track level) works really nice like DaveT2 said.

What if you rendered the clip out white puzzle pieces add a bump map to that and overlay your original on top

Dave, are you talking about using 2D Shadow in Track Motion? If so, even with intensity all the way to 100% and white I see nothing.

Mike, I don't use PhotoShop. A guy I helped shoot some dirt track racing gave me his old copy of CS3 as payment/gratitude. I really want to learn PS and After Effects but the little time I've spent with it was too dam confusing for my little pea brain.

xfx, I can't even follow what you're saying.

Sorry guys I have very limited experience in any kind of effects. I probably need to learn though as I've had more requests for 3D stuff lately.

Thanks very much everyone!!!
Randy

Are you using a black background? For some reason, the drop shadow does not show on a black background (on a lower video track). Let me investigate further.

Try using the 2d Glow instead.

Dave T2

Try using the 2d Glow instead.
Surprisingly good results...after tweaking the color (cardboard brown) and the opacity it looks pretty darn good....THANKS Dave!!!!
Randy

It never fails to amaze me that there are almost always at least two ways to accomplish anything in Vegas. Can we see your final results?

Well the effect is still a little cheesy and I'm a little embarrased that it is a negative campaign ad but...gotta pay the bills right?
I still need to get the logo and VO from the politician at the end but I'm VERY open to suggestions my friends.
I posted it on Vimeo
BTW, the guy that did the VO is very reasonable if anyone is looking. His contact is:
Craig
Burford
800-354-2820
ccburford@mchsi.com

Randy,
your "Various Bands" clip shows a nasty interlace problem. When scaling interlaced video you must specify a de-interlace method as well as render at Best. I use Blend as the de-interlace method unless there's a lot of motion, then I use Interpolate.

That said if it's destined for web delivery generally best to convert to progressive before doing anything. Mike Crash's Smart De-interlacer works pretty well given that it's free.

Bob.

That's strange, it looked fine when I put it up...I went to go look at it and it now shows "no longer available".
Randy

Even starnger now it's back up again and yes I see what you mean Bob.
Nasty is right but I thought that was just due to compression. I will take your advice and see what a difference it makes....jeez...what would I do without this forum?
Thank you sir,
Randy

What I was saying is

1. Say you have a png logo rotating, render that out as normal
2. re render that as a solid white [ place luminance mask on it so you have a solid white ]
3. start a new project
4. add the white clip to the new project add a bump map to that …..layer 2
5. now take your first clip add that to the top ….layer 1
6. drop the transparency value of layer 1 it looks more real this way
7. 7 if you want add bump to layer 1 with no height you just want the light

This is a quick cheat to get a any animated 2d clip to look 3d

Thanks xfx,
I'll try it and report back
Thanks again,
Randy

Couldn't you just take a photo of a real 3D puzzle piece, use a Bezier to cutout the video to fit onto the top, composite together and move it all around?

It's not going to be 100% correct as the perspective will not shift as the piece moves in front of the camera but close enough I'd think.

Bob.

I must be doing something wrong, here's what I've done:
1. Say you have a png logo rotating, render that out as normal
I rendered out the video on the left and brought into another instance of V8
2. re render that as a solid white [ place luminance mask on it so you have a solid white ]
dragged mask generator onto clip, selected luminance and pulled "high in" down until the image was solid white
3. start a new project
I added the default bump map (I think maybe this is where I'm missing something)
5. now take your first clip add that to the top ….layer 1
when I drop the transparency on the top layer it just turns whiter
Can you tell me where I went wrong please?
Thanks,
Randy

I must be missing something Bob.
After I have used a Bezier to precisely cut out the real puzzle piece wouldn't I have to go almost frame by frame (using track motion) to keep them aligned?
Thanks Bob,
Randy

"After I have used a Bezier to precisely cut out the real puzzle piece wouldn't I have to go almost frame by frame (using track motion) to keep them aligned?"

NO.

Method 1)
Simple way to see how to do this. This is not the best / fanciest way to do it, just the easiest way to understand the process.

Two tracks.
Bottom track still photo of real puzzle piece. Maybe use a bezier to cut it out from the background or shoot it on green and CK out the background, whatever.
Top track. Your video. Add bezier to mask it onto top of puzzle piece.

If you render that out to an uncompressed AVI it'll have the moving video seemingly on the top of the real puzzle piece.
Now if you take that new video into a new Vegas project and move the video around to suit using track motion you have what you want. Simple, apart from you having to force Vegas to recognise the alpha channel in the uncompressed AVI file.

Method 2)
You can do the same thing in one pass with Vegas, the above is just easier to understand and pretty goof proof. A more elegant solution is to add a third track above the two in method 1). You make this track a 3D compositing master/parent, it contains no video, just information about how Vegas should move the composited result of the two child tracks in 3D space.

Bob.

Hi Randy

Just email me ill send you a zip file with a veg file

When you rendered the 2nd clip just your positive animation ‘ the rotating png” must be white your neg space must be black or rendered to a png sequence with a transparency
If you use brighter and contrast fx to get a solid white of your positive image sometimes messes with the timing if you have transition on and you get a ghost image but try that anyway

To make the shapes from mask is not the way to go

Go to the web , get a line image of a puzzle and work from this
Make separate pngs of your pieces and then place them in position along the time line so they all fit then go to the start of your time line and individually move and rotate them
Its easier to work back and you can get a really realistic 3d puzzle so when you play it forward the pieces will move and rotate and come together

you need at least 4 shapes for the puzzel to work


Rory

OK i made a 3d puzzel rotating in 3d space send me your email and i will send the veg off to you

the pieces are in puzzel veg

this is a buss inside puzzel 3d veg with shadows and bump

i made the pieces myself and the bitmap is in the zip so you can see
how to make the pieces you can make them rounder or jaggy whatever your needs are but the point is you can take a photo and do the same

Rory