Adding Pointer/Coursor on screen to video without Screen Recording?

Milosz-Nasadowski wrote on 12/12/2022, 10:50 AM

Graphic designers know that by re-saving a JPG or any compressed image every time we lose quality. I presume the same applies to video so when you have a ready video presentation and want to add just your pointer for drawing attention do you have to:

Render it first
Get yourself a pointer cursor for mouse
Press Screen record with some screen recording software
play the video in Windows while pointing to areas of interest to capture it in the recording
you still need to manage adding or recording your voice in the scenario

Is there any not very time consuming alternative to that and if not is the video not losing too much of the quality as recording already rendered thing seems a bit silly or unprofessional. THank you.

Comments

TAGyerit wrote on 12/12/2022, 5:14 PM

Just an idea, I wonder if you could render the original video out in B&W, maybe even faded out with low contrast, and then have your pointer cursor be a bright color... After recording your cursor movement and talking over the gray video version, overlay your cursor/gray video over the original video in Vegas Pro, then run a "greenscreen" FX on the gray track to remove black/white/gray background (meaning everything except the colored mouse cursor), so your final video would ONLY show the colored cursor (everything else removed) and the original video would still display when you rendered the file.

There might be some easier/more elegant solution, but this came to mind.

fr0sty wrote on 12/12/2022, 7:00 PM

^The above method would be more efficient if, instead of trying to chroma key out everything but the pointer, just motion track the pointer, then use that tracking data to attach to a new image of a mouse pointer, then you can put whatever image in whatever quality you want as the mouse pointer, and it will follow the motion tracking data. This gets around the issue of the footage being re-compressed.

Just be sure to set the motion tracker to position only.

Musicvid wrote on 12/12/2022, 10:51 PM

Make a pointer on an Alpha Image in an image editor. Place it on the top track. Move it around using Track Motion. You can Keyframe and Automate the motion to suit your needs.