Just curious if I can add a shape to Cookie cutter in Platinum 9 i.e. a heart.

Thanks!
-bK

Probably not, though i haven't seen the cookie cutter in Vegas Studio so i'm not aware of all it's abilities.

However, you could draw a white heart on a black background and import that on track 1 and add the Mask effect. Put one video clip on track 2 and set the compositing mode of track 1 to Mask (multiply). Put another video clip on track 3. Wherever the white heart is you'll see the video from track 2, and wherever the heart is not (which is the rest of the frame) you'll see the video from track 3. You can use pan/crop or track motion on the heart to move it around, rotate it, and size it, or even change to other shapes as needed. It's a little more work, but it's worth the effort to be able to use any shape you want.

Very cool Chienworks! Your response timing is perfect, I have some video of my friends daughter's 1st birthday/Christmas eve party last night and was wanting to use some hearts in the video.

I'll try to play with this techniques and see how it works out!

-bK

OK. I'm playing with the import white on black function. Is there a trick to get the 3rd track to show up on the background around the shape?

Using the mask function on track 1, I can see the image on track 2 thru the shape but the background around the shape is white.

The white on black shape is .jpg. Do I need to save this in another format?

I'll keep playing with this and post the progress.

Thanks!
-bK

I thought that it might be a tga or tif that would solve you issue instead of jpg because those formats contain alpha channels. But I think there is something on top of that which will help you out for track 3.

Thanks Markk655! I'll try and work with the other formats and alpha channels. I'll post any progress.

-bK

Chienworks,
Tried to get this to work for a couple of hours yesterday but had to get started on my friend's daughter's video.

The only way I could kind of attempt this was to render twice. Once with the mask in normal mode and the 2nd render in "inverted" mode then blend the two tracks. The problem with this was the quality was pretty bad and took a long time.

I think I'm missing a step to get the 3rd track to show up on the background.

What is the "multiply" function? Maybe this is what I'm missing?

Any other suggestions? This would be a great feature if I can figure out how this works...

Thanks!
bK

Hi Byron,
Not really sure I understand what it is you are trying to do, but give this a try and see if it helps. If it's not what you are looking to do, it's a neat effect anyway :)
1. Make a white heart, or any other shape. on a transparent background in another program such as PhotoShop and save. I usually save as .tga or .png
2. Put shape on track 1 and set compositing mode to 'multiply.'
3. Put the video you want to show in the shape on track 2 and make it a compositing child track.
4. Put your main video on track 3
5. Then using Pan/Crop and track motion, you can move the shape and underlying video anywhere at any time you need it.
Let us know if this helps in any way. Cin

OMG,

That's it! For some reason tgas aren't working for me (from PSE7). PNGs worked just fine. The extra trick was using the the compositing child t get Video 3 to shine through.

OMG,
Awesome! Thanks to your help, I finally got it to work! It works with white on transparent background .png files.

For some reason it didn't work with white on black or black on white in any format.

This is exactly what I needed!

Track 1 Composite mode: Multiply (Mask)
Track 2 Composite mode: Source Alpha
Track 3 Composite mode: Source Alpha

THANKS!
-bK

Mark and Byron,
Thanks for the thanks. As everyone knows on this board, there is nothing worse than taking the time and effort to try and help someone and they don't even respond, good or bad! Glad I was able to help, as that effect took a lot of time to learn, and help from senior members on this board :) Cin