Dropping stills over video

slugnine wrote on 9/23/2009, 4:52 PM

Basic question for which I'm sure there's an easy answer: I'm dropping still images on top of video. When it's a landscape picture, no problem, the image is set to fill the screen. But when it's in portrait, the edges of unused space outside of the still image are transparent so that you see the video edges underneath. How do I make the unused portion of a portrait opaque/black?

Thanks!

Comments

Terry Esslinger wrote on 9/23/2009, 10:06 PM

How about opening the event pan/crop for the still. Right click kin the p/c window and choose 'match output resolution'.

If you really want the black, place the still on track 1, then place a generated black solid the same length as the still on track 2 right under the still, and place the video on track 3.

Byron K wrote on 9/24/2009, 10:48 AM

Another method is to just place the picture on top of the video where you want it. You can still fill the black with a background image if you like by placing the background image on another track under the picture.

Eigentor wrote on 9/25/2009, 5:49 AM

I'm just a rookie, but recently I was using the video event fx graphic "Cookie Cutter" tool. You could use it on the still picture to cut it out and black out outside. I think this would work to black out the second track of video overlaying it. I'm not sure if I've used the proper terminology, but look for my "Highlighting something in a video" thread. I was actually trying to see both overlayed, but I think you can do the same thing to actually cut out the video.

Chienworks wrote on 9/25/2009, 10:11 AM

Some other methods:

Split the video track on the frames where the still starts and stops. Delete that section of video.

Split the video track on the frames where the still stars and stops. Drag the opacity down to 0%.

Add an opacity envelope to the video track. Add nodes at the beginning and ending of the stills. Drag the envelope down to 0.

Open up Pan/Crop on the still, right-mouse-button click in the frame, choose Match Output Aspect. This crops the still to fill the frame. If instead you want to see the entire still with black around it then drag the cropping line out larger.

And ... the absolute simplest way ... drop the still onto the same track as the video, rather than on the track above.

slugnine wrote on 10/2/2009, 1:18 PM

Thanks for all the tips. I followed the first suggestion of dropping the still on a top track, a media-generated black color track on the second, and the video on the third. Then once I accidentally dropped a still on top of the video track (with no ripple, I suppose), and that worked fine too.