homemade matte effect tutorial

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 9/18/2007, 12:35 AM

I have VMS, not platinum, so I miss the 'mattes' that come with platinum. Still, I have been a bit creative and above is the result.

I used Artrage 2 http://www.ambientdesign.com/artragedown.html to create a matte (choose white canvas, black crayon) and exported it to png format. I used this file as a matte.
(An alternative for Artrage would be Tuxpaint http://www.tuxpaint.org/screenshots/, which has a very nice collection of stamps for kids.)

Using mattes in Vegas:
1. Arrange your clips on the timeline.
Track 1: matte
Track 2: your video clip
Track 3: background animation

2. Click the Track FX button on Track 1 and select the Mask Generator tool.

3. In the Mask Generator dialog, select a Luminance key from the Type dropdown. You may also need to click the Invert checkbox to get the effect you want.

4. Click the Compositing Mode button in Track 1 and select "Multiply (Mask)" from the menu

5. Click the Make Compositing Child button in Track 2

Comments

Eugenia wrote on 9/18/2007, 12:46 AM

I don't see any matte canvas on my VMS8P... Could you make a zip of the .vf project and related files and upload it so we see how it's built?

BTW, your youtube clip had the same problem as mine yesterday... Did you uploaded to youtube using the PSP FULL template?

EDIT: Got it, thanks. It's fun.

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 9/18/2007, 2:19 AM

In the latest features page of VMS8 (boxed version), it is mentioned that 20 mattes of this company are included: http://www.freedomfx.com/index.html
I guess few people have the boxed version.

I'll email you the zip file.
I use a custom made YouTube template, as I don't have the PSP full template.

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 9/18/2007, 2:24 AM

So here is an example of the same, now with Tuxpaint (open source). My kids love big trucks and tractors, so they are fascinated by this kind of border effect. I used the stamps in Tuxpaint to manually create this border. I didn't need to use the mask generator here (don't know why).

Dave wrote on 9/18/2007, 4:09 PM

Hi,

Sorry to hijack this thread, but what is the PSP FULL template?

I'm curious because I uploaded a video to YouTube over the weekend and was disappointed in the quality.

Thanks!

www.youtube.com/davekingmusic

Eugenia wrote on 9/18/2007, 4:16 PM

Click on: File, Render As, Sony AVC/AAC, "PSP Full screen - 896 kbps"

Dave wrote on 9/18/2007, 5:50 PM

Thanks for the response.

Does this setting provide optimum rendering for videos submitted to YouTube?

Eugenia wrote on 9/18/2007, 6:02 PM

It works fine for me... It is also good enough for Revver.com which has higher resolution than Youtube.

Dave wrote on 9/18/2007, 6:27 PM

I tried it and I like the WMV file I rendered better. It is about the same as far as sharpness (or lack thereof), but the WMV has more contrast.