My only comment is that you might want to color the "ghosted image" with a different curve, so it's not quite the same. This would help make it appear to have a different density, and smooth out the look a bit. Or, color the original image and leave the ghost as it is.
You also might want to consider adding a touch of glow to the ghost, or maybe a touch of blur, or motion blur barely there.

Quote:
Not sure I saw anything wrong with it. What problem, specifically, are you seeing? Where in the picture?

Look at about 0:23 in the clip, you can see the green slide through my dead body, and I want my body to be completely solid.

DSE - I believe to accomplish your comments I'd have to do green screen, otherwise the effect you mentioned would be applied to the whole clip, not just my body, right?

One of the best examples of what you can do when you want to include yourself multiple times in the same scene is this site:

Duals Reloaded

It's not exactly what you're trying to do, but if you click around the site, you'll find that he explains how he did every scene. It may give you some useful ideas.

I am still in awe of this short clip. Every time I view it, I turn green with envy.

That's certainly an impresive effort, I've watched it many times just to keep inspired. Most of it could be done in Vegas except for the opening sequence, some serious smarts were used for that, something very similar to Icarus (whatever happened to Icarus?)

But for the ghost, you don't need green screen, a difference mask would be ideal for this. What you need is a static background and a locked down camera. What I'd like to see someone build is an afforable tripod head that offers repeatable camera motion, then one could do some very impressive work.

Bob.

Thanks for the "Duals Reloaded" clip johnmeyer, that was very cool, and I will read through the "how-to" for that, could help me too.

farss, I'm assuming the "That's certainly an impresive effort, I've watched it many times just to keep inspired." comment was meant for the Duals Reloaded clip, not mine. :)

But for the ghost, you don't need green screen, a difference mask would be ideal for this. What you need is a static background and a locked down camera.

What's the difference mask? I haven't used that before.

I have made a video with two of me in it, but I never had to be in exactly the same space as myself, as in this video:

Two of Me

Edit: (I know the audio is way off on the video above, I added it for the heck of it after the fact, I was just playing with having two of me in the clip)

Difference masking. Compositing mode in Vegas. Produces the difference between two tracks on a pixel by pixel basis. If one track is the background and the other the exact same background plus something (e.g. talent) then the difference in values between the pixels where both frames are of the background is zero. For the pixels where the talent is there's a RGB value thats equal to the absolute value of the difference between them. Add the mask generator to the difference and you'll produce a mask which is then used to extract the talent from the background etc.
Check out the Two Cats sample veg and a discussion last week about using this in other ways. It's all around here somewhere just search and yea shall find much info.
It is a difficult concept to grasp, once you get it and get it working the sky is the limit on what you can achieve compositing wise.

Bob.

You could also check out the current thread on "How to fall off a 10' ladder" .
Special FX Quote of the Day might also contain some usefull advice, just avoid any posts from the atheists. :)

Hey! I didn't make any posts in that thread but here's a post from an atheist.

To do the difference matte you'll want to shoot a a little bit of the scene without any action in the shot. That includes your shadow, btw. Then you use that to "knock out" your ghost from the ghost footage. Render that and then lay it over the dead man footage.

But generally it looks good as it is and if you composed the shot to not have the blue ladder interfere in the first place you'd save yourself a lot of time.

Oh, and as an atheist, I'm dead set against this "ghost" stuff. There's no such thing, of course.

Rob Mack

farrs / rmack350 - I have tried every Compositing Mask there is, and tried switching the upper and lower track just to be sure.. and it's not coming out right.

But generally it looks good as it is and if you composed the shot to not have the blue ladder interfere in the first place you'd save yourself a lot of time.

I do realize moving the ladder would help, I just did the clip above real quick trying it out, but I'm actually glad I had the ladder there, otherwise I wouldn't have realized my dead body was a little transparent. Know what I mean?

I want to get my body shot completely solid, and have the ghost of me come out of it.

I tried the steps that rmack350 said, and can't get it working that way either.

You might want to take two frames from your clip and export them to an image editing program. Since your body doesn't move=dead, you should be able to trace around your body and create a mask from that. Save the mask and before you close out of that frame, save the mask as an image with a transparent background. Now, apply that same mask to the next frame (I assume you are shooting in interlaced) create an image from that mask. Now copy and paste it on to the image with the transparent background and line it up so that the interlaced bodies become one and it looks good. Now, save as png or whatever and place it back on the timeline as an overlay or you could film the rooom empty and place your body on it.
Sounds complicated but it might work (I have not tried it, but in theory I don't see why it wouldn't).

j razz

VERY VERY Carefully :)

I just posted on here not long ago about using the difference mask. It works great - but it's above my head a little in some parts i think. I just copied the keyframes from another project that had it working put it into my saved presets and then did it that way - The big thing is that the arrow next to the fliters that you have to apply to make it work properly have to be A) in there - can't do it w/o the right fliters, and B) the little arrow next to their names has to be facing the correct direction (to the right - you do that by clicking on them).

Here's the masking that I did - there's one there that is the problem - and the other one that is the solution.

Then this is the thread that I posted as well

Dave

Dave, what little arrow are you talking about?

The only arrows I see are the parent/child arrows, and those are up/down, not right/left.

ok - if you look at my projects - then click on the track filters next to the names of the filters are arrows - when those are in a composite -you can change whether they are pre or post composite - by clicking on the arrow next to their name. Those filters (in order to do their job) have to be in a certain order and need to be post composite. If you look at the thread that I posted it's explained in there a little (not too well, but sorta).

Dave

I've been looking at your projects for the past hour...

I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's still pretty dim to me. :)

I do see that once I have mastered parent/child and the masks that I'll be a few levels above where I was before today.

Hmm.. I hate to sound stupid, but what exactly do you mean by "track filters"? I don't see anything named that, are you talking about the compositing mode?

I have your project open, and I've been trying to manipulate my source video to act the same as yours.. I'm just missing something!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it almost looks like if you know how to use the difference & multiply mask, and have good stable footage without the subjects, that you can do a green-screen type effect without ever using a green-screen?

Here's a link to the two cats demo mentioned earlier, in case you haven't seen it. Lots of difference filter instructions.

Cat Demo

dibb,
Check out this image:
http://www.wakelydam.com/Video/filters.jpg

Notice that the one track has Track FXs filters employed in order to fine tune the background and create the mask. (see green circle). Then look at the bottom of the Track FX dialog and you'll see those little arrows or "pre-post toggle." I had a similar issue with these mystery arrows recently.

"...otherwise I wouldn't have realized my dead body was a little transparent. Know what I mean?"

Of course. You know, if you could keep the ladder behind the body it just helps to reinforce the effect. And also, in case someone hasn't said it already, the ladder isn't showing through the dead body. It's part of the ghost footage and is on top of the dead body. By the same token, the white walls and beige carpet are also on top of the body. You'd think they'd wash things out but it seems like the illusion is good enough.

So the goal here is to just get rid of the ladder in the ghost layer and maybe you could just do it with a soft matte.

Rob Mack