How to break apart an image and piece together aga

Patre wrote on 7/10/2011, 5:08 PM

I have reviewed all of the video effects in Sony Vegas Movie Studio 10 in an attempt to find an effect that would break apart an image(a face,for example) and then bring the pieces back together to form the original image. I know it can be done with text in some programs-a word is broken apart, and then explodes onto the screen forming the original word.
Can this be done in Sony Vegas?
Thanks for your ideas,comments and suggestions.

Pat

I suspect that it can be done by individually cutting and pasting individual parts of the image on individual video layers and then transforming/cropping etc, so that eventually the broken image is reconstructed. But I am looking for an easier way to accomplish the same thing,if there is one.

Comments

Eugenia wrote on 7/10/2011, 5:25 PM

There is no plugin that does that. You use Photoshop or GIMP to load/rescale the image to 1920x1080, then you cut out the pieces and create new 1080p files with only the pieces in them, and with the rest of their image been transparent. Then you bring these PNG files on vegas and you use pan/crop, or the 3D tool on Vegas Pro, to fly the semi-transparent files around. At the end, after they're completed the image (but probably won't look perfect), you crossfade to a non-cut out version.

Patre wrote on 7/10/2011, 5:37 PM

Thanks Eugenia..
Looks like the manual reconstruction may be the most workable option. However, I have played around with the New Blue 3D blow apart and "box explode" transitions,and if I could get the "blow apart" transition to reverse itself,then the effect could be created with Sony Vegas. However,when I right click on the video event which contains the transition,the reverse command is greyed out and non-functional.
There is a reverse checkbox in the transitions properties box,but it is already checked and unchecking it doesn't reverse the "blow apart" process.

There might be a way to make this work...
Pat

Markk655 wrote on 7/10/2011, 6:11 PM

Pat,

I took 1 photo, added a fade out, chose the NB Blow Apart transition (reverse checked). I have the same photo immediately after that, added a fade-in, which I made into NB Blow Apart transition and unchecked reverse in the plugin.

Does that help?

Eugenia wrote on 7/10/2011, 6:21 PM

This idea works well, if you don't need control over how the fly-apart takes place.

Kimberly wrote on 7/10/2011, 7:53 PM

You might try the NB Box explode, then render that clip, and bring it back and reverse it. I haven't tried it myself so cannot say if that works but just a thought.

Patre wrote on 7/10/2011, 9:41 PM

Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions.Now I am working to implement some of them. By changing the duration of the transition and video event I can probably accomplish a reasonably good deconstruction and reconstruction sequence. However,since I am not controlling how the object in the event (face,for example) is deconstructed and reconstructed, the pieces of the face would fall apart and together according to the algorithm written to control the process.

The ultimate control is probably achieved by manually deconstructing the face in Photoshop and saving the pieces in a .png format (per Eugenia's suggestion). Then opening deconstructed images in Sony and crafting the deconstruction/reconstruction using the transform tools etc. However,the final result might be symetrically askew, wheras the algorithm would probably create more smooth and precise connections etc.

If the algorithm effect is reasonably authentic, I would be willing to compromise the more authentic result of a manual rendering in order to save work and time.

Again,thanks for taking the time to respond to my inquiry and for providing suugestions on how to manage the deconstruct/reconstruct process.

Pat