I need a Bezier Masking for idiots tutorial

TGS wrote on 9/6/2007, 1:01 AM

I've tried the search and found various answers but no real directions. Can anybody point me to a tutorial that will give me information on various types of Bezier masking techniques? Something with diagrams and/or Pics. The manual is not much help. Something that will tell me about a constantly moving/changing object and how to mask it.
Thanks in advance

Comments

TeetimeNC wrote on 9/6/2007, 3:56 AM

Here's one over on the VASST site: http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?id=0ed4326a-31b6-49d0-8fa3-3a7ad65575ba

Jerry

24Peter wrote on 9/6/2007, 10:05 AM

I'm working on a project now that is requiring thousands of frames of video with bezier masking. For me, I looked around for help (on-line, in the manual, etc.) but found I was basically on my own. Once you get the hang of it, you can do a lot (though it is quite tedious tracking a moving object frame by frame with masks with dozens of anchor points.) Also, the actions are a bit quirky within the bezier tool. For instance, some anchor points act as if they're split; other don't without any rhym or reason as I can tell. Also, sometimes instead of grabbing one anchor point, the standard tool grabs two points and the line in between - or worse yet, the anchor point arm (tangent?), creating a mess.

My suggestion is, if you have time, do a test project so you can get the hang of how it all works. Try each of the tools (though I found you can do everything with just the standard tool and the "Ctrl" key as needed). And beware of using the "undo" command - last night I got an error message - something about a critical or fatal error in the undo buffer. Needed to immediately save my veg. as a new file and restart Vegas - otherwise all my data would be lost. That was fun!

vitalforce wrote on 9/6/2007, 10:52 AM

Many times I have made a product suggestion to Sony that Vegas be equipped with a motion tracking function, making it competitive with FCS2 which has Motion 3 to do such things automatically.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/6/2007, 6:07 PM

there's no trick with using the curves (except the controls. If you want to select 1 point, click off the mask to unselect it then click on a point). It's just like photoshop/gimp. You'd just be doing all that in vegas instead of exporting frames, loading each one, masking & re-importing.