need a guru here

Tyler.Durden wrote on 4/7/2003, 11:11 AM

Hi Jill,

I'm no guru.... more like an urug... ;^)

If the background is still, you might try the difference-squared compositing mode...

Can you describe in more detail?

MPH

jilleegator wrote on 4/7/2003, 11:30 AM

thank you for the reply.. let's see. well its one clip in a long line of clips where I don't want viewer to see what's in the background (a bunch of yucky meat) lol. anyways. I need the viewers to see the subject (which is a girl laughing) how do I keep one while masking the other? I need to do this to that one clip but not the whole line of clips. any thoughts?

Grazie wrote on 4/7/2003, 11:36 AM

Any chance you post a small clip on the Chienworks site - I mean small, maybe 5 seconds - don't forget we can "pause" our viewers to get the picture - yeah?

Tyler.Durden wrote on 4/7/2003, 11:40 AM

Hi,

"Yucky meat... that's redundant isn't it?".....(he said, while eating veggie pizza and drinking a protein-smoothie)

If the camera is still, but the subject moves, difference squared can isolate just the moving elements. (It requires the background be available without the motion.)

If the subject is not moving that much within the frame, you might be able to generate a soft mask to darken the background.

I would open another instance of Vegas to work with just that shot, and do some experiments.

Any chance you could save a still-frame and send it to vegaschains at yahoo dot com?

mph

Grazie wrote on 4/7/2003, 11:43 AM

MArty "Any chance you could save a still-frame and send it to vegaschains at yahoo dot com?2 WHere he - again?

I just asked for the same up on Chienworks - yeah?

TorS wrote on 4/7/2003, 11:49 AM

Quick and dirty solution:
Copy the event to another track. On the upper, add Cookie Cutter FX and create an oval shape (preset), select cut away all but selection, and adjust the size and feather so your laughing girl comes across nicely. (Solo the track when you do this.) "Unsolo" the track and pull down the opacity control of the lower copy.
You can move the cookie shape around with keyframes if you must, but in many cases the effect will then draw too much attention to itself. Better to make the shape big enough to contain (most of) the moves.
Tor

Tyler.Durden wrote on 4/7/2003, 12:04 PM

Hi G, I rekon we wuz typing at the same time...

Cheerz, MPH

jilleegator wrote on 4/7/2003, 12:17 PM

hey guys. thank you all so much for your attention to my very annoying issue. Not at all sure how to post a clip. would be more than willing to do that. I'll definitely try the extra track with cookie cutter solution as well.

TorS wrote on 4/7/2003, 4:43 PM

I have put up a very short, very silent clip of my daughter Birgit given the Cookie Cutter treatment I described above. It's about 500 kB - in wmv format.
Birgit
You want to right-click the link and choose download or whatever.
Tor

jilleegator wrote on 4/8/2003, 9:28 AM

thank you Tor. it worked the way you described but I feel it still shows too much of that darn background. not sure what I"ll do from here. btw. your daughter is lovely.

Tyler.Durden wrote on 4/8/2003, 10:20 AM

Hi Jill,

You might save a snapshot from the timeline, open it in a graphics app and use it to create a soft mask. It should look like a silhouette (white on black) of the subject. That might get you closer to the subject than the cookie-cutter.

You could even use keyframing to alter it in the timeline if the subject moves a bit.

HTH, MPH

BillyBoy wrote on 4/8/2003, 1:38 PM

You don't want the background of "meat" at all?

If not, you can take it a couple steps further. Use the cookie cutter and use the oval option to surround your subject. Resize as best you can. You may find that increasing the border size a lot at first helps you. Once you got the size right, set the border to zero.

Now for a little magic... If you have Photoshop or another graphic application that can make a transparent mask.

1. Drop the brightness/contrast FX filter on the top track. To start with, you'll still see the background. Move the brightness slider all the way to the left. Your background should now be totally black, with the cookie cutter oval of your subject still showing.

2. Add another new track ABOVE the overlay track.

3. In Photoshop pick a image you prefer for the background. Add a new layer. Now using the marquee tool (as a oval), select an area the same size as your cookie-cutter window was. This will take a little trial and error to get the size right.

4. Using the paint bucket, fill this oval with a color not in your picture.

5. Merge Visible.

6. Select/Color Range, click the eyedropper in the oval. This should put the marching ants around the oval, as long as you use a strong color not in you image.

6. Select/Inverse/Copy

7. File/New/OK/Paste

8. You now should have a background image with a transparant oval cutout, showing a a checkboard black and white. Save as a PSD file.

9. Drop this PSD file on the 3rd (top most track) in Vegas. Expand out on timeline to go length of scene with cookie cutter.

You now should have any background image you want, with a transparant "hole" that the subject in the forward fills. For best effect if your forground subject moves you'll need to move/size the cookie cutter window to match using keyframes.