Need easy way to animate water in part of pic

Tech Diver wrote on 4/5/2006, 8:47 AM

I have a still-photo of a sunset over the ocean water. The upper 2/3 of the image is sky, while the lower 1/3 is water.

I'm hoping some of you know of an EASY way to get "moving water" on just the lower region of the image. I was able to successfully figure this out, but it took three tracks and seems rather convoluted:

Track 1: A Color Gradient (from Media Generator tab). This acts as a mask to allow the upper region (sky) to pass through and makes the lower region transparent. This track's compositing mode is set to Multiply, and the Mask Generator effect is applied to the track (not the clip).

Track 2: The still-photo to which the filter from track 1 is applied. This is a child track of track 1.

Track 3: The identical still-photo as in track 2, but with the Wave video FX applied to the ENTIRE image. Keyframes are used to animate the effect so the water "moves".

In summary, there is an entirely animated wavy background upon which is layered a non-animated sky. This makes it look like only the water is animated.

Can this be done in a simpler fashion?

Comments

ClipMan wrote on 4/5/2006, 8:58 AM

Sqirlz Water Reflections ... xiberpix.com

Tech Diver wrote on 4/5/2006, 10:00 AM

Thanks ClipMan, I can definitely use those tools. However, I am still looking for a solution within Vegas.

My question is really a more general issue of how to apply an effect to only a subset of the scene.

Spot|DSE wrote on 4/5/2006, 10:50 AM

Easily done using Height Mapping. You'll just mask the area you want to be "rippling" or moving.
here is a tutorial on using Height Maps to make static images move.
Use generated media, or use Roger Magnusson's "water" veg as a nested veg to control the movement.
HTH

Marco. wrote on 4/5/2006, 11:00 AM

Yeah, I have recently done a water animation solely in Vegas using a keyframed noise texture and height mapping.

Marco

Tech Diver wrote on 4/6/2006, 6:46 AM

I have just discovered what I was looking for. Namely, the Bezier Mask in the Pan/Crop tool. I can now animate the water in my sunset-by-the-beach photo by using just two tracks:

Track 1: The photo with a Bezier mask to which the Wave video FX is applied to animate only the water.

Track 2: The same photo but not altered, composited to show the rest of the scene.

Now, if someone could figure out how to do this using just ONE track...

For me, discovering the Bezier Mask in the Pan/Crop tool has opened the door to near-endless possibilities.