Need info on multiply or good tutorial on same

bartman wrote on 12/28/2008, 9:20 AM
VMS P ver 8

I have a special effect clip shot on a white background that I want to put overtop the main video. The SFX clip is on the track above the main video.

I set the compositing mode on the SFX track to Multiply which appears to put it on top of the main video underneath. No problems there.

The two problems that are driving me crazy though are these:

1) I have to reposition the SFX clip to line it up with the main video underneath. Easily done, but the preview window shows only black in the spots the SFX clip has been moved away from. For example, I had to slide the SFX clip to the right side of the frame so the preview is showing me the left side of the frame as back only.

2) If I click on any OTHER part of the timeline I only get black in the preview window.

From what I have read neither of these problems should be a problem in VMS. It is just a simple compositing. Either I am missing an important element to making this work or VMS is flat out the wrong editor to be using to do something like this.

I have tired envelopes and opacity, solo tracks, parent/child combinations and I cannot get this working. Am I beating a dead horse expecting VMS to do something this simple?

Any advice or pointing me to some tutorial on this would be appreciate.

Thanks.

Comments

bartman wrote on 12/28/2008, 12:07 PM
I have solved most of the problem, but now another one appears.

What I had to do to get rid of the black was use the motion tracking on the SFX track which I left set to multiply, and move the frame outside of the visible area then move it back into place where I needed it. I thought this was the answer, but what happens now is there is a black outline all around the "frame" that the SFX is in. Because I needed to move that SFX clip around to line it up properly, the edge is now visible.

How do I remove this edge? Why is there an edge to begin with? There was no edge on the SFX clip, just a pure white background. Having an edge visible rather defeats the purpose of motion tracking does it not? The shot is unusable if the effect is going to be surrounded by an outline box.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.