Overlay Fireworks Footage - Over video background ??? VEGAS 16

Dexcon wrote on 10/28/2021, 11:54 PM

One possible solution is to render the fireworks footage to the Video for Windows format in Render As. After selecting the preferred render template, click on Customize Template and in the Video Format field select 'Uncompressed', then check the 'Render Alpha Channel' checkbox. Then hit the Render button. This will create an .avi uncompressed video event - the size of that file will be very large.

Import the new .avi event on to Vegas Pro's timeline on an upper track and then R click the video event and select Properties from the context menu. In Properties, go to the Media tab and in the Alpha Channel field, select one of the bottom three alpha selections. Anything that is black in the uncompressed .avi event should then be treated as alpha and not 'disappear' leaving just the non-black images showing over the lower video tracks. How successful it is will depend on how distinct the fireworks are, and you might need to preview the three alpha choices to see if one is better than the other.

An alternative would be to have a look BorisFX's free standalone Particle Illusion - https://borisfx.com/products/particle-illusion/ (and also get the free Emitters as well) - as it has lots of fireworks. With this program, you can create your own fireworks display, render it off and import the render into Vegas Pro. The render should already have the alpha channel enable.

Yelandkeil wrote on 10/29/2021, 5:38 AM

Why not trying Track-Compositing i.e. Hard Light:

Reyfox wrote on 10/29/2021, 6:34 AM

I second Particle Illusion standalone.....

Musicvid wrote on 10/29/2021, 10:20 AM

Could you post a sample?

Thomas-Monks wrote on 10/29/2021, 4:32 PM

OK FOLKS ! I didn't want to reply until I tried everything listed here. THANK YOU ! BTW This show will be all in 4K but send an HD to save space for your viewing. I just couldn't get Boris to make a setup I liked... regardless of resolution settings, it was really dinky image. That's is probably because I'm stupid...

Ok, I didn't know what composting was... All I knew was a 1970's TV station video switcher setting NON-ADDITIVE MIX. Guess what, that is now called COMPOSTING...lol ! So Yellandkeil, you are the winner ! You win a date with my sister. 2nd place is 2 dates :-(

Here is the result, base video wide shot (used a still for today's placeholder), with a photo of the honoree winning dog, then fireworks. I removed the audio explosions from my original because I felt they were annoying.

Having a revelation, I took about 7 minutes of full frame fireworks and picture-in-pictured them in 4 more layers.

Thanks again to all and for teaching me about composting. I am sure that Boris would have worked better but I have no time to try and figure it out. I'm in pre-production and the show begins Wednesday.

Former user wrote on 10/29/2021, 7:43 PM

I was going to suggest make sure you used fireworks footage from a locked off static camera. Your footage is handheld or the camera was moved, but in a fun sort of an event like this where it seems to be a live show announcing winners it really doesn't matter

Thomas-Monks wrote on 10/29/2021, 7:55 PM

Yep, it was on a tripod...shooting from a 4th floor pool deck at a hotel. Unfortunately there was a 14 story hotel midway between the fireworks and my position (1/4 mile away) so I did adjust somewhat to try and get a shot. I did notice that would be unacceptable normally... again, this is just to promote our dogs on Facebook, etc. I guess I can now throw away that Emmy acceptance speech :-(

john_dennis wrote on 10/30/2021, 2:05 AM

@Dexcon's Method

Dexcon wrote on 10/30/2021, 5:13 AM

@john_dennis ... that works quite well. I've used the .avi uncompressed process before but for distinct solid images against a black background, but with fireworks I was unsure how alpha channel processing would handle the glow emanating from the light burst particularly at the point where the glow 'dissolves' to black - would that result in jaggies or the like?

john_dennis wrote on 10/30/2021, 9:50 AM

@Dexcon

For a high motion scene it doesn't look any more pixelated than the main video to me.

Screenshot 300% Magnification

Thomas-Monks wrote on 10/30/2021, 9:25 PM

Hi everybody ! ==TAKE 2==

Ok, Here's the deal...Yellandkail's solution about composting worked great for me.

Special thanks to TODD-B who pointed out there was camera movement. It fully shamed me into something I should have done years ago... I painstakingly went through the original 20 minute footage and grabbed very short segments of only the best shots which I liked. In the end I rendered a 'perfectly clean' 2 minute fireworks reel, including 1 minute of grand finale in 4K :-) No Movement this time :-)

I had better dig that Emmy acceptance speech out of the trash now !

Thanks again to all ! Tom.