"Seamless" masks broken in VP 13 (B453)?

entilza72 wrote on 3/8/2016, 6:19 AM
Hi team,

I recently revisited an old VP 12 project in VP 13, and have come to the conclusion that "seamless" masking is broken in VP13 for VP12 projects, at least for VP13 build 453 in Win 10. Has anyone else experienced this?

What do I mean by seamless masks?:

I have a series of masks applied in shots that are covering up background movement (eg, cars moving through frame that need to be erased). The masked area shows to an identical shot where the same area is clear of cars (in fact, its the same shot, just played a few seconds before or after). The masks are edged as either "in", "out", or "in/out" as needed, and all have an edge feather of 1-2%.

Previously in VP12 this technique resulted in an imperceptible edge and an "invisible" matte floating over the top of the content I am covering.

Now in VP13, I get extremely harsh (but blurred) matte edges, that are dark on the outside and light on the inside.

Cropped Example here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zvy1go7k8lwhgfk/broken.jpg?dl=0

Extra Info: Because of the originating camera format (Arri Alexa) and ending format (DCP), this project previously existed as a 32 bit floating point pixel format. But changing it to 8 bit only makes the edges harsher.

Any suggestions for tests, or insight, would be appreciated.

Kind regards,
Ent.

Comments

farss wrote on 3/8/2016, 1:29 PM
For soft edged masks and compositing in general to work correctly the video pipeline has to have a concept of what is black (0) and white (1) for the maths to make sense.
Vegas 13 implements the AES 32bit float pipeline. The Input Device Transform should map the camera footage via a LUT to some set of values which has a concept of what is black and what is white but I'm not certain of this in general and how Vegas 13 does it in particular. Over the years I've noticed many issue such as yours with Vegas can compositing and that was only in 8 bit where video levels were pretty consistently wrong.

My only suggestion in your case would be to check if the correct IDT is being applied in your Vegas 13 project.

Bob.
entilza72 wrote on 3/9/2016, 2:13 AM
Hi Bob - thanks for taking the time to reply (you've always been a forum hero like that!)

Trying to sound things out here, to ensure we're on the same track:

If I am not mistaken, the camera LUTs and AES space were introduced in 12? The Media colour space is set to Arri Alexa Log C. Are we taking about the same thing? If so, this wasn't an issue when it was introduced in v12. Suddenly it is in 13.

On a related note, I'm operating on incredibly flawed logic when I make the following assertion: Even if I have the colour space wrong (which I'm confident I don't), I am compositing the same clip onto itself. As long as both tracks and clips are identical in content and meta data (which they are), I would expect simple masking to be invisible. It should not be darkening or lightening areas around the mask. I understand that's a flawed assertion, but I'd expect it to mostly hold true. I've tried different colour spaces, and all have some form of dark ring.

I've resolved I won't be able to fix this, and am taking an undesirable way out: using "master" footage of a previous Vegas12 version to play over the top of the problem areas. Depending on suggestions from you, I'll raise this with support.

Cheers,
Ent.
entilza72 wrote on 3/9/2016, 3:32 AM
UPDATE - It's official, we have a mystery:

Disclaimer: I have not gone insane! :-)

I've restored a copy of the project's EDL I did under Vegas 12, and a copy of Vegas 12. Suddenly, the same masking issue exists inside Vegas 12. Yet I have renders from that time that show it DID NOT exist back then.

VP12 was the introduction of AES space, so I went back to the first edit of the project, which was on Vegas 11, and lo, the SAME masking issue now exists there too when viewed inside Vegas. Yet like the Vegas 12 copy, I ALSO have very early renders from the Vegas 11 days that also do not show the same artifacts.

So - if the problem didn't exist in Vegas 11 and 12 a few years ago, but suddenly does today, what has changed?

Windows 10 has been introduced. Previously I was Win 7.

I don't understand it, but it seems somehow that windows 10 is impacting the composting outcome on all versions of Vegas.

Is this even possible? I know Win 10 has been playing havoc with the lights and darks on my monitors since the upgrade from 7 to 10 when doing things like viewing photos full screen (haven't had the chance to look into this).

Any thoughts/ideas/tests greatly appreciated.

Ent.
VidMus wrote on 3/9/2016, 3:58 AM
I was having that problem and I applied a tiny amount of 'feather' to it and then it was fine.
entilza72 wrote on 3/9/2016, 6:31 AM
Vidmus - I know what you mean, and I would expect some form of visible outline without a feather. But in this case, I would suggest we have had two different problems: the larger the feather in my case, the thicker the black line. (the black line IS the feather). The image I linked is about a 1.5% feather, using the IN/OUT option.
Former user wrote on 3/9/2016, 10:34 AM
I can recreate that look if I have a drop shadow enabled on the track that has the mask.

Otherwise, that is strange.