Comments

rustier wrote on 1/17/2007, 2:50 PM
I can tell you how to add a dark spot and taylor it to the shape you want - I can tell you how to beam light through an object or text. I can tell you how to add shadow to text. Spot shadow is a little vague to me. Would you care to elaborate on what you would like to do?
Siby wrote on 1/19/2007, 7:47 PM
Please explain the first 2 things. I am more interested in learning how to beam a light to a human face and follow as the person moves.
rustier wrote on 1/20/2007, 7:08 PM
If you go to the Vaast web site Douglas Spotted Eagle (or Spot as he is known here) and other experts have a ton of tutorials to help you. Beaming light involves using the light rays fx - in the example I had in mind through a mask and compositing the thing together. Beaming a light to a persons face would be a compositing challenge because of the key framing involved in which the target may be moving which would mean both the light and the mask would have to move as well - unless the angle was fixed in which case track motion could be used. It would be a lot easier to simply put a highlight on your subject without the beam. Look at Spot's tutorial for a title flare for an introduction into using light rays.
k_sheridan wrote on 2/4/2007, 9:43 PM
Thanks for your responses. I forgot I had posted this up here. I'm going through the tutorials on vasst, looking for the right one. What I'm basically aiming to do is to freeze the video for a second or two, and lower the brightness of the entire frame except for a certain "spot," thus creating a highlighting effect around a focal point.
Paul Mead wrote on 2/5/2007, 7:12 AM
If that's all you want to do then the easiest thing would be to use a mask with the desired shape and make it transparent. Check the masking topic in the docs for examples.

(Personally, I don't understand why the built-in cookie cutter masks don't have an alpha control... worth a suggestion I guess)