what happens if the subject moves in the vdeo clip? doesn't that make it almost impossible?

Hi,

No, it just means more work. In Xara, as you advance the animation, the underlying video changes and you have to stretch and move the mask around to follow. The default is 0.5 seconds and the intervening frames will be created by tweening in Xara. However, if the movement is not fluid, then you have to tighten the interval until your subject stays within the mask. This can be as complicated as every frame, which means a lot of work. This is how it is done in almost every program, although I think that Hitfilm is now having some success in getting the mask to follow the subject when there is a lot of contrast, but I could be mistaken.

The following video shows the process of making an object and changing it as the video advances. In your case, this would be a white object as a mask. You would have to give it some transparency to see the image below that you are tracing around, and then remove the transparency from the mask in all frames at the end.

John CB

BTW, you can get Xara P&GD for 20$ from Humble Bundle for the next week.

i've recently been colorizing, and then re-colouring/editing approx 170 old photos.

what i'd like to do (if possible) is combine the original B&Ws with the new colour images into one clip - ie a "before" and "after" for each image. my idea is this.

■ B&W images on video track 1 - duration of each image = 1 second
■ colour images on video track 2 - duration of each image = 4 seconds

the problem (for me) is globally inserting 4 second gap after each image on track 1 and a 1 second gap after each image on track 2.
can this be done (easily) and, if so, how?

thanks

@martin-brennan

Hi,

I don't know a way of doing that globally.

Why do you want them on separate tracks?

EDIT: Ok, I see the problem. The default is either 1 second or 4 seconds. I don't have a solution. Maybe someone else does. I'll think about it.

John CB

@martin-brennan

Hi Martin.

Well, for whatever is on track one, make them five seconds each, then the 4 second clips on track 2 will cover them for the first four seconds only allowing a one second show through.

At least then the second track clips can be aligned with the clip above manually. Not ideal but may save some time.

Ray.

@CubeAce yep, i am one step ahead of you there. that's what i have been doing.

but, after having done 30 - with another 140 to go, am wondering if there is a better/faster way.

thanks anyway

@martin-brennan

Hi

Are the B&W images as scanned or have they been touched up and corrected for fading, liquid spills, aging etc?

John EB

@martin-brennan

Hmmm.

UPDATED:

How about this. Instead of an actual photo, use a dummy, like a colour swatch. Put a 5 second image on track 1, a 4 second image on track 2, adjusted to be at the end of the object on track 1. Select both, Ctrl+drag to the right and drop when it snaps into place. Select the 4 objects, Ctrl+drag to the right and drop when it snaps into place. You now have 8 objects. Select all 8, repeat, now 16, then 32, then 64.

When you have enough, right click on the import button and change it to Exchange - shortcut 4. Select the first image on track 1, import the B&W photo from the media pool and it will replace the image on track 1. Select the image on track, import the same photo but Coloured and it will replace the image on track 2. Select the next image...repeat.

You don't need to have the images on track 1 as 1 second because they will be hidden by the image on track 2 for 4 seconds.

John CB

@johnebaker B&W = all as they were originally scanned.

@browj2 that sounds useful, will give that a go. thanks

MEP Premium ver: 19.0.1.18 (have stopped upgrading due to system capability)

Hi, wondering if anyone knows where I can obtain additional transition templates? I'm mainly looking for specific shapes, like animals, transport etc.

Also interested to know how to install/add any i can acquire.

thanks

@martin-brennan

Hi

It is possible to make your own from suitable video clips and still images, however can you give an example of how you want the transition to progress from one image to the next?

John EB

what happens if the subject moves in the vdeo clip? doesn't that make it almost impossible?

Magix's Vegas team has developed similar functions. I believe that they may be transplanted to MMS and VPX in the future.

@martin-brennan

Hi

It is possible to make your own from suitable video clips and still images, however can you give an example of how you want the transition to progress from one image to the next?

John EB

i was hoping it was possible to (say) have a fox's head shape as a transition so that "clip 1" has the fox shape appear central, gradually getting larger to reveal "clip 2" - around 2-3 secs transition time

what happens if the subject moves in the vdeo clip? doesn't that make it almost impossible?

Magix's Vegas team has developed similar functions. I believe that they may be transplanted to MMS and VPX in the future.

those look interesting, thanks

@martin-brennan Hi, I very much doubt those will make it to MMS or VPX,

Z Depth is AI, It needs to be added as a Custom compositing fx & MMS doesn't do compositing, it might get included one day but I'm not sure if MMS can do what the fx needs, MMS uses black & white masks, they have added a couple of AI fxs recently so we'll see.

Smart Mask 2.0 I'm 99.999% sure won't get added. The orig Smart mask (version 1) was a flop, 2yrs of false advertising & broken promises, it never worked & was dropped to be replaced with Smart Mask 2.0.

Smart Mask 2.0 doesn't take long to set up, the controls are confusing, but creating a mask can take a long time, last time I tried it it took about 9mins to create an 8sec mask & even then it was a bit rubbish, render takes just as long, Others with lesser machines reported hrs to create & render, (Specs of my PC are in my Signature).

After a mask is create with Smart Mask 2.0 ('Complete Masking' in the video) there are no additional masks (Bezier masks) created so adjustment is impossible. Bezier masks is something MMS doesn't do so how they would get around that I don't know & don't think will happen.

At the moment Smart Mask 2.0 is in it's infancy stage, it shouldn't have been released & def shouldn't be advertised as it is. It's better than the orig Smart Mask but If they don't make improvements I suspect it will go the same way & get replaced in a yr or two with 'Smart Mask 3.0' ,

@Gid

Hi Gid,

MMS doesn't do compositing

I don't want to start a whole thing about this, but MMS does do compositing and has for as long as I remember. It just doesn't natively have blend modes like Vegas, only a Mix using video level under Chromakey, or adjusting transparency, or using masks to create a composite.

From the Vegas 18 manual:

Compositing is the process of mixing video tracks to create a single layered output. You can use compositing in conjunction with masks to cover portions  of video or to limit the effects of a filter. Masks are frequently based  on dark versus light areas, specific colors, or an alpha channel. Click the Parent Composite  Mode or Compositing  Mode button in the track header and choose a mode from the menu  to determine how the transparency in a video track is generated. Since  lower tracks show through higher tracks, it is the compositing mode of  the higher track that determines how much of the lower track shows though.  The compositing mode of the lowest video track adjusts its transparency  against the background.

Using a mask between 2 videos/photos creates a composite. Even a crossfade is a composite.

To get blend modes, one can use Pixelan DissolveMaster as either a transition or between 2 video clips as shown below:

Here are the blend parameters available along with a lot more in DissolveMaster. Note the blend modes.

I mentioned Xara in my first post above in which one can create an animated mask and use it in MMS. Xara has all of the drawing tools needed except that they never upgraded the program to allow using the Magnetic Lasso, unfortunately. Otherwise one could follow the outline much quicker. And, they could have upgraded the Lasso to work AI style. They had a big head start but did not develop the tools further.

@martin-brennan

i was hoping it was possible to (say) have a fox's head shape as a transition so that "clip 1" has the fox shape appear central, gradually getting larger to reveal "clip 2" - around 2-3 secs transition time

As has been pointed out, you are best to do this yourself using the image that you want as the transition. Most of the tools are available in MMS to do this.

There is a transition plugin called Adorage from proDAD that does something like what you want (replace their images with yours), but you can do the same thing manually and probably with more control in MMS.

Here is a quick and dirty video of a fox head transition:

And the setup in MMS:

The fox head image is on track 3. I animated the fox head to zoom in using Size/Position/Rotation - keyframing the size.

John CB

@martin-brennan

Hi

. . . . was hoping it was possible to (say) have a fox's head shape as a transition so that "clip 1" has the fox shape appear central, gradually getting larger to reveal "clip 2" - around 2-3 secs transition time . . . .

Here is my interpretation of your requirement

Timeline for both is:

I use a png image with transparent background, will also work with black/white adjusting the Alpha direction arrow for the correct effect.

There are thousands of free and paid for images on the Internet, get the highest resolution you can to avoid jaggies as the image is zoomed in.

HTH

John EB

@browj2 Yes but then you're just being pedantic, just lowering the opacity of a clip is compositing but you know I know that & you know that isn't what I meant, but if you don't read it again after you've got off your high horse you'll see I wrote 'Z Depth is AI, It needs to be added as a Custom compositing fx', Z Depth can be applied directly to a clip on the timeline but all it does is cut out the subject, to achieve what is shown in the video posted it needs to be applied as a Custom composite, it needs to be able to see & read the track below, this is something MMS doesn't do.

Then you go into plugins, ie. not native to MMS & even then all they're doing is affecting the blend mode of that one clip/s

--------

I find it slightly amusing & a little bit ironic you used the Vegas 18 manual as an example, everything in that quote refers to the compositing of one track, the blend modes. Just like compositing in MMS only to achieve the majority of those compositing options that are in Vegas you needed to start inc plugins to achieve them.

@Gid

You said:

MMS doesn't do compositing

It does. I used the definition from Vegas to show you the definition of compositing and that is what can be done in MMS.

John CB

@browj2 Yep riding your high horse, I know the definition of compositing & you're cherry picking to be pedantic

I think compositing can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense.
In a broad sense, @browj2 is right. In a narrow sense, @Gid is right.