Sure is, thanks a bunch John! Searched for over an hour yesterday but that one is better than most I found.

It doesn't have the solid face I was looking for, as in my example. But in some situations the transparent face might prove better in practice. I can use Art Filter to change the colour of the hands and numerals to suit the background of my video at that position. Although pure black eludes me. And maybe the numerals could be a bit bigger. So if you/anyone find any more candidates...

I also spent a couple of hours trying to make my own from scratch. But it's trickier than I'd expected!

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Any thoughts about my query re File > Export movie > Export as transition in my Double doors fade effect post please?

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Does anyone know how a video clip like that and many others are made please? It's easy enough to make a still image equivalent by adding the required transparent background in an image editor and saving it as a PNG or TGA. But a video?

Of course, with some care over colours it can be achieved by using Chroma key on the imported video. But how to do it without that extra step, as is the case with all these downloaded video clips like the clock, is frustrating me!

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Just received a very prompt and detailed reply from Ralf. It starts:

"I'm afraid this isn't something that has eluded you. It's simply something that isn't possible with our video software to the degree that you would require here."

Small wonder I couldn't do it then! Bit of a relief really, as I was beginning to feel really dense.

Later he says
"What you are essentially looking for is alpha channel support. It's basically transparency for motion video material and does, of course, play a role in the realm of stock video material and compositing. It is supported by certain video types/containers, some of which we support on export, but unfortunately we don't support the encoding of material with a defined alpha channel."

That's what I've been searching in vain for in the layers of Export settings, a reference to alpha channel!

But Ralf does suggest two other interesting compromise solutions. I could create the animation in a suitable program and opt for animated GIF as the intermediate format, as MEP does support transparency on GIFs. Or I could use the built in Xara program which has some animation capabilities. I'd bring in the XAR files, as MEP fully supports their transparency.

I may try the Xara approach, although curiosity would be my only serious motive. Mainly it seems we're limited to chroma-keying for this sort of thing. Disappointing, but no great hardship for the sort of videos I make.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

Here is a basic clock from 4 png images created in PSP  - clock body, dial, hour hand and minute hand.  The hands are animated with one KF at the beginning and 1 KF at the end..

hi res version here

Finished clock

John

Hi John,

Great stuff, that's nice work! Can you send me the 4 PNGs please so that I can customise the clock a bit, e.g. make it circular and show the extreme top/botom, add some numerals, etc? Or just use File > Backup > Copy project and media into folder, zip it up and either upload it or email it please.

Presumably you made exactly half of the hands transparent and rotated around their precise centres? The aligning and positioning must be critical to get such smooth animation? You're clearly more accomplished with PSP than me!

Be interesting to see if your PNGs show any checkerboard in my PSP8.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry,

This one is the same as John's first one. I used chroma key to make the clock white, alpha to make it black then color correction and size/position.  I have tried to make the clock transparent with no luck. I think the way to go is with animation.  I will try that next.

George

Hi George,

Thanks for clocking in to the discussion!

I'm OK with making transparent versions of that clock. But after many tests my preferred appearance is a solid white with black letters and hands, or vice versa. They give the most readable result on a variety of unknown backgrounds.

I'm stil struggling to achieve that. Trivial with a still image and would be easy if video had alpha channel support.

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

John, George:

Much appreciatel your help on this so far. But just in case there remains any confusion about my aim, here's a summary:

For any section of an MEP video I want to be able to drag in an animated clock for a few seconds. I'd be happy with a clock with either a black (or near black) face, with white (or near white) hands and numerals. Or vice versa. Or a yellowish one like that I prepared earlier, with those neat shadows on the face.

But I want the clock to look just like the original, with solid face and with the hands and numerals having no 'residual transparency' allowing the varying background to be seen behind. I don't want to have to customise it every time I use it.

Trivially easy for a still image clock but so far I've still not achieved it for a video clock. I'm still trying though as I'm sure it is possible and I suspect I'll kick myself when I've done it!

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry,

Here are two examples both from shutterstock

They have a few more. 

http://footage.shutterstock.com/search/?query=chroma+key+clock

George

ps I just realized that the one on the right won't meet your needs.

Hi Terry,

Here are two examples both from shutterstock

Thanks George I found those earlier but prices of £50 to £100 are too rich for me! That LH one for example is £54 (about $80). I should have added 'Free' to my spec.

Have you actually bought anything from them with alpha channel like that one? If so can you confirm that it does what I'm seeking please? Namely, being able to simply drag in the clock video clip and position and size it without the extra effort of also adding a mask.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry,

I have not purchased from shutterstock before but I have purchased from Dreamstime and Fotolia in the past.  The clock that I used in the youtube video, I downloaded as a watermarked file (free) if you sign up for an account (just need a email and password).  The clock was on a green screen background and the free download resolution was 596x336.  I did not use a mask, just dragged the clip in and used chroma key then size and position.

The image looks like this and the pricing for what you describe that you want to use it for would probably be the web version per below.  At $19 it probably is faster and easier to buy than to try to create it yourself.

If you don't want to bother signing up for an account, send me a PM with your email and I can just email the file to you.  The file is only 941KB

George

Hi Terry

Here are some more clocks (reasonable price)

http://www.freeloops.tv/browse-loops/?tag=clock

http://www.vjvault.com/view_video.php?viewkey=68cc2dd013f0e740300a&page=1&viewtype=basic&category=mr

http://videohive.net/item/time-lapse-clock-2-modern-clocks-alpha-loop/154437

I think the last one is very close to what you are looking for (plus the links lower down the page)

OT In answer to your question re the weekend in the related transparency topic I have been to the Waddington Air Show today got some super video particular of my two favourite planes - the Lancaster and Vulcan flying

Cheers

John

George, John:

Thanks both, I'll add those to my short list.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Terry,

When you figure it out, please post the solution here.

George

@ George

. . . When you figure it out, please post the solution here. . . .

Here are the images and track layout for the basic clock I made to demonstrate the technique - see previous post

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85852714/hour%20hand.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85852714/min%20hand.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85852714/clock%20face.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85852714/Clock%20tracks.jpg

In the example I made 1 frame = 1 min so the images were stretched to 4320 frames (28:20 secs)

The KF were set as follows:

Hour hand           time=0                  rotation                -90 deg

                              this is because the arrow images are horizontal

                              time=28:20         rotation                +270 deg             

                              ie 360 deg less the starting -90 deg

Minute hand      time=0                  rotation                -90 deg

                             time=28:20         rotation                +4230 deg

                             ie 12 * 360 deg less the starting -90 deg

This give 12 rotations of the minute hand to 1 rotation of the hour hand.

You must type these values into the KF rotation value boxes

I think the rest is self expanatory.  Substituting your own clock hands and face, you need to ensure that the rotation point of the hands is in the centre of the images used - it is easier if you use a square image.

Cheers

John

I've now worked out how to achieve the sort of clock I described in my summary on Saturday, namely a solid face of white or black and hands, numerals and first border of black or white. That provides consistent readability against a whole range of backgrounds when tucked away neatly into a corner.

There are two quite different approaches possible:

1.  The Alpha Channel Method

Download a suitable clock with transparency in its alpha channel. Its advantage is that it can then be sized and positioned with no need for any further work in MEP, neither masking nor chroma keying. Its disadvantage as I reported earlier is that this type cannot be made in MEP. So no DIY. And I've found no decent quality alpha channel clocks that are free. But happily a couple of the guys in the Video Help forum kindly made me one. It's still being tweaked but if anyone's interested then when it's finished I'll provide further details.

2. The Alpha Sandwich Method

That term 'alpha sandwich' is what I've always called the arrangement but the proper name is apparently 'Luma matte'. I've illustrated the steps below. Looks sort of obvious now.

This method has several advantages. Any sort of clock can be used, i.e. no need for alpha channel. So you can roll your own or edit/improve free downloads. And the large file sizes often encountered with those alpha channel files (GB not MB) are avoided.

Its only disadvantage is that a little extra work is involved in MEP to make it from the source file. Plus the trivial step of assigning it a chroma key colour after importing it.

Here's the clock file I used:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/Latest-1.mp4

Note that it has a black background, hence the need for the special measures described to use it as a PIP.

And here's an example of the sort of use I'm making of it:

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi John,

Here's your neat clock with a white body and a green background added as per my 'Alpha Sandwich Method', ready for use in any project. Looks good!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/John-White.mp4

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

Nice one - do not forget Carls naming convention so you do not have to apply the green chroma key effect - which I cannot find a reference to 

Cheers

John

Hi Terry

Nice one - do not forget Carls naming convention so you do not have to apply the green chroma key effect - which I cannot find a reference to 

 

Thanks John.

Re the naming convention, note that the rules for Alpha are much more tolerant than for Green, Blue, Black and White.

For those four colour keys the colour suffix must have an underscore separator. So Test_Green.jpg is OK (i.e. it will automatically be assigned chroma key geen on import) but Test-Green.jpg is not.

But for alpha no separator is needed. So these are all OK: Some_alpha.gif, TestingAlpha.jpg, My_alpha.bmp, ThisAlpha.tif, etc.

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I was hoping Carl would join this discussion, which I mentioned to him here five days ago
http://www.magix.info/uk/how-to-insert-with-an-alpha-the-channel.knowledge.1003083.html
as I reckon he has lots of experience with transparency.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK