MEP & VPX6 with Pixelan SpiceMaster Pro - Part 1 - Introduction to animated masks for fades & transitions

browj2 wrote on 2/3/2015, 2:04 PM

The tutorial in the attached video is an introduction to SpiceMaster Pro for creating fantastic or subtle fades, transitions and picture-in-picture effects using animated organic and shape masks.

SpiceMaster Pro is a 32 bit and 64 bit plug-in that allows you to use their hundreds of animated masks and add edge, border, glow, bevel, and other effects to them. You can even use your own masks, give them some animation and smooth and modify the edges. The possibilities are almost infinite and you can combine these effects with others.

This tutorial shows the basics. I stop the animation and remove the effects to see what the masks really look like, and then apply the effects one by one to understand what they do and how to user them.

Please feel free to comment and to let me know whether or not this was worth my time and effort, what you liked, didn't like, and if you have any questions.

Note that I am in no way connected to Pixelan, except as a user.

Tutorial 09 - SpiceMaster Intro - Main part r6.wmv

Comments

joserobles1941 wrote on 4/16/2016, 9:58 PM

Thank you very much for this excellent tutorial.

I have been screen capturing tutorials and saving them, so I can watch them as much as I like. Everything has been fine until recently when trying to capture this tutorial, the voice is so much distorted after finishing recording that is very hard for me to understand what is being said. It is ok when I listen to it while being recorded but the trouble comes when I play it after finishing. I have tried every conceivable way to correct this, reading the manual over and over again and following their instructions to the letter, No luck. So if some one could give me their advise I will certainly appreciate it. My OS is Windows 8.1, with Intel i5 processor, graphic card HD 4600, 15 gb of Ram memory and Realtek sound card.

The problem is compounded due to the fact that English is not my native language !!!

The other option would be if the author of this tutorial could kindly give me a hand.

Thanks in advance for any help

Jose Robles

joserobles1941 wrote on 7/4/2016, 9:52 PM

Hello,

I finally solved the problem with the audio. It had to do with the settings .

Now I have one question. I have not been able to achieve the effect of seeing the two images at the same time on the screen, one fading out the other fading in. Could you please give an explanation of how this is done?

What I get, after applying the spice, is a rather abrupt change from one clip to the other. In the tutorial, at the end, all these changes are smooth, with one frame fading out slowly and smoothly, and the other coming in the same way.

Thanks so much for both the tutorial and your reply.

J. Robles

browj2 wrote on 7/6/2016, 10:42 AM

@José,

I am not sure what you have done. Can you post more information, like the spice used, the duration of the transition on the timeline, maybe a screen shot of the timeline showing the transition where the spice is applied, and the settings in SpiceMaster. Also, show the graph in SpiceMaster for Completion. To be smooth, the completion graph should be an inclined line going from 0 at the left to 100 at the right. You should be able to see the transition taking place in SpiceMaster.

Regards,

John

joserobles1941 wrote on 7/12/2016, 4:43 PM

Hi John,

First I want to apologize for not answering sooner: I was away for a few days.

Thank you very much for your reply. I am including screen shots of -first screenshot- what I want to achieve- both images shown simultaneously; second, what I get with arrow pointing up; and third, guess this is the right one, finally, with arrow pointing down. After examining very carefully the first one, I finally achieved what I wanted. What intrigues me is why is arrow pointing up instead of down. Also,m are these steps the only way of doing this? Since you ask me what spice did I use, I literally copied the one used on the example I used, Explosion 1. Could I use it with similar spices and obtain same results?

Any other comment would be very much appreciated.

Best regards,

J.Robles

browj2 wrote on 7/12/2016, 7:52 PM

Hi José,

Well done!

Now look at the beginning of the video again and you will see that the first method is to simply overlap the two videos on track 1, no need to put the second video on track 2. Your second and third examples would be better this way. This makes a transition and you can adjust the length of the transition that you want. Then drag the Spicemaster effect onto the transition of the 2 videos, then click or right-click on the A/B icon in the transition area and select Settings to open SpiceMaster. Again, this is the normal way to make a transition.

You can select any spice that you want; there are hundreds. Try playing with some of them to see what they do. If you find some that you like and have made some adjustments, save them in the SpiceMaster interface for future use. If there is one that you like a lot, set it as the default.

As for the arrow, it is down by default, but in your case you need it upwards to show the first video first and the second video second. It depends on the sequence that you want and the placement of the video clips using the method with video clips on separate tracks and the SpiceMaster object on another one.

For example, If you had placed the SpiceMaster effect between the two tracks, then the downward arrow would be the correct one. If you play with the Chromakey effect, you will start to understand better which way the arrow should be for a mask.

joserobles1941 wrote on 7/13/2016, 1:50 PM

Hi John,

Thanks again for your advise and comments.

All I have to do now is practice. I have read the PDF manual several times, watched many tutorials but there is always that little trick that only experienced people possess that makes things work.

Regards,

J. Robles

marko-m wrote on 1/19/2017, 2:52 PM

Thank you very much for this excellent tutorial.