Shake/Motion & Action Essentials 2 texture trouble

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Shake/Motion & Action Essentials 2 texture trouble

I recently bough Action Essentials 2 by Video Copilot, and I'm very pleased with it! Except...

I'm having trouble getting the textures to blend correctly with my footage. According to Video Copilot I should use an Overlay, but this gives me a white "filter" where there should be nothing. I've tried other blendmodes as well, but It's getting me nowhere.

I've been through the entire "blendmode-list" in Motion with no luck. I'm new in Shake, so I really have no idea if I've been through the list here. I'm guessing I haven't! 🙂

Anyone?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jan 27, 2010 11:37 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 27, 2010 12:46 PM in response to M´Pete

This library consists of .png files with an alpha channel, right?
And you want to use it as a foreground?

The Over node should work fine, or if you're using the MultiLayer node
try the Over composite type (blendmode) for your foreground layer.

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Answer 2

M´Pete Author

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Jan 27, 2010 3:18 PM in response to stuckfootage

Some of the files are .png, and some are .jpg.

The .jpg files have the troubles I described above in both Motion and Shake (why??).
The .png files work in Motion. In Shake they work with the the MultiLayer node, but not the Over node...

???

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Answer 3

Jan 27, 2010 4:54 PM in response to M´Pete

M´Pete wrote:
The .jpg files have the troubles I described above in both Motion and Shake (why??).

My guess is that the jpegs are just preview files with no alpha channel:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/section-12.html

When you FileIn one of the jpegs, and double-click the node to see it in the Viewer,
what happens when you type "a" while the cursor is in the Viewer?
Do you see an alpha mask? Probably not.

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Answer 4

M´Pete Author

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Jan 28, 2010 12:41 AM in response to stuckfootage

You´re right - no alpha channel.
Hmm...

The whole point of the images is to blend them with other images... The one I`m using is the same as this one used in the following video (TC: 03:16).

http://www.videocopilot.net/products/action2/tutorials/compositing_breakdown/

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Answer 5

Jan 28, 2010 3:10 PM in response to M´Pete

M´Pete wrote:
in the following video (TC: 03:16).

http://www.videocopilot.net/products/action2/tutorials/compositing_breakdown/

Now I see what's going on! To figure it out, I did screenshots
of the background street scene and the the cracks, so I could copy the effect.

In both FileIn nodes, turn on AutoAlpha.
Attach the background scene FileIn to Multilayer input 1.
Attach the cracks jpg FileIn to Multilayer input 2.
Set L2's composite mode to Overlay.
Set L2_opacity to 0.911.

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Answer 6

M´Pete Author

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Jan 28, 2010 4:11 PM in response to stuckfootage

AutoAlpha to the rescue 🙂
Thanks you so much!

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Answer 7

M´Pete Author

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Jan 28, 2010 4:12 PM in response to M´Pete

Thank you so much + Thanks=
"Thanks you so much!"

🙂

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Answer 8

M´Pete Author

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Jan 29, 2010 7:23 AM in response to stuckfootage

One last problem...

The image now blends perfectly, but the border/edges of the image is visible as a black (or white) box. Not in a in-your-face kind of way, but it's still visible...
I tried making a mask and feathering it. That got rid of the border, but the feathering part became a darker area, and just made things worse. Without feathering the mask got the same kind of border as the image had before I masked it.

Any thoughts?

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Answer 9

Emsane

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Feb 17, 2010 6:16 PM in response to M´Pete

Pete did u get to fix that border/edges of the image problem? I'm having that same problem.

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Answer 10

M´Pete Author

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Apr 27, 2010 12:57 PM in response to Emsane

Hey.
I´ve found a workaround. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but at least it works!
Use the "template" provided by Stuckfootage on this thread, and then create a RotoShape on the MultiLayer itself. This means that the MultiLayer in reality works as an Over-node, consisting of my background movie and the image on top.
The MultiLayer will then go into L1 of a new MultiLayer, and work as the bottom layer of my comp.

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