Q: Mask moving fingers so they appear in front of horizontal panel
-
Jun 1, 2015 7:35 AMby David Bogie Chq-1,If you have footage of the fingers, it's easy. You draw a mask around the fingers and create a new keyframe for the masks for every frame. Tedious. But easy.
However, your screenshot seems to indicate the fingers pass behind the green card. You cannot remove the card to reveal the fingers.
Ten years ago a coworker asked if I could help her edit a soccer game in which her daughter scored a goal. Another parent stood up in front of the camera just as the kick was executed. My friend said, "You can edit that guy out, right? So I can see my girl kick the goal, right? I mean, it's digital, right?"
-
Jun 1, 2015 7:40 AMby silverscape23,Thanks David.
I did try using a mask and using anchor points and using a starting and ending keyframes but it did not work.
You are correct the fingers move behind the panel. I add the panel over the moving fingers. Is there some other way to do this? I know the affect is possible I have seen it done several times on the web but I suppose maybe they were using AE or Apple Motion?
Would Mocha Splice be an option?
Hahah and thanks for the soccer example. Actually, from what I have seen it is possible to use Splice to copy adjacent footage over the the annoying parent in front of you but this of course could affect other parts of the game
Anyhow, I remain convinced the above is possible, please advice if need to reorder the layers? I also thought about duplicating the finger clip, cropping it and putting that over the panel through some form of mask but I am not advanced to know the precise steps.
-
Jun 1, 2015 8:02 AMby silverscape23,Hi Luis, Yes, I have the footage of the fingers as described in my opening discussion. I added a panel / layer over the fingers and body. However, I wish to mask the fingers so they alone appear above or in front of the panel while the body remains below it. Since the 'panel' is a layer (e.g. cropped background) I added I see no reason why the effect is not possible?
-
Jun 1, 2015 8:26 AMby Luis Sequeira1,Yes, it is possible. Like David said, it requires manual labor with masks and keyframes.
You need to add masks to the green panel (not the fingers!) so that parts of it become invisible, letting the fingers, and only the fingers, show through - that is why it is a lot of work. Use the Draw Mask and adjust the points. It may be something like this:
-
Jun 1, 2015 8:47 AMby silverscape23,Thank you. I did try that approach at one time but I could not get the inversion to work. I will try again.
The one thing that confuses me a bit is where to add the first keyframe since it needs to match the movement of the fingers?
I am new to keyframing but my only options seem to be on 'fill holes' or 'edge distance'.
Further your screenshot looks different from mine...I don't have 'bezier' option....only refine key for sample color and edges.
Appreciate feedback.
-
Jun 1, 2015 9:06 AMby Paul Cuciti,I think you need to think in terms of three layers: 1) The person in the background 2) the green card in the middle ground 3) the masked hand as the foreground. I'm not sure if the hand is supposed to be magically unattached to the person, so you may be constrained by what it is supposed to do and how it is attached (or not) to the arm.
-
Jun 1, 2015 9:46 AMby Luis Sequeira1,silverscape23 wrote:
Thank you. I did try that approach at one time but I could not get the inversion to work. I will try again.
The one thing that confuses me a bit is where to add the first keyframe since it needs to match the movement of the fingers?
I am new to keyframing but my only options seem to be on 'fill holes' or 'edge distance'.
Further your screenshot looks different from mine...I don't have 'bezier' option....only refine key for sample color and edges.
Appreciate feedback.
Judging by what you are saying, I am guessing that you are using the Keyer effect (also known as green screen or chroma key). This is NOT what I am talking about. I am using a Draw Mask on the green generator to mask out the part that covers the fingers.
(the Keyer is meant to be used when a subject is filmed against a green BACKground, not to mask a green FOREground; it works by making the background transparent, based on color; this does not apply to your situation, as it would eliminate the whole green part)
-
Jun 1, 2015 9:45 AMby Adam Scoffield,From your last comment I'm guessing that you are trying to KEY the fingers against the green rectangle that you have added later as a separate layer, using the Keyer effect. Actually what you need to do is forget the green layer, add a Mask filter to the hand/fingers. Start at frame 1 of the shot and keep changing the shape of the mask to match the fingers/hand frame by frame. This will remove everything that is outside the mask.
adam
-
Jun 1, 2015 9:58 AMby silverscape23,Luis and Adam you are correct, I was mistakenly in keying area. My apologies.
Adam, I have tried your approach before and tried it again with the bezier tool in the draw mask area.
I started the shaping sequence at the point the fingers move behind the layered panel. I repeated the mask at each keyframe and it tracks the fingers.
However, I cannot get the fingers to appear above the green panel. All that happens is that the green panel stays there and the rest of the body clip vanishes except for the fingers which remain behind the panel and visible in the portion of the mask above the panel.
See screenshot:
I also tried clicking 'invert mask' and experimenting with 'compsite' original and opacity and nothing seems to work.
Any ideas?
-
Jun 1, 2015 10:02 AMby Adam Scoffield,so what you need to do is this: Have you main shot on the timeline. Next up out your green layer on top of this. Then Copy the main footage layer and put it above your green layer. Now mask the fingers in the layer on the top. This will MASK everything else out so you will see the green layer below it, you will also see the main layer below everything thing. Because the lowest layer and the top layer are the same, it will look like the green layer is between the hand and the person.
a
-
Jun 1, 2015 10:24 AMby Luis Sequeira1,You are masking the video clip that is below the green layer; so whatever you do to it, the green layer always hides whatever is there.
You have two solutions: 1) do as Adam said: put another copy of the video *above* the green layer and mask this copy; or 2) do as I said: mask the green layer instead of the video. Either one can work well, but maybe Adam's suggestion is better, as it works in the positive, whereas mine requires inverting the mask.
