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Mask moving fingers so they appear in front of horizontal panel

See attached.

I have imported a clip which has a horizontal rectangle panel at the bottom of the screen.

When the person above the rectangle moves his hand and fingers down to the bottom of the screen, the fingers become obscured by the panel above it.

Is there a clearcut, simple masking technqiue to make the fingers show ABOVE the rectangle, creating the illusion that he is moving only that body part over the rectangle.

I am new to masking and its not clear to me whether its possible to track the movement of the fingers at the point it intersects and vanishes behind the panel.

Appreciate any guidance.

Thanks

Jason

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on May 30, 2015 6:24 PM

21 replies

Jun 1, 2015 10:41 AM in response to Adam Scoffield

Adam - great idea about the shadow!

Jun 1, 2015 10:44 AM in response to Adam Scoffield

oh and you;ll have to add a little blur too

Jun 1, 2015 11:05 AM in response to silverscape23

Let's try another approach. Why don't you tell us what you're trying to accomplish rather than having us tell you hoot do what we think you want?

If you key out the green card, you can leave the fingers but the green card will be filled by another layer, you won't see the guy behind the card. If you make the fingers, you can leave the card, but why do you need a green thing in the screen?

What is supposed to be on the card? Why is your actor holding the card?

Jun 1, 2015 12:34 PM in response to Adam Scoffield

Adam, thanks but its still not working.

Here is what I did:

1. Added main person with fingers moving clip as main clip to timeline

2. Added green layer above it

3. Duped (1) main clip and added that above the green layer

4. Drew a bezier mask at the frame thefinger the fingers began to move beneath the green later.

5. Moved the mask into correct position for each subsequent frame.

6. Attempted to play with composite, opacity, invert and other available sliders....

Result:

7. When I move playhead the mask does not seem to move with the fingers. Are you sure I don't need to add keyframes? The mask seems to adopt a stationary fixed position through the entire clip and does not seem to appear (and then track) fingers at the point I wish it.

8. The fingers remain hidden behind green layer, th

I guess I must have missed a step?

Thanks

Jason

Jun 1, 2015 1:50 PM in response to silverscape23

questions:

what layer are you applying the draw mask to? You picture doesn't show

any masks applied.

OF course you have to keyframe, it is the fundamental of animation. Go to frame 1

aLadd a keyframe to the Transforms parameter. Now every time you move a control

point it will add a keyframe.

NOt not sure why you can't see the fingers. Try something simple.

STart a new project. Ade two video clips. Any clips. put one on top of the other.

add a shape mask to the top layer. You should see the top clip in the

mmask and the lower clip outside it. When you've got the hang of that

go back to your fingers. Don't play with opacity or blending modes

or invert that won't do it.

HTh

adam

Jun 2, 2015 12:10 PM in response to silverscape23

(click pic to see it in action)

Sorry, couldn't resist to make jokes, but ....

record two clips, subject/background + fingers over some colored paper, done.

And, in the Effects tab, there's a superb, easy to customize Drop Shadow effect, no doubled tracks, no compo, no opacity needed....

(ooops, I shouldn't post pics, me at Campus II ....)

Mask moving fingers so they appear in front of horizontal panel