V3 - animatte cut out of person

V2 - empty track

V1 - background image

How do I resize the fill and cutout on V3 without affecting V1?

Resize, 3D Warp, PIP all resize the composite of V3 over V1.

Submastering makes no difference. Trying to mixdown resulted in some error message (as well as not really being what I wanted to do).

Ended up outputting to tape and re-ingesting - not an elegant solution.

Thanks

Hi,

Do you have BCC on the system?  I use the BCC Make Alpha when I want to move the cutout, because it's got geometric controls built in, and they only affect the cutout layer.

If not, I'd try putting the Resize/3D Warp on V3 first, do the resize, and then nest that inside an Animatte to cut out around the subject on V3 (I'm not certain that'd work, but it's what I'd try first).

good luck,
Carl

I'll try the BCC plug in, thanks

As for resizing then animatting - I need to have a dynamic resize, so I'd have to track my resize..

TrevorA:

As for resizing then animatting - I need to have a dynamic resize, so I'd have to track my resize..

Yeah, it would suck, but that's the only way I can think to do it.

adios,
Carl

Well if I hadn't got error messages I would have mixed down the fill and key of the cutouts then create a matte key with them that I could then have resized. As it is I used tape as my mixdowns. Glad I wasn't in a tapeless environment today.

I'm just amazed that a finishing tool can't seemingly manipulate a cutout (like, say an ADO could ;-( ... but hopefully I'm wrong and someone will point out the error of my ways.

I think if you render the animate & then whilst in effect editor mode you can export a matte. Then reimport & use as a matte & fill, or apply the cut out to black & white titles & mix down to produce a clean matte & use the matte key to produce a dynamice resize.

Hmmm... a nice and simple solution ;-)

I've said goodbye to this project but would guess that exporting a matte may have resulted in the same error messages as the video mixdown, as well as being a single frame rather than an animating matte.

But I've been wrong before...

Thanks for your input

camoscato:

Hi,

Do you have BCC on the system?  I use the BCC Make Alpha when I want to move the cutout, because it's got geometric controls built in, and they only affect the cutout layer.

If not, I'd try putting the Resize/3D Warp on V3 first, do the resize, and then nest that inside an Animatte to cut out around the subject on V3 (I'm not certain that'd work, but it's what I'd try first).

good luck,
Carl

Carl,

What's your workflow/settings for using BCC Make Alpha.  I can't seen to get it to affect just the AniMatte.

Cheers in advance!

Ra-ey Saleh:

What's your workflow/settings for using BCC Make Alpha.  I can't seen to get it to affect just the AniMatte.

Hi,

You don't use it with the AniMatte, you use it instead of the AniMatte.  It does the same thing as AniMatte: you drop it on a clip, set the shape to custom, and draw the cut out shape.  After you've got the shape the way you want it, you have other parameters you can use to blur the edges or add a shadow or do DVE moves or whatever.

good luck,
Carl

Thanks Carl, I misunderstood your previous reply.

Now I have another problem.  When I make the Custom Shape I can't seem to 'close' it.  It just keeps on making more points.  I've searched the User Guide and can't seem to find the answer.

What am I missing?

Hi,

If I remember right, you close the shape by clicking on the first point again.  I'm not in front of a machine to check, but I'm pretty sure that's all it is.

good luck,

Carl

Not on my machine, but it could be a quirk on my system.

Oh well.

Coming in late on this but you could temporarily remove the clip on V1 (or replace it with a slug of black), then render/mixdown and then use the matte key effect on the mixdown?.

Hi Roger

This was a few weeks ago now - and I was having error codes coming up when I did the mixdowns - so I output to tape / altered what I was doing to make it easier.

If I'd had AfterFX on the system I would have used that, because the whole mixdown of key and fill, drop back in timeline, apply matt key and then resize is a major PITA anyway.

Trevor

Hi Trevor / Roger,

If it's of any consolation to  you - it just can't be done by using any of the Avid effects tools. This kind of effect, much loved by anyone used to performing the 'soft hand drawn matte / resize /move' type of thing - quick compositing for title sequences and graphics backgrounds, etc - just doesn't happen, because of the fundamental inability to promote the animatte effect to 3D. I'd love to hear of a realistic solution to this problem without the use of mixdowns, export/imports, etc. The export matte function only exports a still frame of the matte shape. This feature is a glaring omission in the tool set (especially in Symphony) particularly when competing systems (Smoke, etc, even as far back as EditBox) do it in a second.

Regards, Ian.

BTW, it is almost as big as an omission as being unable to colour correct a foreground layer in Spectramatte without affecting the keying ...DOH!