Masking an effect

MrOsterman wrote on 5/22/2020, 10:14 AM

I'm using Movie Edit Pro.

My layers are as follows:

1) Video of my son holding a plastic tube.

2) Video of a pulsating lightsaber.

What I want to is come up with a way so that when he spins the light saber infront of himself **edit to add** while his back is to me, there is some mask barrier that hides the light saber (since he is between the camera and the glowing blade). My current solution is to simply shrink down the saber so that only covers the tube visible in the frame. However I feel like there should be a better option, either some form of under or over mask that I can use to provide boundaries for the saber layer.

Now I do know that I can try to move the "section" effect around to clip things out but my hestitation there is that when I redefine the section, it ALSO stretches the saber video to match the newly defined section and creates a lot more work for me in the post production process of animating the saber effect.

Thoughts?

Comments

browj2 wrote on 5/23/2020, 12:30 PM

@MrOsterman

Hi,

Can you give us a screen shot or two? I'm having trouble visualizing what you are trying to do.

John CB

johnebaker wrote on 5/23/2020, 12:45 PM

@MrOsterman

Having read your comment a couple of times using a mask is going to be difficult to make/use without using additional software.

The technique normally used for this sort of effect is 'green screen' or the correct name Chromakey - in this case the cardboard tube would be painted a bright colour that is not in the scene.

A Chromakey effect would be applied which makes the tube transparent and the sabre light effect which would be placed on the timeline to be behind the video of your son would be revealed.

Using this technique there i no need for masking to hide the sabre light as it passed behind your son.

HTH

John EB

MrOsterman wrote on 5/23/2020, 3:22 PM

That's what I was afraid of.

Here's a still from the project:

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1veLwGsDNTjD-Noj-j190yrxvxJXCoh1Kztuago41Slw/edit?usp=sharing

You can see that Xander's head blocks Kaylee's sword. Now right now I've just shortened the glow from the sword. What I had tried to do is to adjust the "Section" effect to create a clear crisp border in the frame that way. The problem with that method is that it changes lots of other keyframing things along the way and it feels like a pain.

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1_jIacNCqEpL13NcPxto9_axjVMpu8B42U5gc9E29gcE/edit?usp=sharing

This shows the timeline and you can see the layers. I've got the base video at the bottom, then two light sabers.

I guess I'm asking if there's an easier way than using the sectioning to create a dead zone in the saber layer when it passes "behind" another object. But if there's not, there's not. Just hate to miss out on an easy way.

I mean I got here because I started to do this editing work with "that other software" and I just couldn't figure out how it handled timelines and composite shots and really just preferred the Magix interface.