MEP2014 help me understand masks !

ovisopa wrote on 5/28/2015, 2:12 PM

Hello guys,

is there anyone around to give me some help, I don't know If I missunderstood the ussage of mask or is just imposibble to hide some areas of a movieclip?

Please check out the image bellow, you can see I have a PNG file with a map in a shape of the county, I made a black/white image with the entire background black and the shape of the county white, thinking if I add it as a mask to that map, I than can enlarge the map and still have it displayed in the same area, but it doesn't hide the image under the black area.

Please, can someone tell me if I can HIDE some areas of n image or a movieclip like I was thinking ? Just add a black/white image as Mask effects and the image under the black color should dissapear, and the content that is placed above the selected video can be displayed. Is it possible ?

I made another example maybe it's more clear, I want to have just the blue circle there and the white part to be transparent, is it possible ?

Thank you.

Comments

browj2 wrote on 5/28/2015, 3:16 PM

Hi,

Take a look at some of the tutorials under the tutorials tab about masks. There are several.

If you make a png file with a transparent background and don't give it a chromakey effect, you will see whatever is not transparent plus whatever is below the track. By below, I mean whatever is on track 1 if the png is on track 2.

If you use a b/w mask with the alpha chromakey effect, you would normally place it between two images/videos, i.e., place the mask on track 2. Whatever is black in the mask will show track 1 material; white will block track 1 and show track 3 material. You can invert the mask by clicking on the arrow.

ovisopa wrote on 5/28/2015, 11:53 PM

Thank you browj2, but I can't make it hide (transparent) the content that is bellow the mask black areas, or white if I inverted the mask, somehow the mask is applied only to coloor effects, but not for enlarging the image.

Please check the video bellow , you can see the area masked remain tinted as green (original map color) but the reast of the area is not hidden but shown with the color changed to yellow. I want the yellow part to be transparent while enlarging the image.

Herre is a short explanation of what I wanted to achive :

And here you can download the project files (7Mb).

Any help is highly appreciated ! Thank you.

browj2 wrote on 5/29/2015, 9:30 AM

Hi,

I'm travelling and don't have my computer, so I can't test it out. I can't download the zip file on my tablet either.

From what I can see, you have applied a mask to the object on track 2, using the popdown on the effect. This mask only affects effects applied to the linked track, as you can see under the keyframe area. The effects that are turned on using the little mask icon are shown or not shown by the b/w parts of the mask.

When you move or resize the image on track 2, the mask follows along because it is linked to the object. From what I understand, you want to increase the size of the object on track 2, but keep the mask the same size. To do this, the mask should be imported into track 3 like any other object, sized and positioned and then given the chromakey alpha effect. Do not use the "load mask" selection from the menu. The black part of the mask will show what is on the track below it, track 2, and the white part will show track 4. As the object on track 2 increases in size, you will only see the part that is covered by the black part of the mask which is what you want, I think.

Since your object on track 2 has some transparency, you will see through somewhat to track 1, but only within the black part of the mask.

ovisopa wrote on 5/30/2015, 1:41 PM

Thank you browj2, the trick was to NOT load the mask through pop down menu "LOAD MASK", but to drag and drop it like any other object, I already named the mask file with xxx_alpha.jpg and the chroma key was automatically applied, I didn't need to do anything else .. it made exacly what I was trying to do!

Thank you again!

I won't change the rendered project but it will be very helpfull for next projects, I just finished a short movie this morning .. proudly made with Magix :)

terrypin wrote on 6/2/2015, 9:12 AM

Great video!

wabu wrote on 6/2/2015, 10:04 AM

I got some ideas more - well done :-)