Hi

This is the English speaking forum - for the Dutch forum change your language setting in your profile, settings, language settings option.

Rotoscoping is not available in Movie Edit Pro or Video Pro X. You would need a compatible plugin for this.

John EB

Wel that is very odd bc I would swear I filled it in, in the dutch speaking forum.

Especially too, bc all the buttons on this page are in Dutch, as the screenshot below shows.

And no where do I see this is the english forum. So either it is me,... or there is a little bug somewhere?

Thanks for answering the question.

I looked into a plugin for this for Video Deluxe. But could not find an appropriate website besides one with only very generic and simple plugins that are kinda already in VD anyway.

Hi

When you are viewing this topic, what is the URL in the address bar at the top - mine is

https://www.magix.info/uk/forum/rotoscope-optie-2-vragen--1188468/#ca1313870

These are the language settings I have in my profile

I too did not find a plug-in for Rotoscoping.

HTH

John EB

Mine is https://www.magix.info/nl/forum/rotoscope-optie-2-vragen... et cetera

So NL not UK.

So if this is the english forum... I do think there is a little bug somewhere.

Hi

Interesting and confusing - if I click your link this is what I get

To check I also included the NL forum in my settings and also got the 404 not found page page.

John EB

Hi

It depends on what you wish to do. Rotoscoping is quite a general description for different methods of combining or overlaying live action with a different/ altered background and there are various tools available within Magix like -

the creation of Moving masks, Alpha key masks, Chroma key, Mask generators in MEP/VDL 2017 (and integrated sister programs like Xara Photo &Graphics Designer). The Add / Subtract feature in the Colour Correction Effects in MEP allows you to mask out colour backgrounds and foregrounds and change them to B&W, a technique that previously was called Rotoscoping.

There are also plugins like New Blue Effects that have masking tools built in and also NB Cartoonizer which turns the scene into a comic book look.

Hi,

Xara (Designer Pro X) was just updated and they fixed the problems that I raised about the art brushes and the "Exit to Movie Editor" crashing Xara. Here is a quick and dirty example of an art brush in motion, as Bernadette eats the first spring flower.

I created the animated flowers in one pass and the animated mask in another.

As Peter points out, we can do a lot with what we have. Xara is a fully-blown vector drawing program that now plays nicely with MEP(VDL) and VPX. The animator can be set down to advance by frame, it seems, for detailed parts and several frames (0.5s say) for less detail. Animated objects tween from one frame setting to the next.

So far, everything is smooth and stable, no crashes. Finally!

Hi John CB

Good to see Xara is co-operating with Magix's NLE's properly at last.

Nice little example video of a Rotoscope there!

Not sure if the OP is monitoring the thread still.....?

Peter

I am still monitoring 😉 as I get topic-updates in my e-mail.

- I am not aware of Moving Masks and what they do.

Basically what I am looking for is an ability to remove backgrounds from a particular subject. Think of an icedancer and able to remove the ice so the icedancer remains. It could be used to create a moving logo, etcetera. Which is actually what I need it for, to create a 5 second moving-intro logo for Youtube video's.

If I have to do that now, the only way I know how todo this is by extracting a few seconds from the movie, frame by frame... and then manually track-and-trace the outline of the subject I need/want in the frames, isolating the dancer. I use opensource KRITA for drawing, which also allows a bit of animation control when I import the exported frames there as an animation.

Once I have done this I can then import the manual drawn and manipulated frames back into a video-editor, like standard moviemaker or ofcourse a Magix product like Video Deluxe that I have.

The problem ofcourse is obvious... Even 1 second of video could have upto 30 frames. And if I even need more seconds, I could end up manually tracking and tracing hunderds of frames which is extreemly time consuming.

Chroma key is not the answer here. I tried all kinds of variation that are available in Video Deluxe, but could not get that to work.

I'm not sure how I would add an alpha key mask. Would that not still mean I have to manually draw masks, which I wont be able to do in VD? That still leaves manualy manipulating hunderds of masks to fit over the icedancer, would it not?

"Mask generators in MEP/VDL 2017"

VDL is the format for the plugins if I recall correctly? I have not been able to find a plugin yet that could do that. But perhaps I have not looked at the right places yet. And Xara is too expensive for me. I ofcourse understand that there are limits to possibilities of software compared to price. But It'll be a bit silly to invest 300 euro, only for one 5 second logo I want to make.

Thanks for the tips though sofar! I appreciate them.

I'll look further in them. Perhaps it is time to invest a bit more, but I'll first have to look into what software would best fit my current and perhaps future needs.

Hi,

You don't need Xara Designer Pro, which is a combination of Photo&Graphics Designer, Web Designer, and Page Layout programs. You only need Photo&Graphics Designer, which is presently on sale for 50$. You can download it and try it out.

I will post a short video of drawing a mask and using it. The nice part is that if the movements of the part(s) that you are trying to mask are not too difficult meaning a lot of different movements like a dog running, then Xara makes it easier because you don't have to modify the mask for all of the frames, only every half second or so. Xara tweens in between. So if the shape of the mask changes between 10 frames, Xara changes the shape gradually over all of the frames. There are also some tricks that can be done, like exporting some images to jpeg and using the magnetic lasso in Xara to quickly trace the outline of the object (ice dancer) to create the mask. Do several of these for the more dramatic movements/shapes, export the masks as vectors, and then in the animation interface, import the masks onto the right frames, and then fine-tune in some of intervening the frames. I haven't tried this, but I will later today.

For now, take a look at this so you will see how it works. Instead of a coloured shape, a mask is just a white shape.

Till later,

John CB

Here is a quick video of a moving mask on the dog. This is a very challenging subject to do properly. My frame changes were at about a half a second, so the masking is not smooth, but you can see that the mask is in motion and changes shape.

Something that moves fast and has a lot of detail is extremely time-consuming. Exporting all of the frames and then using the magnetic lasso in Xara or some other program to make masks or cut out the object is the only way to do it precisely. The dog is very difficult because of the moving parts and my lack of patience.

I will post a video showing how to use the magnetic lasso. You can see the first frame in the video is quite precise because I used the mask made in Xara using the magnetic lasso before using the animation interface.

Thanks for the video.

Basically what you did in the dog-video with blue background is what I am looking for.

It'll probably be timeconsuming. But doing it in the video editor itself, or as integrated part in a sister program, would most likely still be faster then exporting the frames, editing them singlehanded it KRITA (as I would be doing normally) and then importing them back in the video editor. I tried that and it was a real ***** doing it like that.😀 For most because you may accidently miscount/misplace frames, screwing up the masking and loosing track of the frame-order when you are trying to do that with hunderds of frames. And KRITA, though a superb program, is more intended for artisian work, than for such manipulation I need it for now.

I noticed in my products I did once purchase Photo & Graphic Designer 7. I did not use it much back then because it was too limited for what I needed back then. I'll prob have to re-download it and test it out. Not sure it'll work directly as intergrated part in Video Deluxe MX Premium (2015 version I think), as I did not find a user-made masking option near the greenscreen options, unless I overlooked that. I'll perhaps have to get the a newer movie/video editor for that to work per frame masking-edit, which will work in cohesion with the Photo & Graphics designer automatically, and keeping track of the correct frames for me.

I'll look into that.

Thanks for the help people. I appreciate it!

P&G Designer 7 comes with MEP Plus and Premium and VPX. It's not what I am talking about. You need the latest Xara Photo and Graphics Designer Premium for this to work. Look at the link in my second last message above.

More tomorrow.

There is a tute on this site in French by Maggico, where he shows the process of creating dynamic masks in Magix Photo and Graphics designer which I presume is what you are calling Xara P&GD John?

https://www.magix.info/us/tutorials/masques-dynamiques--1185343/

Also - has anyone figured out how to use the Mask Generator available in MEP/VDL 2017? That's the problem - Magix add new features with updates but the Help files do not get updated.

Peter

Hi peter

Here is a quick and dirty usage of the Mask Generator using the Luminance option of the mask generator

Set up is as follows:

• Track 1 video to have background replaced
• Track 2 same video as 1 - this will be the mask
• Track 4 the replacement background video

Method:

1. Adjust Low in to get blackest part of the mask
    
2. Adjust High in to get the whitest part of the mask
   
   You should end up with a black/white mask
   
   Adjusting the Low out and High out will alter the transparency of the appropriate mask parts when you apply Chromakey, Alpha to the mask .
    
3. Apply Alpha chromakey

Here is how I did it for replacing the sky:

The method does depend on sufficient contrast between what you want to retain and lose and it is also possible to do this using Gamma, Contrast and Brightness with certain images / video.

Here is a tweaked result:

HTH

John EB

Hi JohnEB

Thanks, that helps to understand it a bit and I was wrong, there is a little about it in the Help file if you search Mask Generator. By your application of the alpha mask it is working pretty much how we have been using alpha masks already, but makes it easier to adjust the contrast of the B&W mask in the one effects screen. However something is not working properly that you need to go to the Chroma Key effect window because there appears to be an option to use Alpha instead of Luma in the Generator itself, but this results in a black screen for me. What do you get choosing that?

Peter 

Hi Peter

. . . . However something is not working properly that you need to go to the Chroma Key effect window because there appears to be an option to use Alpha instead of Luma in the Generator itself . . . .

These are 2 separate things - AFAICS the Mask Generator is working correctly to create the mask - a mask must range from black to white and any shade of grey in between.

This is quicker than my old method using Gamma, Brightness and Contrast adjustments to get a mask

There is also the option to use a single colour channel from which to create the mask, which does gives some weird effects.

John EB

Hi Peter,

Yes, that is the P&GD that I am talking about. See my video at the link above (here it is again)and you will see the same thing. In the video with the dog, the problem of masking is much greater as the dog has too many moving parts and moves a lot. Thank you for the link. I had missed that one.

Here is the link to Xara P&G which is still on sale on this site, I don't know about other parts of the world.

I have the full Xara Designer Pro X as I needed to make some web sites and this product makes it very simple as you can see from the link to the examples.

Hi John EB,

Good examples. I hope that Magix puts these tools in VPX sometime soon.

All,

I don't think that I would tackle a large project in one shot as I find the Xara interface still quite fragile. It is easy to crash and if it does, the object is lost. The method needs some refinement, such as saving the Xar file and the animation before exiting back to the editor, then one has at least a backup. I wouldn't do more than 10 seconds of detail work per object, meaning getting down to frame level or close to it.

It's too bad that Xara does not allow detection of the image in this interface. If it did, one could use the magnetic lasso to greater effect.

Hi

@ Peter

. . . . an option to use Alpha instead of Luma in the Generator itself . . . . .

I think that option is for creating a mask from a video or an image which contains an Alpha channel. Using this on an object without an Alpha channel will achieve nothing.

John EB

Hi John EB

I think that option is for creating a mask from a video or an image which contains an Alpha channel.

Yes that makes sense and I guess it is what the object is becoming by applying your Step 3.

For the right image as you said, it is a very fast and practical tool to create a very detailed moving mask or "Travelling Matte" as we used to call it in the Movie world. With film, prior to digital compositing, they would run or "bipack" a strip of B&W "Hi Contrast" film thru the printer/camera gate along with, and in contact with, a positive of the original scene to create the mask. Things have got a bit easier!

John CB

It's too bad that Xara does not allow detection of the image in this interface. If it did, one could use the magnetic lasso to greater effect.

Isn't that what Maggico is doing in his tute but laying down some waypoints first?

You should try that Mask generator with your dog in the snow. It would work well there with a mainly white background after adjusting the Low In, Hi In. I tried some moving tree branches and leaves against a cloudy sky, and it did a pretty clean convincing job.

Re Xara P&GD - I think it is called Xara in the English market and Magix in Europe. It appears to be on a special at $50, 50 Euro or 35 GBP.

Peter