Trasparancy using image matte on 4 layers

bluelife2128 · Post by **bluelife2128** » Thu Jun 05, 2003 5:07 pm

I have somewhat of a complex question.
let me paint a picture:
Song: Enya's Only Time version 2 ( one of those "Who can say..." lines
Show: Cardcaptors

Now, what I'm wanting to do is have a horizontal bar of movie clip appear at "who..."(top bar) "can..."(middle Bar) then "say..."(Bottom bar). But... I want the backdrop to be black... and I want all of the bars to remain on the screen (i.e., once the middle bar appears... the top DOES Not disappear) So far... I've created all the image mattes I need with photoshop... everything is in place. There is only ONE problem. the top video is cause a disruption for the bottom to videos. There all clear by themselves... but stack them up an the bottom two get lines in them.
OK... anyone know what the hell I just said. Cause If ya did... I already got respect for ya.
Anyone know where I can post a small clip to show what I mean?

kmv · Post by **kmv** » Thu Jun 05, 2003 6:14 pm

Let me get this straight...

You have a black background, a bar (bar 1) of clip A at the top, a bar (bar 2) of clip B in the middle, and another bar (bar 3) of clip C at the bottom. Three clips and a black background, right?

Well there several ways of doing it, but here is one way in Premiere:

Make sure that Video 1A and 1B of this section of the timeline has no clips on it (so that it will be black)
Place clip A on the Video 2 track
Click on the clip A's transparency setup (either via the effects floating window or via the video options sub menu on the timeline), the transparency window should open.
Select the button that looks like a page curl under the sample area
Select "Image Matte" from the Key type submenu, the 'choose' button in the matte area should become available
Click on the "Choose…" button the in matte area and choose the PSD file for bar 1
Repeat steps 2 through 6 for clips B and C using video tracks 3 and 4, and using the PSDs for bar 2 and 3 respectively.
Render timeline.

Enjoy.

OmniStrata · Post by **OmniStrata** » Sat Jun 07, 2003 1:07 am

um, yeah, what he said...

I'd rather just use Clip and be done with it...

bluelife2128 · Post by **bluelife2128** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 1:37 am

Hey kmv... I tried that out to a point (luckily it was basically what i was already doing)
But the top video
clip c, video 4
is the dominate layer/video clip and the others are all jacked up with lines in them.

Now as far as the image mattes are concerned (the psd files) I've just created three seperate files (each with one single layer with a black bar) then when using them in premiere I have to reverse key. When I make a white bar, the transparency has no affect.

kmv · Post by **kmv** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 12:00 am

Try making it a white bar on a transparent area, and when you bring it into Premiere make sure you select the layer.

bluelife2128 · Post by **bluelife2128** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 10:58 am

Ya know, I HAVE to be doing SOMETHING wrong... like a setting or something. Because when I tried that, it still had no effect on the transperancy. If I go reverse key, it turns it into a totally black screen.
Gurgg. it's becoming frustrating because I seem to be doing almost everything correct but I can't figure out what I'm Not doing right.
any more suggestions. I'm not trying to be difficult. I am REALLY appreciating any and all suggestions. THANK YOU

kmv · Post by **kmv** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 12:35 pm

Ok, let's try this...

Step 1: First you want the image of the bar, here is one I created in The Gimp and saved as a PSD:

Step 2: Next you want to make that the image matte for the clip. Here is what the transparency settings should look like:

Step 3: Then render. It should look like this:

Does that make it any clearer?

bluelife2128 · Post by **bluelife2128** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 2:44 am

Thats all good and down(dude you really kick major ass for doing all that to help out. THANK YOU infanatly man.). I got that far, but the trouble isnt with one bar. it's with two or more. let's say you put another clip on video 3 (using your tutorial as the scenario) The video three clips let's say would be the bottom bar (just under the original one) Well, in my case the problem I'm running into is that the clip on video 2 (the middle/original bar) gets funky lines. the same happens to video 3 if you put a clip on video 4 and so on...
It should be working out perfectly fine. but, once again... I have to be doing something wrong.
THANK YOU again for sticken to this and helping me. and I'm sorry to be such a pain.

kmv · Post by **kmv** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 7:37 am

bluelife2128 wrote:the problem I'm running into is that the clip on video 2 (the middle/original bar) gets funky lines. the same happens to video 3 if you put a clip on video 4 and so on...

Lines? What do the lines look like?

Two things come to mind:

You are using source that is interlaced and you have resized it.
You could be looking at artefacts from your video codec. What codec are you editing with?

Either way, I don't think that the problem you are seeing is coming from the transparencies.

I have added a couple of extra tracks to my sample project and given them both image mattes, and they seem fine to me:

Also if you are sure that the problem is with the transparencies you can try OmniStrata's suggestion: Since you are only using rectangles you could use the clip video filter to achieve the same thing. However, the advantage of the image mattes over the clip function is that the mattes can be any shape.

Ashyukun · Post by **Ashyukun** » Thu Jun 12, 2003 8:47 am

Something else you might want to check (no pun intended)- is the video on those tracks that looks weird running at less than 100% speed (i.e., you've slowed it down)? If so, and you've not unchecked the 'Deinterlace when speed under 100%" box, Premiere is trying to de-interlace the video, and it will almost certainly look like ass...