Transparency/track matte problem

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kearlywi
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2003 2:50 pm
Location: University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (Recording Arts Major)
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Transparency/track matte problem

Post by kearlywi » Sat Nov 01, 2003 9:43 am

In a previos thread, I asked how to take 2 peices of film and show one through the other while the only thing that moved was the transparent area (the two peices of film are not moving). This is the answer I got.
To do this you first you need to create a grayscale image(It doesn't have to be grayscale but if your just going for plain transparency grayscale is what you need.) in an image editing program. This image will have whatever shapes you make for the transparency may it be a box, circle, happy face, gun, etc (centered in the image) and will be larger than the video's resolution(ideally, doesn't have to in be unless you are panning the image with motion settings. That way when you pan you have enough image visible throughout the pan. (I hope that makes sense to you )). Whatever 'color' (white or black) you decide to use for the background or the object/s doesn't matter because of an option called reverse key which I will explain in a little bit. (BTW Pure white and pure black will either be transparent or opaque where as grays will be translucent.)

Once you save your image into a format that Premiere can work with, import the file and tell premiere to keep it's aspect ratio. I believe you can do this by right clicking on the image, going to video options, and clicking maintain aspect ratio.

Next drop your background footage into a superimpose track. (Tracks 2 and higher in A B editing mode). Drop your foreground footage in the next higher track. Finally drop the image you made into the track above your foreground clip. Right click your foreground footage, go to video options and select transparency. Click on the available transparency modes and select video matte( I believe it is called something like that I can't remember right now... It should be the last one on the list. Image matte may work in this situation also but if you see what I'm talking about select that first anyways)

Select ok to accept the changes and close the tranparency options window. While holding the alt key, scrub the timeline to preview the clip without rendering. If the right areas are transparent you can go ahead and apply motion settings to your image clip and have fun. If the areas you want transparent are opposite what your seeing go back into the foreground clip's transparency options and select the 'reverse key' option and hit ok.
Well anyway this method worked great exept for something went wrong at the end. I followed these instructions to the teeth, and when I used alt or actually previewed the material, I simply got the foreground layer and nothing else. I then set the image-file's transparency. Then I checked again via scrolling with tab. I saw the exact peice of my background through my foreground. Great! Then I previewed the file so I could export it. Huh? Wtf? All of a sudden I was just getting the foreground again. Why is it that the alt key showed my project the way I wanted it but actually previewing it gave me different results?

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kearlywi
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2003 2:50 pm
Location: University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (Recording Arts Major)
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Post by kearlywi » Sat Nov 01, 2003 9:45 am

Then I checked again via scrolling with tab.
Correction, should read: Then I checked again via scrolling with ALT.

sorry I'm up super late, hehe. :roll:

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kearlywi
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2003 2:50 pm
Location: University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (Recording Arts Major)
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Post by kearlywi » Wed Nov 12, 2003 11:01 pm

solved the problem. I used Image Matte and it worked the way I hoped Track matte would.

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