Adventures in Vidding: What is that Mask thing, anyways?

Okay, so I started the post on internal movement but then I realized that I needed to explain sound and music and...so that will take awhile. (then again, what's hilarious is that I learned more than I ever wanted to know about masks while writing this up...though I'm also getting some really evil vid ideas. heh, bloooood)

So here's the quickie guide to Masks instead. Please please please tell me where something's unclear so that I can edit this to make it better!


Masks: Basic Concept

Might also be known as "alpha channel", "matte", or "keying".

In it's simplest form, a "mask" is a black, white, and/or grey image that tells the computer where you want an image to be transparent and how much.

Examples:
White = Opaque,
Black = Completely transparent
40% gray = 40% transparent.

It works the same way in Adobe Photoshop masks. That way, you can affect how an image itself without manually changing the image itself.

( What's actually going on with the 'mask' business and why/how it works )

( quick cheat sheet to the difference between 'masks', 'alpha channel', 'matte', and 'keying', ie. the vocab you need to know )

Implications

What this means?

Just as with Keyframes you control time, with Masks you control space.

You can blend two clips together, you can cut out a circle and put a clock on the wall, you can make someone walk in the background (remember those scenes in Yami no Matsuai where you have the punched out face and the image pan?), you can cut out a background and put in something else...

( Specific example in a vid )

By color keying specific areas you can change the color of JUST that area.

Is the blood in your clip not red enough? no matter how much you fiddle with the color controls? Use 'non-red key', and everything not-red are removed only from the area with the blood. Everything not keyed remains the original color.

Want to make colors brighter or to add an image in the shadows? The 'luma key' removes darkness.

Do you have a moving person you want to cut out? Or remove the background from a moving object? Use 'track matte' or 'difference matte'.

(more on the specific keying methods further down)

General Method for a non-moving mask

1) Get a frame of whatever you're vidding, And black out the parts you want gone...
(remember! grays and colors are options too...)
2) Apply the appropriate mask effect to the clip.
3) Set conditions for the mask in 'effects control'.

Specific Effects

( This is the effects folder for keying, I circled the effects I'd use most )

Confusing ain't it? I hate how they just alphabetizes them, so very user un-friendly.

Let's break it down.

[non-moving masks]

( Read more... )

[moving masks]

( Read more... )

[setting up mask conditions]

( Read more... )