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Editing with Alphas on FCP
I had this idea I wanted to use but don’t know how to go about to do it.
I wanted to do a piece and have my video inside odd shaped comic book panels, kind of like splash pages in the comics. My question is how can I do this? I tried making a panel inside Photoshop and using an Alpha, but I still can’t get my video image to show through while seeing a different background that I wanted to use.i hope someone can help cause I am lost and really want to try this idea out.
PS. Is it possible to able a border to a crop clip of video?
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4 Replies
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Your best bet is to draw the panel layout in ps with the holes cut for the video. Place the video clips underneath and mask them to fit in the odd-shaped holes you describe. You could create corresponding shapes to use as a mask for each video layer, or you could draw the mask with the 8-point garbage matte. The latter will be slower to render.
So, on the top layer you’d have your page layout with borders and also the holes cut for video to show through. Underneath, your video clips with either garbage mattes or layer masks.
Does that make sense?
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I think the easiest way to do this is with track mattes. Put your video over your mattes and set the video to track matte alpha. Scale, rotate, whatever the video to fit the matte. You can make your mattes in Photoshop or with a garbage matte. Or you can make solids of different colors and use the crop tool on them. You can pile up as many of these stacks as you want. Very clean and efficient.
Have a wonderful day.
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Pretty much what I just meant to say. Track matte is what I meant, not layer mask. I assume the issue here is the “odd-shaped” masks which aren’t possible with just crops. So you can make the page template with photoshop with the holes, then underneath that layer position your vids with their corresponding layer mattes (created as simple solids in photoshop). Truth is 8 point garbage mattes are probably the easiest thing to do, and the most adjustable from within fcp. If you can afford the render time.
A thought would be to create a huge comp (sorry “sequence”) like 4000×4000 or so and build this entire layout there. Then, place that comp (sequence) into your main sequence and fly it around and pan and scan it.
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Brett,
Whoo! Talk about render time! 4000 pixels?
Have a wonderful day.
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