Overlay Compositing Mode Turns Film Black

[Aleksey Tarasov]

> “Ultimately my goal is to just have certain overlays (like scratches and burn marks) to be visible on the film but not the background of the overlay to make the source film either lighter or darker (I want it to be transparent). “

Make the overlay track a parent of the source footage (Parent/Child relationship). Place the other clips on a separate track.

> “Also, on a side note, is there away I can link audio and film clips together so that they always stay together when moved?”

Group them (select and press G)

[Emily Dietrich]

Thank you! Do you know of any tutorials that can show me how to exactly create such a parent/child relationship?

[Steve Rhoden]

Simply try and google Sony Vegas parent/child compositing and you will see
tons of instructions on how to easily do and understand all about it in Vegas.

Steve Rhoden (Cow Leader)
Film Maker & VFX Artist.
Owner of Filmex Creative Media.
Samples of my Work and Company can be seen here:
https://www.facebook.com/FilmexCreativeMedia

[Miles Odonnol]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that Vegas’s handling of the “overlay” compositing mode is unlike that of other applications. I would expect overlay to darken portions below that are low luminance, without much affecting things that are high. And transparent areas on the upper track should do nothing. But that is not what I am getting. I would expect that I could use “overlay” to bump up contrast in discreet areas. But it is not working that way. A) It does bump up contrast, grossly, even when there is no clip on the upper track! [Maybe I want a pivot point slider.] B) It is not at all discreet; it ignores transparent areas.

[Marco Baer]

The common math behind Overlay composite for a is base is:

if a<0.5 then 2ab
else 1–2(1–a)(1–b)

This makes dark areas darker and bright areas brighter. I think Vegas Pro follows this rule.