overlay two videos

[Darby Edelen]

[Eric Larson] “There is a simple scenario where the camera doesn’t move or zoom in/out. and the complicate scenario where the the cameras move and there is zoom in/out. So the plugin would have to match the two videos up.”

The trouble is that you’ve assumed that there is a plug-in that will do that for you. There may very well be, I can’t say because I’ve never seen one, but the cold hard truth that most folks new to the world of AE need to learn is: there is no magic bullet.

No one perfect plug-in will do everything you need it to do, and often times the same result can be accomplished in a more elegant fashion using several simple effects/techniques.

I’m not trying to tell you that plug-ins aren’t valuable, because some most certainly are, but it’s important that you (or someone else) give yourself a reality check every now and again.

I can tell you that when they do this in a professional environment (such as the Olympics) they either use static cameras or motion controlled rigs that can repeat the exact same motion again and again.

After that it’s a simple matter of rotoscoping:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/oconnell_pete/roto.php

(search the forum for more on rotoscoping)

Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Ian Corey]

I think the word is “complex”.

If the camera doesn’t move, it’s a simple as right-clicking on the top-most of the two layers and setting it to Overlay or Multiply using the Blending Modes >.

Anytime anyone says to you, “After Effects will do that…” repeat to yourself “I can do that in After Effects.” AE alone couldn’t make it out of the box it comes in; YOU are the magic.

[Eric Larson]

Thanks for the tips.
I will watch your rotoscoping video.

The reason I was hopeful there might be a solution for the complicated scenario is because there is stand alone software called “Dartfish” that NBC uses at the Olympics that allows for camera to move and zoom. But it costs $4000. So I thought if any program might be able to do it, it would be After Effects.

A solution I had in my head was kind of based on what you do for motion compensated deinterlacing. But instead of having two fields from one video you would take a field from two videos and line them up.