Person-shaped gaussian blur

[Gary Kleiner]

[Nspurr] “Is it possible to make your own “cookie cutter” shape? I have a nasty feeling someone is going to mention Bezier masks”

Bezier masks.

What difficulty do you have with them?

Gary Kleiner

Learn Vegas and DVD Architect

http://www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com

[Neil Moxham]

I know the movie. love the effect !!

Gary’s right BEZIER MASKS !!

Once you get the outline built. change the tool to the “arrow” thens as the subject moves make the appropriate line adjustments as you go.
soften both in, out.
Should be easy enough.
I’ve done this before but for different looking results.

I bet you could do a height map type thing as well.
what ever is high enough will break the surface and show transparency to a watery blurry fisheye look that is underneath.
I’m gonna experiment

Zipedit

[William°]

If you want a moving person shape… and have a green screen ( or blue or red or whatever…)

try using the chroma keyer plug in- drop back the opacity on the layer that has the predator, and then use the light rays plug in.. don’t know if it would work but thats how id try and get an actually moving human shape that looks real…

hope it helps – not hinders!

[Nspurr]

Hi Gary,

The difficulty I have with Bezier masks is in getting them to actually form the shapes I desire – specifically, curves and elliptoids. Making these particular shapes for me just seems very user un-friendly, in fact it’s as if someone set out to design the most difficult way to do it!

The way in which you position the points and then move the lines around just seems very counter-intuative and frustrating – in that moving one point will affect the shape and size of another seemingly (to me) unconnected and unrelated point. Every time I make one adjustment it affects something else that I don’t want it to.
I’ve read Ed’s guide on his newletter on the matter but it didn’t solve all my ineptitudes at using masks.

If anyone has any links to more guides or forum posts about the subject, it would be greatly appreciated.

I’ll sit down tonight and have a proper go at making the shaped-gaussian blur and I’ll report back with my success/failure!

Cheers,

Neil

[Mary Waitrovich]

Maybe this would work:
Make footage of a human form moving in a very high contrast background. Use lighting and various filters to get this clip to be a white figure moving on a black background.
Then use that as a mask on footage of your movie setting. You want to create a clip of the background in the shape of the moving human form. use a green solid color for the lowest track here to allow yourself to chromakey in the next step.
Then blur and reduce opacity on the moving human form, chromakey out the green, and composite this clip with another copy of the movie background. This should give you a moving mostly invisible human form.

Good luck,
Mary Waitrovich
UW-Madison

[Nspurr]

That sounds pretty good too Mary, great idea. I’ll fiddle around with all the ideas suggested and see which looks best.

[Peter Wright]

I’ve also had problems getting to grips with the bezier masking tool, but found some help
Here

Peter Wright
Perth, Western Oz
http://www.allroundvision.com.au

[Jerry Waters]

I believe the effect is demoed on fxhome.com under “bitmap displacement.” I haven’t tried it but I plan to use it in the future so I noted it there.

[Jerry Waters]

Made a mistake. Check out “Displacement” at
https://fxhome.com/visionlab/visionlab-overview.html

I think that is what you want.

[Nspurr]

After some trial and error I’ve managed to achieve a pretty decent result by cutting out a person-shaped bezier mask with a normal track overlaying a copy of the same track with the “light rays” effect added, then keyframing some movement into the person-shaped mask.

I’ll take a look at Jerrys link as well – thanks again for all the help.

Neil