[Gary Oberbrunner]

Hi Dom; please email support@genarts.com and we’ll try to help you out. We don’t know of any Kona-specific issues but there may be something else going on.

— Gary

[Gary Oberbrunner]

Hi, Nathan — if you think a Sapphire Plug-in is causing this problem, please contact us at support@genarts.com and we’ll be happy to help.

— Gary

[Gary Oberbrunner]

We’re also working on a tutorial book with DVD for Sapphire2 for Avid; it’s not done yet but we’ll let you all know when it is. It’ll definitely cover the kinds of question you were asking.

— Gary

[Gary Oberbrunner]

Hi, Jay. You’re not alone; because DS is fully RGBA a lot of compositing tasks are easier there. However, what you want to do can certainly be done, and it’s not even all that hard on Adrenaline with Sapphire2, just different.

Transitions can’t have Apply to Title/Key because the Avid requires transitions to take exactly two inputs, and for an effect to apply as a title/key it has to take three inputs. So you have to do it in steps.

To apply a transition between two titles (or keys, like you have) without affecting the background, first apply S2_MakeRGBA to both titles (that merges the RGB and alpha into a single RGBA super-clip), and add the transition effect between these titles. Then shift-select both sides of the transition (incoming and outgoing) and use the Collapse button on the timeline toolbar to nest them together. Finally, alt-drop S2_Layer on the nest to comp over the background, and you should see the completed effect.

If your Avid allows you to apply effects on filler, instead of collapsing the transition, you can put the S2_Layer on a filler track on top of that (alt drop), and select Background: 2 tracks below to composite over the background.

If you want to also apply other effects to each title or key such as distortions or blurs, use them instead of S2_MakeRGBA above, and select Apply to Title/Key. To wipe on or off a title, just use an all-black title for the other side.

Hopefully that helps get you going! Please let me know if you have any other questions. And don’t forget to check our Avid support page at https://www.genarts.com/sapphire-avx-support.html.

— Gary

[Gary Oberbrunner]

Hi Guerrero3; regarding the black lines on top & bottom, I believe if you switch the Effect Aperture in one of the settings panels to 720 x 486 or 720 x 480 (whichever it isn’t currently) that may fix your black lines problem.

Also, FYI, Sapphire2 has special cropping parameters in each effect just for this purpose (to crop off whatever garbage is often found around the edges of imported video).

— Gary

[Gary Oberbrunner]

Hi AlphaChannel (great nick btw!); Sapphire v2 (AVX2 version only, so you need a recent Avid) has an enhancement to FilmEffect that simulates the 3:2 pulldown stutter you’d get if you shot on film and telecine’d to video.

Just FYI;

— Gary

— Gary

[Gary Oberbrunner]

Hi, David. At this point sequences and presets saved with Sapphire v1 effects can not be converted automatically to use the Sapphire 2 version, and Sapphire2 for AVX1 effects can not currently be converted to Sapphire2 for AVX2. Hopefully this will be possible in future versions of Avid products.

However, you can have Sapphire v1 and v2 (for AVX1 and/or AVX2) installed on your Avid at the same time. This allows sequences saved with older versions of plug-ins to still be loaded and rendered. Sapphire v1 appears in the “Sapphire Plug-ins” effects category. Sapphire v2 for AVX1 appears in the “Sapphire2…(avx1)” effects categories, and Sapphire v2 for AVX2 appears in the “Sapphire2” categories. See the table above.

— Gary

[Gary Oberbrunner]

Hi, David. I think you’re trying to do two different things:
(a) use the matte to affect which parts of a single image get blurred and which don’t. That’s what the Mask dropdown in the effects means.
(b) Composite a foreground over a background and only affect the foreground.

I’m not an Animatte expert; I only have Xpress Pro, which doesn’t do animatte at all :-(. But I’m guessing that in its normal mode it just acts like a cutout; you draw a shape and it composites the foreground over the background using your shape.

If that’s so, then of course once the composite is done, you can’t affect the foreground and background separately — they’re stuck together. You could blur the foreground before alt-dropping the animatte, which would only blur the fg. That may work for you. If you can soften the animatte’s borders you should get a decent look from this.

The best solution would be to make the Animatte effect output the alpha rather than the composite, the way you can with the Avid keyer. Then you can use that on a separate track. I’m not sure whether Animatte can do this or not — anyone here know?

Assuming it can do this, I’d set it up like this:
V2: animatte, outputting alpha channel (hi-con, b/w)
V3: original foreground source (fill)
V1: graphic background
Then do this:
Apply S2_MakeRGBA to V3. That combines the matte and fill into RGBA.
Alt-drop S2_Blur to V3. That blurs the matte and fill together.
Select Background: 2 tracks below to composite that over the graphic on V1, and you’re done!

I’ve done this with the Avid keyer and it works nicely.

— Gary

[Gary Oberbrunner]

Hi, David.

Sapphire doesn’t have a mask generation tool itself, but once you have a matte/mask clip (whether imported from AE or Photoshop, done with Animatte, or extracted from a keyer) you can easily use those masks with Sapphire plug-ins, especially in Sapphire 2. Just put the source layer on V2 and the mask on V1, then apply the plug-in to the source and select Mask: 1 Track Below. Most effects also let you invert the mask, and many also have a Mask Blur parameter to soften it.

Hope that helps!

— Gary

[Gary Oberbrunner]

Hi Larry. Reinstall your Sapphire plug-ins and that should fix it. If not please contact support@genarts.com.

— Gary