vegas masking?

[wingfan]

what i wanna do is cut out a person from this video clip. reason being is it's an interview and it has text on the side of him. what's the process called or better yet how is it accomplished in vegas 8 pro? i would like to cut him out and then put him in a solid or picture background (jpeg if possible)?

thanks

[guns1inger]

Post a still or short clip so we can see what you are working with.

If the background is already solid you might be able to create a mask in Vegas, however I suspect that what you will be needing is something that can do rotoscoping and vector masks, which is outside Vegas' skill set.

[wingfan]

here is an interview, see the guy being inetrview, i want to basically just grab him and put him in a different background.. either a video clip or jpeg whatever possible. or if this cant be done, how can i get rid of that text on the right side of the person? is that doable, easier? thanks!

download link to zip file.. inside is the .flv file http://www.megaupload.com/?d=44CTJF4W

[guns1inger]

Is that your actual source ? If so, it won't be pretty.

You might be able to do this in Vegas - I will have to play to be sure - but it will take multiple filters and it will still look rough because the the video is so over compressed and artifact ridden.

[wingfan]

yup thats the source, i know. plus i wont be able to import the flv into vegas, gotta convert it first to avi/mpg. but ya any idea what technique would work best? if you can give me some tips would be great.. not sure if its masking, cookie cutter, chroma key??

[Timmychuck]

I found this 2 Videos on masking for Vegas 7 , but still the same in Vegas 8
hope this works for you

http://rapidshare.com/files/202616924/Working_with_Masks.rar

[guns1inger]

What I have done is convert the video to a high quality mpeg-2 program stream using Xvid4PSP, then loaded it into the free CineGobs Keyer. Using three rotoscope masks I have been able to extract the players and get a pretty good outcome. I have a sample rendering now and will post it in a few minutes.

The three masks were

1. A garbage matte around the players. Fairly rough because it has to surround all the players.

2. An additive matte to protect the white strips on the collars. These were being keyed out by the default settings.

3. A garbage matte around the text, set to negative, to wipe it all.

The additive mask and the negative mask both have to be keyframed to make sure that only the right elements are masked, but on a short clip it only takes a few minutes. Read this tutorial to get the basics : http://www.cinegobs.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=cinegobs_keyer:tutorials_garbage_mattes

The attached file (Xvid) is a very rough first output from the test. You can see where the masks haven't yet been keyframed to conform to the elements, but the general result shows it can be done. This is a far better method that anything you get out of Vegas. In CineGobs you either drop in a solid colour (as I have done) or a video or still image. Or you can output an alpha matte to use in Vegas.

keying%20test.avi

[wingfan]

guys that's great.. Timmychuck the tutorial is pretty simple and is pretty much what i need to do.

guns1inger, that looks great, im gonna give it a shot! THANKS SO MUCH!

[wingfan]

I tried converting the flv like you said in XVID4PSP (as MPG2 PS and also tried MPG2 NTSC) but Cingobs Keyer doesnt recognize the file. I also tried converted to XVID using the program and it says codec might be missing. So pretty much I cant load any converted file into it.. any ideas?

[guns1inger]

Open via Avisynth in CineGobs. You don't need to know Avisynth, CineGobs will take care of that for you.

Better yet, convert to AVI -> Huff (lossless) in Xvid4PSP. Just make sure you have the Huffyuv codec installed so you can load the video into CineGobs.

[wingfan]

i converted to AVI (Huff lossless) plays back fine, then import from AVISynth in CineGobs and error could not open make sure avisynth is installed.

which it is.. im using vista 64 ultimate edition. and i have installed the HUFFyuv codec too.

[guns1inger]

Can you just open the avi in CineGobs without avisynth ?

Frankly, until 64 bit is the norm, it is simply too much trouble to be worth playing with. Too many tools don't quite work as expected on XP or Vista 64

[wingfan]

doesnt work in any way importing any file into the CineGobs. tried converting to every imaginable file format. guess i will stick with the Vegas tutorial .. there is a good link with an ebook too that shows how to do garbage masks etc.. should work good too.