Alpha Matte Questions

[Mike Truly]

Let's say I have an animation of a car rolling down the road. I also have an animation of a decal that is perfectly aligned so that when placed over the car animation... it looks like the car rolling down the road has a decal on it.

I want to place the decal on the car by using the Alpha Matte creation function within Edius 6.03.

I have an HQ file of the decal color (colored letters over black).
I have an HQ file of the alpha of the decal (white letters over black).

When I select the two HQ clips and use the Convert>Alpha Matte function and choose the Alpha Matte option... the resulting HQ clip (when placed on the timeline) does NOT show properly the colored letters over the car. (It shows colored letters with a black background).

When I select the two HQ clips and use the Convert>Alpha Matte function and choose the Luminance Matte option... the resulting HQ clip (when placed on the timeline) DOES show properly the colored letters over the car.

Why won't the the Alpha Matte method work like the Luminance method does? The HQ alpha clip is white letters over black... but it doesn't already have alpha in the clip (that's why I'm using the Alpha Matte method... to make an HQ clip that DOES contain alpha).

Must be doing something wrong. Thanks for any ideas!

[Harro]

It sounds like you need corner pinning software to do that sort of work properly. Mocha for AE and Mocha Pro do that sort of work, and it is amazing. If you have CS5 production suite, Mocha is included. Have look at the following site's tutorials, it will show you what you can do.

http://www.imagineersystems.com/

[Jerry]

There is a corner pin filter in New Blue Essentials for Edius.

[antonsvideo]

There is a corner pin filter in New Blue Essentials for Edius.

yes, works great and I use it a lot

it is found under keyers

[Jerry]

It would be nice if we had corner pinning and a drop shadow
feature added as native filters as opposed to a 3rd party plugin.

[Mike Truly]

Thanks for all the ideas but I don't think I made myself clear.

I already have perfectly aligned decal clips to apply to the car... they are all generated in the animation program and have perfect registration, etc.

My question relates to making the HQ clip with alpha.

I have one color HQ clip -the letters in color over black... and one B/W HQ clip -the letters in white over black. (But this B/W clip does not have anything in the alpha channel of the HQ clip).

So when I go to create the final HQ clip with alpha using the Alpha Matte method, the resulting clip does not have a transparent background when overlaid on top of other clips. Is this because there was nothing in the alpha channel of the B/W HQ clip to begin with?

If I use the Luminance method, then the resulting HQ clip is as desired. The background is transparent and this clip overlays properly over other clips. My concern is, usually luminance type methods are not as accurate as using an alpha channel especially since the alpha image was generated pixel perfect by the animation program.

Thanks again.

[Jerry]

Throw the file into AE and export to an HQ
file with alpha. Far easier and quicker than fighting
with it. I'm not it can't be done, but when in
doubt.....punt!

[abcronnie]

Hi Mike

I have just tried using the 'Convert to Alpha' fubction you describe.
Using a pixel perfect matte generated in 3d Studio Max along with a pixel perfect fill.
Using the Convert to alpha matte function in Edius 6.03 and selecting the Luminance matte option.
After selecting the fill and the matte signal I converted them to Canopus lossless and the resulting Key Clip was a perfect key as I would expect.
This was a moving or travelling matte with animation and the key is impressive, so I don't think there is any need be concerned that it was derived from a luminance matte.
Regards
RO

[Mike Truly]

Thanks Jerry, that was the basic question I was trying to get at... some app that would inject the matte into the alpha channel of an HQ file. I have AE but don't use it (I use other apps for compositing... they will make an HQ file, but the HQ codec will not allow them to inject the alpha into the HQ file for some reason). Good to know AE can do it as it will be worth the time to get AE setup for my use.

Ronnie, thanks for the reassurance on the Luminance method. I'm happy to use it, just come from the old school where Luminance generally implied something analog and would prefer to know that my alpha is being used pixel perfect.

Thanks again.

[Mike Truly]

OK, I am currently trying to output an HQ with alpha from CS4 AE. Is there some GV plugin that I need to install to get HQ render functionality?

Thanks!

[Paranova Films]

i use cs3 and just need to set the render output to millions colors+

[Mike Truly]

Let me clarify... My editing workstation has Edius 6.03.

A different workstation has Adobe CS4 AE installed. This workstation also happens to have Procoder2 and Procoder3 installed. I would expect that this workstation could render out HQ files (this has been successful in the past because of Procoder being installed). Now I would like to render an HQ from AE on this workstation, but I can't find any option to render to an HQ file.

As a test, I fired up Procoder2 and for some reason, I can't choose to render to an HQ file anywhere... not sure why this is. I'm pretty sure that PC2 did render HQs before.

Do I need to install some plugins to get CS4 AE to write the HQ format? I have searched the GV website but can't find a specific plugin installer for AE. I did find the playback codecs installer but haven't installed it yet as I seem to recall that it would only read HQ files, not write them.

Any ideas how to get HQ functionality in AE?

Thanks!

[Mike Truly]

Thanks for the ideas Jose. AE render settings are already set to 'millions of colors' but there is no Canopus HQ or any of the Canopus formats available in the menu. I think there is something else that needs to be installed for AE to see the Canopus formats.

Thanks again.

[Mike Truly]

OK, I just did another test by starting Procoder3 and the HQ format options are available in PC3.

Then I tried AE again and now the Canopus HQ format options are available. So I obviously needed to plug in the Procoder3 dongle in order for the HQ options to be present. Now I am able to write an HQ from AE.

Thanks!

[Paranova Films]

Thanks for the ideas Jose. AE render settings are already set to 'millions of colors'

hey Mike: remember the"+" it must be "millions of colors+" to get the alpha :)