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Vidding Tutorial: Masking
Note:
→ For this tutorial I am using Sony Vegas 6.0
→All imags have been scaled down and can be clicked to be made larger
Step: 001: Choose your victim
What do you want to mask? Masking is a very useful tool for everything from placing a person into a different scene to making your favorite never-in-a-million-years pairing smooch! ;)
For this particular tutorial I'm going to mask by cutting out a piece of one clip and replacing it with another (Putting people in mirrors, picture frames, things like that)
We're going to use this clip of Dean from 2.02 - 'Everybody Loves a Clown'
AND
This clip of Jo from 2.14 'Born Under a Bad Sign'
Step: 002: Putting clips on the timeline
The first thing you're going to do is create two video tracks and place the clips, one on top of the other, into the timeline - just like you would if you were creating a normal split screen.
TIP: One important difference when you're masking is which clip you put on top and which clip you put on the bottom. In this case we want the clip of Dean to be on top and the clip of Jo to be on the bottom. We're going to be cutting out the car windshield in the clip of Dean - there will be just black space there, so you want the clip of Jo to be on the bottom so it fills up that black space. With the masking tool you're creating just what it says - a mask. So the clip of Dean will work as a mask that goes OVER the clip of Jo, so you want it to be on top!
Step: 003: Event/Pan Crop
Now that you have the clips on the timeline, you're going to right click on the clip of Dean (because that's the clip that is going to have the actual mask itself) and click 'Video even/pan crop...' This will bring up a new preview box to work in.
Step: 004: Make sure you are indeed masking
In that new preview box toward the bottom left hand side, there is going to be a little box that says 'mask'. Make sure that little box is checked/ticked, otherwise....nothing is going to happen
Step: 005: Anchor tool
Another thing that you need to make sure you have checked is the right tool. There is a column on the left hand side of the preview box that has a row of arrow looking tools. The tool you want to be using when you mask is called the 'Anchor Creation Tool'. It looks just like a little pen - make sure though that you click that particular pen tool, you DO NOT want to be using the pen with the minus symbol (-) next to it. That tool is used to erase your mask.
Step: 006: Begin masking!
You're going to use the Anchor Creation Tool (dude I just call it the pen tool, because that is so much easier to say AND type...so yes, the pen tool!). You use the pen tool to click and insert points onto the image in order to create an outline around part of the image. DO NOT DRAG points, simply click each point separately, the dotted line connecting points will show up all on it's own as you go along.
Step: 007: More connecting
When you are finished outlining the shape, the last thing you're going to do is click on the very first point you inserted. This will connect the shape as a whole. Again, do not drag the points. Your last point will end up being the same as your first point. You'll know you've done it correctly because the entire shape will be highlighted in yellow and the leftover will fade a little.
TIP: One very important thing to keep in mind is what exactly you want to show up. In this case, we want Jo to be where the windshield is, so we want the windshield to disappear when we add our mask. When you're masking, the shape you outline is the shape that stays visible! If we would have outlined the windshield, that would have stayed visible and the space around it become the black space. So always remember, if you want something to disappear, outline everything except it. The shape you outline is the shape that stays visible.
Step: 008: Feathering
When you're connecting points, they are automatically straight lines, which doesn't always look the most natural. When you have just straight lines, they can look very jagged and messy. So to remedy that, we're going to use the Feather tool! (Located in the left hand column under 'Path'. The 'Feather %' then is located directly under that). You have three options when you feather: In, Out, or Both. Feathering in - blurs all the points on the path inward, so in this case it will slowly make the entire image disappear. Feathering Out - blurs all the points on the path outward so that the higher the percentage the more of the original image is visible. Feathering both - blurs points both inward and outward, making the line less jagged, leaving this looking a lot smoother, this is the option that I choose most often and find the most useful.
Step: 009: The tricky part
When you are in the preview box, you can move the cursor along to view the clip. You'll notice that as it starts to get to the end of the clip the clip itself will begin to move while the shape you outlined does not! It'll look like it's being shifted up, down, left, right, little by little as the clip goes on. When you start to see this happening you're going to want an insert a key frame at that spot. From there you're going to select (from the left hand column with all the arrow looking tools) the 'Normal Edit Tool'. It looks just like a regular arrow. Scroll over the image and DO NOT click until the shape is completely highlighted in yellow - from there you can click on it and drag and drop the outline anywhere. Here, obviously, we're going to want to place it so that it again covers the image in the place you want. You're going to find that you might have to do this several times, creating several keyframes as you go along, to make sure that the outline stays in place throughout the entire clip.
TIP: Using the Normal Edit Tool this way doesn't always work so straight-forward. A lot of times you will be working with masks a lot more complex than this one - especially if you're manipping kisses. There are going to be a TON more points and moving the shape as a whole won't always line up exactly. When that happens you will need to use the Normal Edit Tool to click on individual points and move them. You will click on the individual points and drag them to re-outline the shape as you go alone to make sure it stays lined up.
When you've finished all that, keyframes and all, you're left with an a clip that will resemble this:
Now if you're placing a person into a different scene, manipping kisses, etc. This is where you stop! However when working with putting people in windows, mirrors, frames etc. I usually take it a little further. If you look at the image you can see that Jo fits perfectly in the space where the windshield once was, but that becomes part of the problem. You loose the context of the clip because it looks like she just has a border around her with a blob chilling on the left hand side of it, and that looks silly. We want it to look like Jo is a reflection in the windshield.
So...
Step: 010: Adding video tracks
I said before that when you're masking, you need to be very conscious of what is on top and what is on bottom. The clip of Dean is going to remain on the top because it is working as a mask over the rest of the clips. So when we add a track we're going to add it BELOW that clip of Dean.
Step: 011: No more mask.
You're going to right click, copy and paste that same clip of Dean onto the new video track (Because we want Jo to look like a reflection in the windshield we want the original shot of Dean to show up in the windshield as well).
Then, again, you're going to right click and choose 'Video Event/Pan Crop..". This time though, you're going to UNCHECK the box that says mask, so the mask disappears. You'll be able to see in the original preview window (bottom right of the screen) that it looks just like it did when you first started.
Step: 012: Opacity change.
In oder to make both Dean and Jo show up, you're going to need to lower the opacity of that track. On the left hand side of your track timeline, you'll see the track tool bars. On track #2, the middle track, you're going to move the dial to the left to lower the opacity level. This step is really more of personal preference. If you want the reflection of Jo to be less visible you leave the opacity level at a higher percentage. If you want the reflection of Jo to be more visible, you lower the opacity level to a lower percenatge - for this clip I chose about a 44%.
