TOPIC:

Hi,

In an earlier video on YouTube (2013) presented by Iain Anderson of Coremelt, he demonstrated how to change the colour of a ladies hair using the above mask. I am trying to do something similar.

I walk from one side of the frame to the other. Having spent a few hours keyframing as he described, only to find it didn't track at all, I decided to rewatch the video to make sure I hadn't missed something. I created a simple shape around my head, eight control points. I moved the playhead and moved the appropriate control points to more or less keep my head in the mask.. I had about 5 keyframes. I clicked back through them and the points stayed where the last changes were made.

I'm sure I am missing something, but at no point did the tutorial state any thing other than the default property settings.

Here's the clip -

Any help would be most appreciated, as I'm getting disillusioned...

Thanks

Our internet plays up as in slow, so ignore this in favour of the subsequent message.
thx

UPDATE

I've played around some more and detailed the steps to show what's happening for me.

1. Find point in clip where figure is not obscured by leaves and such and mark.
2. Pull Color correction shape mask onto clip.
3. Transform property is the default - Perspective
4. Make sure key framing is on.
5. Draw shape around head.
6. Reduce brightness to make shape all black.
7. Move one of the control points to create a keyframe.

See screen shot - ColorMask-1

1. Click track forward

See screen shot - ColorMask-2

1. Return to mark in point 1 above.
2. Click track backward

See screen shot - ColorMask-3

1. Adjust mask by moving control points (and creating a keyframe)

See screen shot - ColorMask-4

1. Control ‘ to return to marked point in first step above

See screen shot - ColorMask-5

1. Readjust mask incl. moving a couple of control points

See screen shot - ColorMask-6

1. Return to beginning of clip

See screen shot - ColorMask-7

1. Readjust mask

See screen shot - ColorMask-8

1. Move back to mark point in clip as above

See screen shot - ColorMask-9

There are only 10 control points - not many. Iain’s original example had thirteen.

It seems that the point in the clip where the most recent adjustments have been made is prevailing resulting in the previous one’s exact positions being forgotten, or relatively forgotten, as though it’s moved those en masse relative to the adjustments made last.

Albeit having created the adjustments while the Transform property was set to Perspective, I changed it to Translation, Rotation and Scale, but that makes no difference.

I've watched a good few videos now, including coremeltfx ones and a couple from Larry Jordan who raves about SliceX.

There may be some subtlety I've missed, or I wonder if there is something amiss with my install.

Thanks for any thoughts
My best
Colin
I have attached the screen shots in a zip file

Am

Tutorial maker Iain Anderson here.

I think probably the reason why it might not be tracking well is that the tracked area is quite small, and the area that you've selected is a little larger. It could well be getting confused by the changing of the content in the edges of your selection.

First, you could try tracking an area that only includes the face, and none of the forest or trees behind it. That might still be a little small for an accurate track, though.

Second, if that doesn't work at all, you could try not tracking, and just moving the keyframes by hand. It's tedious, but sometimes it's the quickest way.

Third, just be careful exactly what you move when you're keyframing. If you only move the edges of the tracked area, then you're adjusting the shape keyframes. If you move the entire shape, that's a separate set of keyframes, and will therefore affect the whole clip.

Roger may have other tips or ideas, but hope that helps.

-iain

apologise, haven't read your very detailed workflow description, but:

you're aware of the difference of TRACKING vs. KEYFRAMING?
Reading your first post let me assume, you do manually what SliceX is made for to do automatically.

Have you watched this HowTo from coremelt?
vimeo.com/144344336

Hi Karsten,

Thank you for the reply. You are correct, the first attempt didn't make use of the SliceX track back and forward.

I used tracking for the second attempt which is what I used for the screen shots.

I've watched that one once, but will give it a rewatch as often one misses stuff first time round.

Iain posted a reply also, which I'll look into.

Having watched Iain's video where he talks about flat surfaces, I sense that the way the person (can neither confirm nor deny it's me) walks the flat surfaces don't remain sufficiently constant for it to work well. There is a video where a wee girl sits next to a lime green laptop and multiple masks are tracked. That may be how I achieve this.

Thanks again
Colin

Hi Iain,

Many thanks for your reply. The screen shots were weren't the whole screen, I was mindful of not making the files too big to be accepted as attachments.

Your first suggestion is one I'll try, and your second may prove a valid course of action although I did find that once you get to loads of control points, it does get confused, which is in part why I bought the Everything Bundle on special recently.

Can I ask you elaborate a little on your third point?

I wasn't sure whether you meant the overall shape / scale points? You mentioned in a video that one needed to be careful not to click on the scale points.

Many thanks for your time.
Colin

Sure, no problem. The yellow circles are the shape keyframes (good), and the blue circles are the scale keyframes (don't touch).

conc. usage of SliceX , Iain is best source for help…

but (yep, I'm very German…) going very fundamentally:
What do you try to accomplish anyhow??

Meanwhile I watched your screenshots - do you like to hide/obscure the face? Or colour correct it?

Whereupon I'm out:
maybe, you do it way too complicated (sorry coremelt ) . FCPX comes for example with a Colour-Mask feature : you define a colour (skin tone ) and FCPX will automatically 'track' that selection. Or, there's the Censor effect - just apply a few keyframes and anonymity is ensured.

So, what is your goal?

That's what I thought you meant, Good! Thank you.

In the clip, the person appears in the blue hat and coat. He happily walks out of the forest. Later on when he's being shown that other things happened behind his back, he realises that someone was following him, his shadow. Now the talent could dress all in black, but it struck me with a colour mask and tracking I could colour the same clip all black (yes, I'm a kiwi!).

The other video I watched was regarding the future freeze frame of the editor's son jumping onto a chair, then another chair, by jumping into a still. That could also work if I reversed it, so that as the blue man walks out of the forest, he leaves a freeze frame of his shadow. I got this working but then tried to add a Color Mask onto the freeze frame by copying the shape, but that didn't work.

It isn't essential to the narrative, but it would help emphasise it in places.

Thanks
Colin

kindomalay wrote:

… someone was following him, his shadow. Now the talent could dress all in black, but it struck me with a colour mask and tracking I could colour the same clip all black (yes, I'm a kiwi!).

ahaaaa …
well, you should consider a re-shoot - you need the person 'key-able' - no automatism is ale to 'knock out' the person from such a background! Or, you do have to do the painstaking process of Rotoscoping= manually drawing a mask around the subject - for each frame!

FCPX is very 'gracious' with its color-keyer - in my school projects we do use the worst green-screen in movie-making history - and get acceptable results.

So, what _I_ would do:
use a rocksolid cam (tripod, no pans)
get some hundred square meters of green cloth (blue! We are in the woods, green of no use. For 'Predator' they used PINK screens!)
lay out cloth into scenery, let talent walk upon/in front of it.
get rid of green/blue/pink screen and record some 'clean plate' of scenery

in FCPX, you staple all together - due to subject and bg are recorded with same environment, person comps perfectly into scene.

… then, you can double the subjects track, and use it for creating The Shadow - which will look a bit odd, - it will be just a black silhouette , mirroring the person.

As an example, utilising the Worst Green Screen Ever
final outcome:



original:



and when you use it for creating it a silhouette (ok, you can lower opacity, but…)

Hi Karsten,

Thank you for your generosity. It is greatly appreciated.

All the current footage uses a solid tripod and clean plates where necessary. I can reshoot all of that scene. That said, there is footage of the character walking down the path to the house, but given I've already done it a couple of times now, I've got it down pretty well down. It got easier once it was only the blue coloured character, which could present a problem blue screen...

So to my questions. Where did you get the cloth and what is it made of? I was going to ask how you created the shadows on the floor, but that is easy by having the three stand in the actual spot and then mask them out in favour of the green screened, but doesn't that mean they have to stand in the exact same pose? Or am I missing something there?

Thanks again
Colin

kindomalay wrote:

… It got easier once it was only the blue coloured character, which could present a problem blue screen...
… Where did you get the cloth and what is it made of?
… shadows on the floor, but that is easy by having the three stand in the actual spot and then …

a) you can use any colour for colour-keying … as mentioned, for Hollywood blockbuster 'Predator' they used a pink one. Blue was in analogue days handy, cause as 'complementary' to skin tones ; green is handy due actual sensor structures; but you can key any colour … better or worse

b) Cloth … our school has some nice inventory … material? would say some cotton/plastic mix (?) … search at amazon, B&H, et al for 'photographic backgrounds' … 3x6m ~40€, our 'main' green screen 2x2m is from a local penny store, 3€, some 'fleece' fabric … As mentioned: FCPX is very 'forgiven' conc. colours, knits, shades …

c) shadows … oh, no, pics are from a 'music video clip' project, using Kraftwerk 'Model' - so, we faked cat-walks, subjects actually moving (no video available, © issues ; ) )



to create a drop-shadow we used FCPX' built-in Drop Shadow effect:



It's very smart OnScreenControls makes it easy like that … IF you have a key-able or at last masked source!

A person in the woods is … difficult

Hi Karsten,

Thank you so much for this. I'll have a play around and see what I can come up with! Been focusing on the interiror parts today, we have rain. It is winter however, so...

Thanks again
Colin