Rotoscoping with Vegas at DVinfo.net

Peter Jefferson · June 5th, 2004, 10:59 AM

well kinda.. basically ive been gettin amnay potntial clients asking for the groovy black and white everythign else, while one element remains in colour..

1) there are 2 ways i am consideirng doing this in vegas.. one using teh cookie cutter and 2 video tracks.. lower layer in BW, top layer cut out revealing the element and running in full colour

2) the other is to use V5's Bezier Masking...

Now i knwo ther is a pinnacle product which does this natively, does anyone knwo what the app is called? Id liek to check it out, butin tthe mean time abotu the 2 methods above...

1) not sharp enough around the mask/cookie cut.. for example, i may with to only reveal coloured wedding rings or coloured flowers, while the rest is BW.. cookie cutter is only basic shapes.. to do this with this tool is a lil difficult with intricate shapes...

2) bezier masking.. well tracking will just be so damn tedious that id end up throwing the PC out the window.. LOL
I find Beziers work well witha static background and are awesome for DVD Menues.. but for 2 animated screens.. forget it..

any thoughts, ideas or comments on how to achieve this effect??

Ian Stark · June 5th, 2004, 08:16 PM

Try making a duplicate track containing your clip. Place a Chromakeying filter and a B&W filter on the top track. Select the colour you want to keep in the Chroma filter (adjust to taste).

That should do it.

Edward Troxel · June 5th, 2004, 08:33 PM

It also depends on how unique the color is. I have an example of doing this using the Secondary Color Correcter in one of the newsletters - http://www.jetdv.com/tts - but you will need to modify it slightly for Vegas 5. A mask effect will need to be added to the mask track and you may need to change the mode of that track to Multiply (Mask) as well.

Glenn Chan · June 5th, 2004, 09:24 PM

Try this:

Duplicate the video onto itself.

In the top layer, apply the secondary color correction before the black and white filter.

In the secondary CC, use the eyedropper and select a box around the colors you want to keep. Use the "show mask" control and the other controls to tweak the settings so you mask only the colors you want.

At the top of the secondary CC control, knock alpha all the way down. In the B+W filter, set it to the highest setting.

This should be slightly better than the chroma keyer?

What's happening:
In case you didn't figure it out already, the top layer is B+W and the secondary color corrector 'punches holes' through it. The bottom layer contains color and you can apply whatever color correction you want on it (i.e. use saturation adjust to bump the saturation).

Something else you could do is to use the channel blend filter instead of the B+W filter. This way you could control the contribution of the RGB channels on the grayscale image.

Ian Stark · June 6th, 2004, 02:18 AM

Saturation adjust filter can also be useful for this.

As Spot describes in hisV4 Editing Workshop, it acts as a kind of colour graphic equaliser that allows you to increase/decrease saturation of selected spectrum bands.

In fact, this method and the one I mentioned earlier are both covered in the book - so there's a further (unecessary, I expect) plug for ya.

Peter Jefferson · June 6th, 2004, 02:26 AM

thanks for the reponse, but i cant get any of these techniques to work...

would anyone have a dummy veg file they can send me? Ive spent over an hour on this and still cant get it going.. even if theyre are with 2 basic jpgs

Ift would be greatly apreciated if you could!!!

my email is djpadre@hotmail.com

im still gonna see what i can do from here.. but i dont like my chances

Peter Jefferson · June 6th, 2004, 02:35 AM

okies, well i set the top track with 2nd CC and BW, btu teh only way i could get anywhere near this effect by runnin a default C template of Desaturaing all but reds..
Problem with this is that even though it looks good, all red elemnts are visible, this includes skin tones as well as anythign in the background like pathways etc..

Im tryin to work out how to refine this but im still haveing no luck..

still if anyone has any more important, id love to hear it..

By the way even with the effect halfway as it is, it still looks brilliant!!

its jsut not as precise as id liek it to be.. :(

Edward Troxel · June 6th, 2004, 07:58 AM

Remember that you can also add the cookie cutter so that you can restrict it to a certain area of the screen as well. You may need to use multiple masks to further restrict the area.

Glenn Chan · June 7th, 2004, 04:52 PM

Peter,
I have uploaded a sample project that hopefully you can make sense of.

members.rogers.com/ioeoto/whatever.rar

Some of the pictures may be offline but the necessary one should be included in the rar file. Check the very last picture in the Vegas timeline.

Douglas Spotted Eagle · June 7th, 2004, 07:52 PM

Peter,
email me a still of the shot with information about what you want to cut/desaturate.
With Vegas 5, this doesn't need multiple tracks like earlier versions. No masks, nada. It's a one-track, one filter process in almost all situations.
dse at sundancemediagroup dot com

Peter Jefferson · June 8th, 2004, 04:44 AM

thanks guys!! the best i can do is 2nd colour corrector and BW.. and even then its the default "desaturate all but reds"

il see wha ti can scratch up tonight, but thas again for all teh help, ill downlaod that file tonight and see how i go:)

June 5th, 2004, 10:59 AM	#1
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	Rotoscoping with Vegas well kinda.. basically ive been gettin amnay potntial clients asking for the groovy black and white everythign else, while one element remains in colour.. 1) there are 2 ways i am consideirng doing this in vegas.. one using teh cookie cutter and 2 video tracks.. lower layer in BW, top layer cut out revealing the element and running in full colour 2) the other is to use V5's Bezier Masking... Now i knwo ther is a pinnacle product which does this natively, does anyone knwo what the app is called? Id liek to check it out, butin tthe mean time abotu the 2 methods above... 1) not sharp enough around the mask/cookie cut.. for example, i may with to only reveal coloured wedding rings or coloured flowers, while the rest is BW.. cookie cutter is only basic shapes.. to do this with this tool is a lil difficult with intricate shapes... 2) bezier masking.. well tracking will just be so damn tedious that id end up throwing the PC out the window.. LOL I find Beziers work well witha static background and are awesome for DVD Menues.. but for 2 animated screens.. forget it.. any thoughts, ideas or comments on how to achieve this effect??

June 5th, 2004, 08:16 PM	#2
Ian Stark Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Hampshire, UK Posts: 2,237	Try making a duplicate track containing your clip. Place a Chromakeying filter and a B&W filter on the top track. Select the colour you want to keep in the Chroma filter (adjust to taste). That should do it. __________________ www.vit-media.com www.classicmachinefilms.co.uk

June 6th, 2004, 02:18 AM	#5
Ian Stark Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Hampshire, UK Posts: 2,237	Saturation adjust filter can also be useful for this. As Spot describes in hisV4 Editing Workshop, it acts as a kind of colour graphic equaliser that allows you to increase/decrease saturation of selected spectrum bands. In fact, this method and the one I mentioned earlier are both covered in the book - so there's a further (unecessary, I expect) plug for ya. __________________ www.vit-media.com www.classicmachinefilms.co.uk

June 7th, 2004, 07:52 PM	#10
Douglas Spotted Eagle VASST Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Stockton, UT Posts: 5,648	Peter, email me a still of the shot with information about what you want to cut/desaturate. With Vegas 5, this doesn't need multiple tracks like earlier versions. No masks, nada. It's a one-track, one filter process in almost all situations. dse at sundancemediagroup dot com __________________ Douglas Spotted Eagle/Spot Author, producer, composer Certified Sony Vegas Trainer http://www.vasst.com

June 5th, 2004, 08:33 PM	#3
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	It also depends on how unique the color is. I have an example of doing this using the Secondary Color Correcter in one of the newsletters - http://www.jetdv.com/tts - but you will need to modify it slightly for Vegas 5. A mask effect will need to be added to the mask track and you may need to change the mode of that track to Multiply (Mask) as well.

June 5th, 2004, 09:24 PM	#4
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	Try this: Duplicate the video onto itself. In the top layer, apply the secondary color correction before the black and white filter. In the secondary CC, use the eyedropper and select a box around the colors you want to keep. Use the "show mask" control and the other controls to tweak the settings so you mask only the colors you want. At the top of the secondary CC control, knock alpha all the way down. In the B+W filter, set it to the highest setting. This should be slightly better than the chroma keyer? What's happening: In case you didn't figure it out already, the top layer is B+W and the secondary color corrector 'punches holes' through it. The bottom layer contains color and you can apply whatever color correction you want on it (i.e. use saturation adjust to bump the saturation). Something else you could do is to use the channel blend filter instead of the B+W filter. This way you could control the contribution of the RGB channels on the grayscale image.

June 6th, 2004, 02:26 AM	#6
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	thanks for the reponse, but i cant get any of these techniques to work... would anyone have a dummy veg file they can send me? Ive spent over an hour on this and still cant get it going.. even if theyre are with 2 basic jpgs Ift would be greatly apreciated if you could!!! my email is djpadre@hotmail.com im still gonna see what i can do from here.. but i dont like my chances

June 6th, 2004, 02:35 AM	#7
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	okies, well i set the top track with 2nd CC and BW, btu teh only way i could get anywhere near this effect by runnin a default C template of Desaturaing all but reds.. Problem with this is that even though it looks good, all red elemnts are visible, this includes skin tones as well as anythign in the background like pathways etc.. Im tryin to work out how to refine this but im still haveing no luck.. still if anyone has any more important, id love to hear it.. By the way even with the effect halfway as it is, it still looks brilliant!! its jsut not as precise as id liek it to be.. :(

June 6th, 2004, 07:58 AM	#8
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	Remember that you can also add the cookie cutter so that you can restrict it to a certain area of the screen as well. You may need to use multiple masks to further restrict the area.

June 7th, 2004, 04:52 PM	#9
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	Peter, I have uploaded a sample project that hopefully you can make sense of. members.rogers.com/ioeoto/whatever.rar Some of the pictures may be offline but the necessary one should be included in the rar file. Check the very last picture in the Vegas timeline.

June 8th, 2004, 04:44 AM	#11
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	thanks guys!! the best i can do is 2nd colour corrector and BW.. and even then its the default "desaturate all but reds" il see wha ti can scratch up tonight, but thas again for all teh help, ill downlaod that file tonight and see how i go:)