On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 21:25:45 -0400, "Mike Kujbida"
wrote:

Bill G wrote:
On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 07:40:11 -0400, Traveller
wrote:

I've done some online searching and in my Vegas Video 4 manual but
I'm not getting any results. I know it must be because I'm not
searching for the right thing. It's something you see a on TV or in
movies occasionally, when the camera has a shot of the main subject
and lots of surrounding people, etc., but the camera focuses on the
subject and the rest of the screen goes out of focus so that we
really only see the main subject.

What is this called, anyone know? Once I know what this is called,
I'm sure I'll find a tutorial or two on the net on how to create this
effect.

Thanks.

Others have pointed you to 'depth of field', which applies more during
the time of shooting, but since you want to do this in VV4 I would
look for something like Filter, Mask, or Video Overlay. I don't know
the actual steps, but you might be able to make a full-screen blur
mask with a circular hole in it, and then position the mask so that
your subject can be seen through the hole. If you're working with a
long video sequence, repositioning the mask might be a pain but you'd
probably only move it every X frames so that it seems to follow your
subject.


The effect to use is called Cookie Cutter.
Place 2 copies of your clip on the timeline, one under the other.
On the lower track, click the Event FX icon and select "Gaussian Blur".
Select "medium blur" in the Preset box. You'll go back and adjust this later
so don't worry about it being too blurry right now.

YES! That sounds about right. I have a heck of a lot more experience
with graphics vs. video as I've done a lot of work in PaintShop Pro so
the terms are familiar. I'll look for this in V V.

On the upper track, click the Event FX icon and select "cookie cutter".
Select "circle center" in the preset box, "circle" (or other effect as
desired) in the shape box and "cut away all but section" in the method box.
Increase the "border" size until you can see it. You'll only use this to
help with positioning. Afterwards, drop it back down to 0. Adjust the
other parameters (feather, border and center) and move the little square in
the white box to the left of the settings windows to position the circle as
required.

Kewl.

Now go back to the upper track and adjust the blur to the desired level. If
you want the blur effect to fade in over time, you'll need to add key frames
(the timeline at the bottom of the Video Event FX window) to the effect.
Simply set the blur amount to 0 at the beginning, move the cursor to the
point that you want the blur to be fully in, create a new keyframe and enter
the new blur amount. That should be it.

Looks like I'm going to re-do this VCD and use a new intro! yeay!

BTW, there are a number of excellent Vegas forums around to learn a lot
more.
Sony: http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.co....asp?ForumID=4
DMN:
http://www.dmnforums.com/cgi-bin/dis...-foundry_vegas
Creative Cow:
http://www.uemforums.com/2pop/ubbthr...Cat=&Board=NLE
DV Info:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisp... b&forumid=54

Thanks, I did do a lot of searching through the forum posts, that's
how I learned a little bit about using the masks. That one was tricky
g. I also searched for tutorials.

And also check out:
http://www.vasst.com/aboutus.htm (check out the "Resources" page here)
Excellent set of free (pdf) newsletters at
http://www.jetdv.com/vegas/forum/viewforum.php?f=5
Very comprehensive site at http://www.blue7media.com/vegas/

Happy reading.

Neat. Thanks loads.

In message , Traveller
writes
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 18:46:36 +0200, "Rob D"
wrote:


"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
. ..
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 12:40:24 +0100, Tony Morgan
wrote:


Its also worth mentioning that the depth of field is smaller at tele
zoom settings (keeping the subject framing the same - i.e. Moving
further away from the subject).

Does this mean a tele lense would help things?

It would increase the degree of control, but not significantly. IMHO
it's hardly worth the investment unless you have a need for extra tele -
and under max tele settings you will need to tripod mount to get a
steady picture - in spite of 'steady-shot'.

Let's hear again from Traveller. I'm not at all sure differential
focus is what he's looking for, though 90% of this thread is
addressing that topic :-)

I think Bill G, Mike and I at least (sorry if I missed anyone else), have
him on the right track.
But he has gone rather quiet - perhaps busy trying out the suggestions!?

Yes, so sorry. RL got in the way and I did come up with a solution in
the meantime. I finally figured out how to work with masks! g I
used that and blacked everyone else out. It worked. But I'd be
interested in doing the same thing but trying a blur instead.
Anything would have done here just to get all the pedestrians out of
the shot esp. the one who just walked in front of the subjects and so
that all we see is a bent elbow, a leg and a butt! lol Very
distracting.

Vegas has this built-in, and is described in the on-screen Help.
Essentially you:
1. Duplicate the clip (sequence) into a layer above the original
2. Create a mask on the area *not* to be blurred and invert it
by selecting Path Negative (so that the original mask area
is sharp).
3. If you wish you can feather the edge of the mask.
4. If you want the mask to follow the subject, you can use
the keyframe controller (at the bottom of the Event/Crop
window) to arrange for the mask to move following the
subject.
5. Finally, it's advisable to anchor the two layers together
in case you start shifting bits to and fro along the
timeline. To limit the extent of the anchor, it's advisable
to split the video/audio immediately before and after the
masked section.

I'd hazard a guess that Premiere has a plug-in that allows this, though
it might be a "pay-for".
--
Tony Morgan
http://www.camcord.info

"Tony Morgan" wrote in message
news
In message , Traveller
writes
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 18:46:36 +0200, "Rob D"
wrote:


"Laurence Payne" wrote in
message
...
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 12:40:24 +0100, Tony Morgan
wrote:


Its also worth mentioning that the depth of field is smaller at tele
zoom settings (keeping the subject framing the same - i.e. Moving
further away from the subject).

Does this mean a tele lense would help things?

It would increase the degree of control, but not significantly. IMHO
it's hardly worth the investment unless you have a need for extra
tele -
and under max tele settings you will need to tripod mount to get a
steady picture - in spite of 'steady-shot'.

Let's hear again from Traveller. I'm not at all sure differential
focus is what he's looking for, though 90% of this thread is
addressing that topic :-)

I think Bill G, Mike and I at least (sorry if I missed anyone else), have
him on the right track.
But he has gone rather quiet - perhaps busy trying out the suggestions!?

Yes, so sorry. RL got in the way and I did come up with a solution in
the meantime. I finally figured out how to work with masks! g I
used that and blacked everyone else out. It worked. But I'd be
interested in doing the same thing but trying a blur instead.
Anything would have done here just to get all the pedestrians out of
the shot esp. the one who just walked in front of the subjects and so
that all we see is a bent elbow, a leg and a butt! lol Very
distracting.

Vegas has this built-in, and is described in the on-screen Help.
Essentially you:
1. Duplicate the clip (sequence) into a layer above the original
2. Create a mask on the area *not* to be blurred and invert it
by selecting Path Negative (so that the original mask area
is sharp).
3. If you wish you can feather the edge of the mask.
4. If you want the mask to follow the subject, you can use
the keyframe controller (at the bottom of the Event/Crop
window) to arrange for the mask to move following the
subject.
5. Finally, it's advisable to anchor the two layers together
in case you start shifting bits to and fro along the
timeline. To limit the extent of the anchor, it's advisable
to split the video/audio immediately before and after the
masked section.

I'd hazard a guess that Premiere has a plug-in that allows this, though it
might be a "pay-for".

No plug-in is necessary. Premiere as a number of built-in adjustable
garbage mattes that make something like this very easy.




--
Tony Morgan
http://www.camcord.info

"Traveller" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 16:47:00 GMT, Bill G
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 07:41:47 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

"Traveller" wrote ...
I've done some online searching and in my Vegas
Video 4 manual but I'm not getting any results. I know
it must be because I'm not searching for the right thing.
It's something you see a on TV or in movies occasionally,
when the camera has a shot of the main subject and lots
of surrounding people, etc., but the camera focuses on the
subject and the rest of the screen goes out of focus so that
we really only see the main subject.

What is this called, anyone know?

Depth-of-field or depth-of-focus.

Once I know what this is called, I'm sure I'll find a tutorial
or two on the net on how to create this effect.

You may be looking in the wrong place. It is produced in
the camera while shooting. You will notice that when
shooting in low light with the lens open wide, focus is
much more critical. But with lots of light and the lens
stopped down, you have a very large depth of focus.
It is rather commonplace to put neutral density filters
over the lens just so the photographer can use a larger
apeture to reduce the depth of field.

You may be able to do it in post (in editing), but once
you image has been reduced to 2-dimensions, you will
have to manually trace around the part you want to be in
focus, and the part out of focus. That is why likely 99.9%
of people do this in the camera and NOT in post.

I see it more than "occasionally" in TV/movies. If it is
done right you don't notice it, but it directs your attention
to the desired part of the image. Just because we can do
more and more things through the magic of computers in
post-production doesn't mean that *everything* is done
in post.

I agree with what you're saying, but I think you may have missed the
point of the question. In my mind anyway, the OP seemed to be asking
for that effect you see on the news programs where a guy is skiing on
top of an avalanche and someone is using a camcorder from the other
side of the valley, so the guy is just a tiny black speck. To keep him
visible to us, the TV viewers, they blur or darken everything except a
circular area that includes the subject in order to make sure our eyes
don't stray elsewhere. There's no way to do that at the time of the
shooting, it's 100% done in post, because these are amateur videos
shot with camcorders on the spur of the moment.

That would work. I had a shot in the vid that was the only shot where
the subject and guide dog were shown properly, i.e., full frontal and
clearly showing face. But it's a shot where they're coming up out of
subway and too many people around plus a person was blocking a good
part of the right-hand side of screen. I _did_ do a workaround. I
found a mask and just had the actor and dog and everything else pretty
much blacked out. Professionally, anyone seeing this on TV would say
it stunk, but for home use as an intro to a TV ep, I was happy enough
since result showed what I needed.

I'll be looking to fine-tune something like this and the above example
is an excellent description. I'd also like to see a blur rather than
black, as I had to do.

Thanks.


In photography, when an el cheapo lens causes this, it is called a
"Vignette" effect. Maybe your software can reproduce this?

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 22:10:04 +0100, Tony Morgan
wrote:

In message , Traveller
writes
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 18:46:36 +0200, "Rob D"
wrote:


"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 12:40:24 +0100, Tony Morgan
wrote:

[snip]

Vegas has this built-in, and is described in the on-screen Help.
Essentially you:
1. Duplicate the clip (sequence) into a layer above the original
2. Create a mask on the area *not* to be blurred and invert it
by selecting Path Negative (so that the original mask area
is sharp).
3. If you wish you can feather the edge of the mask.
4. If you want the mask to follow the subject, you can use
the keyframe controller (at the bottom of the Event/Crop
window) to arrange for the mask to move following the
subject.
5. Finally, it's advisable to anchor the two layers together
in case you start shifting bits to and fro along the
timeline. To limit the extent of the anchor, it's advisable
to split the video/audio immediately before and after the
masked section.

[snip]

Thanks for the process! I think that I'm going to go back and play
around with the image and try all this.

Cheers. D