A good friend of mine pulled this effect off decades ago.
Sheet of glass, big brush and a can of CK green paint. From that you can easily generate realistic looking animated masks.

Bob.

Hey Grazie, send him your tutorial of the Sin City effect. Then on the next event you have normal video. Then just use the Linear Wipe transistion between the 2 events.

(. . here we go . . . )

(.. here we go...)

What does that mean?

jdw - you are asking ALL the questions that would need to be asked to get a better idea what the OP is after. Simply my comment underlines that we are off in writing here what needs to be done : "here we go".

jdw: "What would the underlying background color need to be? If one color is white and another black, that kinda rules out those as background colors. Or would you be wiping over an image of some sort, meaning you need a transparent background for the paint effect? What frame size / format are you needing?

All good questions, and still we could be getting it wrong.

I guess it's the non-emotive nature of texted based communication. But, since that sort of thing can lead to misunderstandings, I figured instead of getting into a "I know better than you" discussion I would just delete my post and leave the topic to others to jump in and help out.

You've asked great questions!

Hi Grazie,

First up, many thanks for all the input, and I agree with you, Grazie that the questions asked of me are entirely valid. Not sure what OP stands for, but I'll assume it's something nice. :-)

OK, in terms of the underlying colour, I'm not 100% but my current sense is that it's the footage I shot of the sandy inlet near where we live (in Wellington, New Zealnd btw). So there's sea in the lower third of the shot, an azure blue, beach in the middle third, and then in the top third a couple of huts, some vegetation and hills in the background, approximately.

I was thinking of playing around with say NewBlue ST Coloured pencil, or something to transition the tail end of the above footage into more of a line drawing, and then 'simply' sweep the colours in one after the other, white in the middle, black on one side, and magnolia on the other.

N.B. You are right about the magnolia, it is off white, so I can change the text to say peach or something to provide more of a contrast. I used magnolia because I like the way it sounded when spoken, but I'm happy to adapt.

Following the brush sweep, I cut back to an ocean shot, as the narrative is -

"My gaze lingers on the ocean in between, as it sprouts crest and curls lips, before crashing a thousand gallons in the sandy bowl that shudders under its weight."

In terms of the format, the project is 720x576x32 25,000i

As I said, I'm not 100% on how it'll look, but I'd love to get some ideas as to what's possible, especially given I'm a newbie at Vegas Pro, most certainly in terms of effects. Once I have some techniques, I can play around with it and see what works.

Many thanks again for all the input, and hope this post provides some more info that helps.

Cheers
Colin

Hi,

I'm not sure, that I understand properly your intent = but if you are looking for idea of animated mask like brush stroke you could use animated brush strokes from Digital Juice Motion Designers Toolkit One.

There is several method to use such file as animated mask. Probably you can render it from Juicer with alpha or use composition :

1st track from top : parent track : mask (animated brush) with mask generator FX or with alpha, compositing mode MASK
2nd track from top : child track : your color movie
3rd track for top : independent track : your color movie with B&W FX.

best regards,

Hi,

Many thanks for such a prompt response.

re my intent, I know the words of the story (and all my stories, I'm told) create very strong visuals, so I really just want to compliment / emphasize them, the words.

Who knows how my monkey mind works, but in my mind I had a paint brush stroke the colours across some of the frames as I'm saying the words, so

"The bride in white," => stroke white paint diagonally up the middle of the frame

"stands out against black tuxedos." => stroke black paint diagonally up the LHS of the frame

"and magnolia / peach dresses." stroke magnolia / peach paint diagonally up the RHS of the frame.

One of the comments yesterday said I could actually paint it on glass. With that I would have the hand in shot also. I won't know until I try out some of the effects available, then I'll know whether it's a good idea or not...

I'll take a look at digital juice. I assume they have a web site that named accordingly?

Many thanks again
Colin

Colin, my apologies:

OP = Opening Post

G

"One of the comments yesterday said I could actually paint it on glass. With that I would have the hand in shot also. I won't know until I try out some of the effects available, then I'll know whether it's a good idea or not..."

No you wouldn't have the hand in shot.
That's why I said you paint chroma key green paint on glass.
You shoot from the other side of the glass. The hand and the brush never gets in front of the green and with a bit of care with the lighting extracting the key is very simple, simple enough so this trick was done using the basic keyers in the old days of analog video processing and in real time.
You then use the key to generate masks.

If you have a graphics tablet I think you could also do this with one of those and you could paint on specific areas of the frame which would look more natural. Most graphics tablets also come with a selection of digital brushes.

You can also use the Secondary Colour Corrector to isolate specific colours in combination with luma values, that would make it easier to paint inisde the lines. With this you can isolate "bride in white" etc and apply the animated brush to only that to reveal it first, then on another track or even project isolate the black tuxedos and apply the brush reveal animated mask to them. Track by track you build the scene.


Another way this can be done and one done regularly that does look OK is to take a single frame and draw or paint it on an animation stand or on glass shot from the other side. Then that is crossfaded into the original frame from the camera and then the live vision is ramped up to speed i.e. comes to life.

Bob.

Well, I said I was going to stay out it -- but here I go anyway...

Does something like this work for you?

. . like I said jdw . . .

But yes jdw, that's exactly what I was thinking about. I've spent the last hour attempting to - badly - construct a digital "analogue" Brush . . seeesh


G

Something like this?

"I've spent the last hour attempting to - badly - construct a digital "analogue" Brush . . seeesh"

That's why I keep saying use a real brush and real paint.
Even with AE at my disposal I still go back to the old school way of shooting plates.


Bob.

Hi all,

My interpretation of what the O.P described. (Of course, might be well off the mark!). Very easy, still images developed in a graphics program with transparent backgrounds & multiple tracks in Vegas with wipe transitions.

]

Regards,

Duncan

I don't say any of this lightly, but you guys are awesome. I'm very flattered that you've taken the time to really help me out. Also I love the inclusion of Syl's favorite Godfather quote. The Sopranos was such a wonderful show. The Godfather I & II are my wife's favorite movie, we watch at least GF I every Christmas day as a ritual. Without wishing to trigger a tangent, I don't think GF III really stood up so well compared to the first 2.

Thanks again, and also for the entertainment.
Cheers
Colin

Bob,

CK green?

Col

Colin, was my attempt the kind of thing that you are wanting to have happen? That's what I was wanting to establish initially.

Bob, I'd got what you were saying, my input is soley about the process of transition Colin maybe looking for. The CK (Chroma Key) green or blue Brush work can come later.

If you want something that is quick as Duncan suggests
Create a mat = that is go into a graphics editor solid black image then with your paint brush white make a brush stroke be creative go mad
Then use it as a mat transition with Vegas gradient transition

Use the full gradient to get the most out of the image that is almost solid black = 8 to almost white 250