Panning and Zooming multiple masked videos

[slyttle]

Hi Everyone,

I have a feeling I am trying to do the impossible again, but I thought I would just check with the experts before I go down a road that may be a dead end.

What I am trying to do can best be described if you happen to have watched some of the Harry Potter movies, where they walk down a staircase that has all the historical paintings on the wall. Unlike standard paintings, these ones take on a life of their own and have movement inside the frame.

I would love to do something similar, albeit in a simpler fassion, by having a large static image on the main track, containing several picture frames, and then pan and zoom around this static image looking at all the moving images (videos) in the picture frames.

One throught I had was to create a very large images (4000 X 3000) containing all the picture frames. Then, in the overlay tracks I would place all the videos that would represent the moving paintings. The videos would be lined up with the picture frames using the picture-in-picture effect, and then I would pan-and-zoom around the static image viewing all the videos as they played simultaniously in the overlay tracks.

I fear there are sevaral problems with this strategy, the central issue being that when I pan-and-zoom the main track, the overlay tracks wont pan-and-zoom with it.... Perhaps I could move the videos around the screen in sync with the pan-and-zoom, but that seems pretty difficult.

Is what I am trying to do even practical in VS Pro X4?

many thx

-Sheldon

[teknisyan]

I have not seen anyone did what you are telling using VS X4 but you it appears that the work that you need to do is a combination of Chromakey a.k.a. green screen effect, PIP or picture in picture effect... and the "pan and zoom" which are all available on VS X4. If you have not installed the trial version you can download the trial version at http://www.corel.com/akdlm/6763/downloa ... o_TBYB.exe

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Sheldon

As you seem to be aware that the effect is very involved especially if you are intending to use several picture frames.
Try a test using one frame, overlay your second video to that frame.

You may be best to first render the project to a new video file, Then using the new file apply pan and zoom.

Have a look at some of the Instant Projects some use the affect you are trying to make, may give you some ideas.

But I think you are on the right lines with your approach.

As for the framed image, my thoughts were to create a PNG with transparent frames, placing this on a lower overlay track may allow the inset videos to show through?

I like the idea………..and yes I think it is possible using X4

[slyttle]

Thanks for both your replies!

I've had good success with building videos up incrementally as you described (ie. try with one instance, render, and add another instance of the effect).

Armed with these ideas, I think I'll give it a go!

Cheers,

-Sheldon

[teknisyan]

It would interesting on how the final video will come out.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

I have just completed a short video, is this the type of effect you are looking to create.

[slyttle]

Brilliant!!! Yes that is exactly what I am trying to do.

Last night I was partially successful, but ran into difficulty with the Pan and Zoom portion. Here is what I did:

1) Static image containing picture frames on the top track .... inside the frames there was a green background
2) videos placed on overlay tracks
3) each video had a cropping and picture-in-picture (PIP) effect applied with cropping above PIP, and I think I applied a "fit to screen" alignment as well
4) each video is aligned with the appropriate picture frame, chroma keying applied using the green background colour inside the frames, and the zoom factor is adjusted so that the top and bottom of the videos line up with the top and bottom of the inner part of the frame
5) I then used the cropping effect to align the left and right side of the video with the inner left and right portion of the frame

The trouble was, when I tried to apply a pan-and-zoom to the static image on the top track, it would throw the alignment of the overlay tracks out, and they would nolonger line up with the frames.

I thought that maybe I could apply a video pan-and-zoom to the overlay tracks, but that didn't work either (and only served to give me a headache).

I am thinking that what you must have done was render the static image with the videos playing into one video, and then imported that into a new project and then applied the pan-and-zoom???

It did come out really well! Congrats!

ps. I guess if you wanted to have someone walking around the room looking at the pictures, you could record someone against a green-screen mimicing the necessary movements and put that into another overlay track. Correct?

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

I used three separate videos in the overlay tracks. 1,2 and 3
Using PaintShopPro I created a Png image with transparent picture frames allowing the videos to show through. Placed in track 4
Resized the overlay videos, just to reduce the size and positioned, did not need accuracy as only part of the video will show.
Don’t need all the video frame, difficult when the picture frame is portrait and the video landscape.

Did not need Chroma Effect

Edited the audio to match Pan and Zoom approximate positions
By cutting the video clips at the point that the audio changed I could mute one side and fade the other, repeated for each video file.
Track 1 audio fading out as track 2 fades in etc

Pre-rendered the project, the resultant video file now having Video Pan & Zoom filter applied, rendered to complete video.