Export with alpha channel

[Kingston]

You must be using the standalone version of Boris Graffiti. I've been talking about using Boris Graffiti from within VideoStudio. The standalone version that you run from the Start menu has only one export option. The standalone version is not very useful. Boris Graffiti is listed among the video effects (FX) in VideoStudio. You start by adding the effect to a clip on the timeline.

[sgraham]

Kingston - I have MotionStudio. Can you give me the step by step for using that as I am a newbie with it. I will sharpen my head with an ax if need be to not have to try and learn a new NLE - Steve

[sgraham]

Thanks Kingston! That got me back on track.

[sgraham]

Kingston - I am still missing something. I think it is my setup in VX5. When I turn off background visibility in Boris Graffitti the entire movie disappears. I typically setup a black background (.PNG) in track one then put my content in the overlay track and chroma key out the green screen. when I do this and rotate into Boris to push it out I still see the green background. - Steve

[sgraham]

Kingston - still playing around. tried transparent png. i guess the net on this is I do not understand how the green screen would become the background so that i can turn that off in Boris. - Steve (and dude thanks for this help! IOU big time)

[sgraham]

can anybody give me the exact recipe to setup VX5 so that when I rotate into Boris I can turn off the background layer so that it makes the greenscreen invisible?

[Kingston]

It seems that any effects, such as chromakey, applied to the video clip you are using as a background for Graffiti are ignored. Only the original video clip to which you apply the Graffiti FX is used inside Graffiti, and any effects that are applied to the clip in Videostudio are ignored. That means the greenscreen effect will be ignored inside Graffiti.

[sgraham]

So that means VX5 and Boris are unable to create a walk on video (where the sprite, the walk on figure, is produced with no background so the website shows as the background)?

[Kingston]

Since you can't pass transparency from X5 to Graffiti, to do what you want to do, Boris Graffiti would have to have a chromakey effect within Boris Graffiti itself, but it doesn't.

[Kingston]

I have to take back what I said about Graffiti not having a chromakey effect. There's the BCC Glow Alpha Edges filter within Graffiti that can work on green screen.

Select BCC Glow Alpha Edges filter

BCC Glow Alpha Edges Tab 1

BCC Glow Alpha Edges Tab 2

BCC GAE 2.jpg (29.13 KiB) Viewed 6183 times

Continued next post...

[Kingston]

I didn't change anything on this tab:

BCC Glow Alpha Edges Tab 3

BCC Glow Alpha Edges Tab 4

[sgraham]

Kingston - That worked but my .avi was 244mb for a six second test. when i tried to output as a Flash file it crashes both Boris and VX5. Can you do a Flash output ok? - Steve

[Kingston]

Steve,

I didn't crash when I exported to SWF, but the video wasn't processed properly in that there wasn't any transparency and only the first frame played. As for uncompressed AVI, you can't get any bigger than that. Another application is needed to convert that AVI to Flash.

[sgraham]

Thanks Kingston - I put the AVI into IjoySoft and it ended up about 525kb. Played in a viewer I can still see a bit of background and at end about 40 frames get blurred. I was going to give it to my webby to try up on the site until I realized there is no sound on the AVI (and consequently the converted flv also). I will play around some more. For now I had my editor who knows Premiere Pro do it.

[Kingston]

Steve, After playing around a bit, I found that "RGB Diff" works a lot better than "Hue Diff" as is shown in the screen captures. I managed to export as Targa image sequence, then used Crayola Animation Studio to create a GIF from the TGA files, then used GIF Movie Gear to finally create a SWF file.

I'll have to try iJoySoft.