Surfaces and layers

[eg...@lhi.is]

Hi all,

I found some discussion on this topic but it's still unclear to me.

I have a video to a door on stage. The door is standing a little in front of a wall. First I want a video only to the surface "Door". Then I want a video on the "Wall" surface, under the "Door" surface. I cant get the first video to stay on top, having worked on layers, shutters and control points. There are of cource workarounds, like starting the second video before the doors and fading it in when needed. This however, will cause problems later, when more surfaces are needed. It will be to heavy on the computer to be running all kinds of video in the background. Another way is the old way of editing the video into a file, but that takes away the power of change and of surfaces.

Also, after Apple dropped the Animation codec, is ProRes the only format possible with an alpha channel? I know Syphon and Quartz offer possibilities but I have limited knowledge there. In the simple example above, I want the door video to have feathered edges to blend better with the wall video.

All the best,

Egill Ingibergsson

[micpool]

Ive sent Egill some examples off list to help him with his surface layering.

As regards alpha channels , the important thing is there is no need to use a codec with an alpha as he can just use a static mask on the door surface with a gradient from white to black the width he wants the blend to be

Mic

[eg...@lhi.is]

Thank you for the answer Mic. However it does not solve my problem. In your example, all new clips fade on top of the previous. If I fade a picture to a surface and then fade another to the same surface, it can be put on a layer behind the first one. If the two are on different surfaces, the new picture always seems to come on top of the first one, no matter which layer it is on.

As for the alpha layers, how would you do the attached scene? I did it with a ProRes file (the volcanic burst). Of course I could make another video, with the mountain under, and crossfade to and from it. That would however take away the freedom of change and using it with any picture I like to.

The example I mentioned with the door and the wall is a great simplification of what I intend to do, but it explains it still. For example I want a video file on the door, then another video file to the wall which is boiling fire. I want the fire to "bleed" into the door a little. Therefore I don't think a mask would do it, it would block out pixels instead of making them transparent. Then I want the door file to stay, the fire to go and then another video to play on the wall. All in all I'm intending to use up to 17 surfaces, with the wall behind. Some overlapping the wall, some partly and some not, coming on/off and changing pictures, independent of the wall, but it bleeding into them.

In the days of Qlab version 1 and before that, I used MaxMspJitter to do things like this. To me quality is of less importance than functionality, so I'll decrease the pixels if needed to let the Mac Pro handle this. But I need files to fade in behind others, when on different surfaces and make them blend on all edges.

I might be misunderstanding something and hope this is possible without workarounds.

All the best,

Egill

[Lucas Krech]

Surface layers and cue layers are two discrete things. If you make door surface Top and wall surface Bottom all cues sent to door surface will be on top of all cues on wall surface regardless of what cue layer they are on. So a Bottom cue layer on door surface will always play above a Top cue layer on wall surface. That said, if you adjust the opacity of the media on door layer it should blend just like any media less than 100%.

-L

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[micpool]

On Thursday, October 16, 2014 2:47:28 PM UTC+1, eg...@lhi.is wrote:

Thank you for the answer Mic. However it does not solve my problem. In your example, all new clips fade on top of the previous. If I fade a picture to a surface and then fade another to the same surface, it can be put on a layer behind the first one. If the two are on different surfaces, the new picture always seems to come on top of the first one, no matter which layer it is on.

I can't reproduce what you are seeing. I attach an example workspace which follows exactly what you describe above and works as expected 

 

As for the alpha layers, how would you do the attached scene? I did it with a ProRes file (the volcanic burst). Of course I could make another video, with the mountain under, and crossfade to and from it. That would however take away the freedom of change and using it with any picture I like to.

Yes, ProRes 444 is the best method to do what you describe here. But in  your original post you  just wanted to feather the edges of a door surface in front of a wall surface which a mask in settings/ video/ edit surface would do. (Black really is  transparent, white is opaque)

Check you are running 3.1.4 and all your surfaces have edge blending turned off.

I don't think that surfaces are the answer to a lot of what you describe ib the rest of your post. Surfaces, layers ordering and surface masks  are a fixed hierarchical system you set up once for a workspace. What you describe is wanting them to behave completely differently at different times and to vary smoothly from state to state.  The only way to achieve the dynamic transparency you describe is by using ProRes 444 for video and png with transparency for still images.

Mic

[eg...@lhi.is]

Of course Lucas, it had to be one of these simple things ... cue vs. surface layers. Thanks.

"Help, there is no output from the console!"

"Is the grand master up?"

" ... ehh ... no "

Yes Mic, it may be this will be to heavy for Qlab and to complicated to make. I'm just exploring my possibilities.

ProRes 444 means BIG files and potential lag on playing. Only wish there was a lighter codec in there with an alpha channel. Blend modes in Qlab would also be nice.

Thank you for your time and your answers.

Egill