Thanks for the video. I do my splits differently, but I can see the use in this way too. I can’t wait to try your way. Just to add to this info, I now tend to use the ‘Stabilize’ tool also for locking off a shot since it is a real time effect. Most of the time the lock off works but it also depends on the specifics of the shot. As with all Avid tools, there are ‘tricks’ to make this happen. Most people use the ‘Stabilize’ tool as only a ‘drag and drop’ (which is great most of the times using the Avid automating stabilization). But if you are needing to do more complex stabilizations ( and you don’t have access to Mocha on your production), or if you need to lock off a shot, there are other options within the same window. There is also the options to expand the tracking tool to get better tracks (like in AE), you can smooth the track after the fact (see the tiny square buttons that allow for adjusting the curve of the effect) and like all things, you have to try it a few times before you get it right or close to what you want. I am a big fan of grabbing the ‘auto-stabilized’ effect and draggling it back onto the shot after doing split screens. It really helps with blending the shot back in.
Love Avid mostly, but for effects like this I'd much rather use After Effects or Premiere. So much faster and straightforward. Unfortunately we'd have to go through the steps of going out of Avid, in to AE, then back in Avid. Wish Avid would address this. Thanks Richard, this is so incredibly useful to achieve this within Avid and not have to roundtrip.
We love After Effects but yes, it's a bit of a pain to get in and out of the Avid. Having said that Avid and Adobe are supposedly collaborating on something where you'll be able to share Premiere Pro sequences, projects and folders with Media Central. I don't think it includes After Effects but maybe it's a start? You can check out the webinar here: bit.ly/3ccUvZJ Thanks for the comment!!
There are so many reasons *not* to go out to After Effects for effects like this. Foremost among them - these comps can be "rolled out" (extended) by the editor in the timeline, far beyond any handles you might work to in After Effects. Or the two elements can easily be slipped relative to each other. The editor can work in real time to change the edit, with the clips in the timeline. All they have to do then, if anything gets "broken," is holler through the open door to their assistant "Hey you know that split you did earlier? I rolled it out and also slipped the two plates 4 frames. After I re-rendered it didn't look quite as good. Maybe just make sure that before the next screening you make it look great again? It can wait until after you turn over the reel to Sound and Music again, which I need you to do as soon as I am done with the reel in 10 minutes. I'll put a red locator on it. Thanks!"
Great tutorial Richard. Thanks so much. Is there a way to access this footage and replicate your guide? ***ah…was looking on phone. Now looking on desktop and can see exactly where it’s from. Thanks again for sharing. Hugely appreciated!
If you're trying to just swap out the performance on the left, you could just matte out the actress and hide the matte in the shadows right? Why would you make the matte so large?
Hey Fred, you may not remember me. We met years ago in NYC when you were assisting on Taking Woodstock and I think we bumped into each other again when you were on Life of Pi. I am the person who came up with this technique. It's really meant to be used to unlock a whole new level of complex compositing ability within Media Composer - it's a bit overkill for *most* so called "easy" comps like a basic left/right split. But I think (you'd have to ask Richard) for the sake of simplicity in the demo, a basic split is chosen just to help get the organizational structure and workflow illustrated. And as shown, it can help bring a higher level of polish to almost any comp that requires even a very basic Animatte. Where it is *most* useful is in composites that require actual key framing and animating of the matte shape. Those are the comps that you spend a ton of time doing the Animatte, and where it hurts the most to have to re-do that Animatte from scratch if your boss says "Oh, let's have the plane come in from the other side of the frame, instead. Also it should be farther away (smaller) while you're at it." If you're like most experienced Media Composer users, you've been in that situation and you just suck it up and redo all the roto, after carefully repositioning and rescaling your insert element (e.g. the airplane your boss wanted to be comped differently than you originally did it.) This method makes that unnecessary. If fact, once you've done the roto and built the comp this way, it is easy to just show your boss "Hey, so if you want to adjust where the plane is (e.g.), all you have to do is this (*click click* on the 3D Matte Key) and slide the position and scale sliders around!" Make sense now? Hope you're well. I checked your imdb and I see you've kept busy over the years. Good luck. P.S. if you want an even more in-depth reply you can see my other comments below in response to another user with similar questions.
Does show you how clunky avid is (for fx) still having Matte + Fill for it's timeline and not re doing the Code to be RGBa. So sharing projects with Premier will be Cuts only most likely. Be great for avid editors is it isn't as then they could do titles easy.
I don't understand why you're making extra mattes? The animatte is already doing that? If you need to adjust the framing of one of the performances just nest a 3D Warp under the animatte and you can move that layer independently. This should only take two layers, the bottom one for one half of the performance and the V2 track for the other half of the performance. Animatte the V2 track then step in, place a 3D Warp and adjust until they line up. As for stabilisation, Avid is a steaming pile of **** for that. Kick it out to a better program, stabilise properly then bring it back in. Mocha if you can afford it, Resolve if not. Resolve does a much better job at stabilising shaky shots. Please can you explain why you're creating additional mattes?
If you nest a 3D Warp under an animatte, it tends to move the fill layer only and not the matte later, so you'd have to move both your fill underneath and then adjust the matte layer. The other issue that happens if you option drag the 3D warp, as I demonstrate, is it moves both layers. The technique I show, while a lot of work up front, allows you to easily move the matte shape and the fill underneath. We're working around how Avid handles alpha channels, which isn't very well implemented. As far as tracking in Mocha or Resolve, that involves time to round trip, time to render and it can't be modified quickly. Working in the Avid allows for quick adjustment which can be critical in the early stages of an edit when you need to create slap comps.
@@straycatds I'm trying to get my head around what you're doing here. Let's take the first example in the video where you want to combine two shots in to one performance. You animatte around the area you want to key in/out. You're saying that if you now alt+drag a 3d warp on top of this animatte that it will affect both layers of the animatte (v1 & v2) which is correct. So you then create a matte and key using the paint effect. This is where I start getting confused. Why are you creating another matte and key when that is essentially what the animatte effect is doing? You say it's because you want to be able to move the two layers of your comp individually, but you can do this by simply nesting a 3d warp effect underneath your animatte effect without the need to create the extra paint effect? You can move one layer of your comp using the 3d warp parameters and if you have expanded the tracks in your timeline you can see the result and line up your comp in this manner. So you would have v1=take 1, v2=take 2. Then you would have a 3d warp on v2 and alt+dragged on top of that an animatte. Then you would roto where you want to using the shape tools in animatte, thus revealing the layer beneath and if the two layers were out of whack then you would adjust the v2 layer using the 3d warp parameters. But you haven't needed to create an additional matte and fill using the paint tool and the matte key effect. That achieves the same result as you do in the video but minus the extra steps. I feel like I'm missing something here, do you see what I'm saying? Can you explain why my method would be less preferable?
@@ripvanmarlowe I understand what you're saying, however if you step into your animatte effect and nest a 3D warp and move it, what happens is you will move the fill and not the matte. So your 3D warp will control the fill position, but then you'll have to step out and modify your matte position as well. By doing it this way, you're essentially using the animate as a guide to determine the luma matte that you're creating with it. For example, if I were rotoscoping somebody's head on a static shot, I would only need to roto the head in it's static position. If I then needed to track that head onto a moving shot, by working the way this example demonstrates, you could motion track the matte key effect will which will move the matte and fill at once. If you tried to do the same effect by nesting a 3D warp under an animatte, you'd effectively have to motion track twice: You'd have to motion track the fill on the 3D warp, and the animatte shape.
@@straycatds Ok, I see what you're saying in relation to the moving head example but in the example given in that first section of the video you do not reposition the V1 layer at all, only the V2 layer to match it and then you drop a 3d Warp on top of the stack and reposition the final comp to resize it a bit. There is no tracking taking place. In that example, you didn't need to make the additional luma matte? All you needed to do was adjust the V2 layer position to more closely match the seam with V1? It seems like you're just using the animatte to create a guide for you to use the matte key and paint tools to create...another animatte? In that example it just seems like extra steps to get you back to the place that you were already in when you initially dropped the animatte on the clip? Sorry, I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm just trying to understand why these extra steps were necessary in the given example.
oh how EASY...lets just be honest. Avid is a piece of shit and coded like arse. All those steps for something that simple. If I was using Premiere I could simply roto it and move it around however I want. The fact that 3d warp affects the layers/tracks underneath is just the dumbest thing ever and I don't get why they coded it like that. Who would ever want that? Seriously like has there ever been a situation in your life where you have been like "oh boy I am glad they coded it like this". It's just super annoying and shows how Avid is unnecessarily complicated. Looking forward to the day when Avid will go the way of the dodo. Bad UI is bad.
That last step was belissima!
Thanks for the video. I do my splits differently, but I can see the use in this way too. I can’t wait to try your way. Just to add to this info, I now tend to use the ‘Stabilize’ tool also for locking off a shot since it is a real time effect. Most of the time the lock off works but it also depends on the specifics of the shot. As with all Avid tools, there are ‘tricks’ to make this happen. Most people use the ‘Stabilize’ tool as only a ‘drag and drop’ (which is great most of the times using the Avid automating stabilization). But if you are needing to do more complex stabilizations ( and you don’t have access to Mocha on your production), or if you need to lock off a shot, there are other options within the same window. There is also the options to expand the tracking tool to get better tracks (like in AE), you can smooth the track after the fact (see the tiny square buttons that allow for adjusting the curve of the effect) and like all things, you have to try it a few times before you get it right or close to what you want. I am a big fan of grabbing the ‘auto-stabilized’ effect and draggling it back onto the shot after doing split screens. It really helps with blending the shot back in.
What is your way of doing it, and is it better?
Thank you for this - it was a huge help for something I have to do for work today. I'm wondering why something this simple has to be so complicated.
You're very welcome!
Thanks for this great breakdown. Can this Avid limitation be fixed with any of the Boris plugin options or do you still need to do this workaround?
Love Avid mostly, but for effects like this I'd much rather use After Effects or Premiere. So much faster and straightforward. Unfortunately we'd have to go through the steps of going out of Avid, in to AE, then back in Avid. Wish Avid would address this. Thanks Richard, this is so incredibly useful to achieve this within Avid and not have to roundtrip.
We love After Effects but yes, it's a bit of a pain to get in and out of the Avid. Having said that Avid and Adobe are supposedly collaborating on something where you'll be able to share Premiere Pro sequences, projects and folders with Media Central. I don't think it includes After Effects but maybe it's a start?
You can check out the webinar here: bit.ly/3ccUvZJ
Thanks for the comment!!
There are so many reasons *not* to go out to After Effects for effects like this. Foremost among them - these comps can be "rolled out" (extended) by the editor in the timeline, far beyond any handles you might work to in After Effects. Or the two elements can easily be slipped relative to each other. The editor can work in real time to change the edit, with the clips in the timeline. All they have to do then, if anything gets "broken," is holler through the open door to their assistant "Hey you know that split you did earlier? I rolled it out and also slipped the two plates 4 frames. After I re-rendered it didn't look quite as good. Maybe just make sure that before the next screening you make it look great again? It can wait until after you turn over the reel to Sound and Music again, which I need you to do as soon as I am done with the reel in 10 minutes. I'll put a red locator on it. Thanks!"
Great tutorial Richard. Thanks so much. Is there a way to access this footage and replicate your guide?
***ah…was looking on phone. Now looking on desktop and can see exactly where it’s from. Thanks again for sharing. Hugely appreciated!
Giving this one a likey like
At 5:30, how did you move the numbers one by one? I thought it would be with the arrow keys, but it's not
The error at 01:25, usually happened when adding another effect to a clip while the effect editor window is active
Sir when I drag the matte key effect it says effect does'nt apply
If you're trying to just swap out the performance on the left, you could just matte out the actress and hide the matte in the shadows right? Why would you make the matte so large?
Hey Fred, you may not remember me. We met years ago in NYC when you were assisting on Taking Woodstock and I think we bumped into each other again when you were on Life of Pi. I am the person who came up with this technique. It's really meant to be used to unlock a whole new level of complex compositing ability within Media Composer - it's a bit overkill for *most* so called "easy" comps like a basic left/right split. But I think (you'd have to ask Richard) for the sake of simplicity in the demo, a basic split is chosen just to help get the organizational structure and workflow illustrated. And as shown, it can help bring a higher level of polish to almost any comp that requires even a very basic Animatte. Where it is *most* useful is in composites that require actual key framing and animating of the matte shape. Those are the comps that you spend a ton of time doing the Animatte, and where it hurts the most to have to re-do that Animatte from scratch if your boss says "Oh, let's have the plane come in from the other side of the frame, instead. Also it should be farther away (smaller) while you're at it." If you're like most experienced Media Composer users, you've been in that situation and you just suck it up and redo all the roto, after carefully repositioning and rescaling your insert element (e.g. the airplane your boss wanted to be comped differently than you originally did it.) This method makes that unnecessary. If fact, once you've done the roto and built the comp this way, it is easy to just show your boss "Hey, so if you want to adjust where the plane is (e.g.), all you have to do is this (*click click* on the 3D Matte Key) and slide the position and scale sliders around!" Make sense now? Hope you're well. I checked your imdb and I see you've kept busy over the years. Good luck. P.S. if you want an even more in-depth reply you can see my other comments below in response to another user with similar questions.
@@ethanhenerey6039 Hi Ethan, makes totally sense. Good to hear from you!
Does show you how clunky avid is (for fx) still having Matte + Fill for it's timeline and not re doing the Code to be RGBa.
So sharing projects with Premier will be Cuts only most likely. Be great for avid editors is it isn't as then they could do titles easy.
How to install avid media composer?
bit.ly/3Bs54o7
I don't understand why you're making extra mattes? The animatte is already doing that? If you need to adjust the framing of one of the performances just nest a 3D Warp under the animatte and you can move that layer independently. This should only take two layers, the bottom one for one half of the performance and the V2 track for the other half of the performance. Animatte the V2 track then step in, place a 3D Warp and adjust until they line up. As for stabilisation, Avid is a steaming pile of **** for that. Kick it out to a better program, stabilise properly then bring it back in. Mocha if you can afford it, Resolve if not. Resolve does a much better job at stabilising shaky shots. Please can you explain why you're creating additional mattes?
If you nest a 3D Warp under an animatte, it tends to move the fill layer only and not the matte later, so you'd have to move both your fill underneath and then adjust the matte layer. The other issue that happens if you option drag the 3D warp, as I demonstrate, is it moves both layers. The technique I show, while a lot of work up front, allows you to easily move the matte shape and the fill underneath. We're working around how Avid handles alpha channels, which isn't very well implemented. As far as tracking in Mocha or Resolve, that involves time to round trip, time to render and it can't be modified quickly. Working in the Avid allows for quick adjustment which can be critical in the early stages of an edit when you need to create slap comps.
@@straycatds I'm trying to get my head around what you're doing here. Let's take the first example in the video where you want to combine two shots in to one performance. You animatte around the area you want to key in/out. You're saying that if you now alt+drag a 3d warp on top of this animatte that it will affect both layers of the animatte (v1 & v2) which is correct. So you then create a matte and key using the paint effect. This is where I start getting confused. Why are you creating another matte and key when that is essentially what the animatte effect is doing? You say it's because you want to be able to move the two layers of your comp individually, but you can do this by simply nesting a 3d warp effect underneath your animatte effect without the need to create the extra paint effect? You can move one layer of your comp using the 3d warp parameters and if you have expanded the tracks in your timeline you can see the result and line up your comp in this manner. So you would have v1=take 1, v2=take 2. Then you would have a 3d warp on v2 and alt+dragged on top of that an animatte. Then you would roto where you want to using the shape tools in animatte, thus revealing the layer beneath and if the two layers were out of whack then you would adjust the v2 layer using the 3d warp parameters. But you haven't needed to create an additional matte and fill using the paint tool and the matte key effect. That achieves the same result as you do in the video but minus the extra steps. I feel like I'm missing something here, do you see what I'm saying? Can you explain why my method would be less preferable?
sorry that should say matte and fill not matte and key
@@ripvanmarlowe I understand what you're saying, however if you step into your animatte effect and nest a 3D warp and move it, what happens is you will move the fill and not the matte. So your 3D warp will control the fill position, but then you'll have to step out and modify your matte position as well. By doing it this way, you're essentially using the animate as a guide to determine the luma matte that you're creating with it. For example, if I were rotoscoping somebody's head on a static shot, I would only need to roto the head in it's static position. If I then needed to track that head onto a moving shot, by working the way this example demonstrates, you could motion track the matte key effect will which will move the matte and fill at once. If you tried to do the same effect by nesting a 3D warp under an animatte, you'd effectively have to motion track twice: You'd have to motion track the fill on the 3D warp, and the animatte shape.
@@straycatds Ok, I see what you're saying in relation to the moving head example but in the example given in that first section of the video you do not reposition the V1 layer at all, only the V2 layer to match it and then you drop a 3d Warp on top of the stack and reposition the final comp to resize it a bit. There is no tracking taking place. In that example, you didn't need to make the additional luma matte? All you needed to do was adjust the V2 layer position to more closely match the seam with V1? It seems like you're just using the animatte to create a guide for you to use the matte key and paint tools to create...another animatte? In that example it just seems like extra steps to get you back to the place that you were already in when you initially dropped the animatte on the clip? Sorry, I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm just trying to understand why these extra steps were necessary in the given example.
oh how EASY...lets just be honest. Avid is a piece of shit and coded like arse. All those steps for something that simple. If I was using Premiere I could simply roto it and move it around however I want. The fact that 3d warp affects the layers/tracks underneath is just the dumbest thing ever and I don't get why they coded it like that. Who would ever want that? Seriously like has there ever been a situation in your life where you have been like "oh boy I am glad they coded it like this". It's just super annoying and shows how Avid is unnecessarily complicated. Looking forward to the day when Avid will go the way of the dodo. Bad UI is bad.