Picture in Picture and keying effects

The Layouter

The LAYOUTER is the best way to resize and move images inside of EDIUS 6.  With this you can crop an image, move it in 2D and 3D and keyframe the movement so it goes exactly where you like.  All our EDIUS tutorials are panned and scanned using the LAYOUTER.  EDIUS has two other picture in picture effects - both of which have been in EDIUS since the original version, where as the LAYOUTER was introduced in EDIUS 6.

The main advantages of the LAYOUTER over the 3D PNP are:

1. LAYOUTER maintains the quality of the image, rather than scale it to video size, then move it (which is how the 3D PNP works)
2. LAYOUTER is a filter rather than a keyer so you can move it around amongst the other filters. This is very important when using effects like the MASK filter where you cut a whole in a clip using a mask you draw. If the PNP filter is in the wrong place you appear to be moving a clip around behind a hole, rather than moving the contents of the hole around (it makes sense when you do it).
3. The LAYOUTER' keyframes do not change when you resize the clip. If you put a keyframe at 10 seconds and resize the clip the keyframe stays put - so resize the clip to 5 seconds and you do not reach the end of your motion path. With the 3D PNP you define a path an not matter what the length of the clip it still flies along the same path - just faster or slower. For some people this is an advantage, for some a disadvantage.

2D Picture in Picture

Grass Valley have 2 other picture in picture effects, apart from the LAYOUTER - the first full 3D and this 2D pnp the second.  Why?  The simpler answer is these were developed first and the layouter added later.  There is not much you can do in the 2D editor that you can't do with the 3D, but as the 2D pnp major advantage is you can combine many more in realtime.

Setting up the 2D picture in picture

1) You add the Pnp effect filter to a clip on one of the tracks.  Define a start point and just click any where	2) Click somewhere on the line between start and end and a new point is made.  Change the size of the clip so that is no starts small and grows as it flies...
Add a boarder at a key frame and one will appear and follow the clip around	You can also add a crossfade at the start and end of the clip using the EFFECT tab.

The LAYOUTER and the 3D picture in picture follow a much more standard interface so why would you use the non-standard 2D PNP?  If you understand it properly and set up a decent preset you can very quickly apply this effect to many clips on the timeline and suddenly have a procession of clips hurtling across the screen, fading in and out as they do so.  EDIUS finds it very easy to do the 2D PNP as well which means you can stack multiple layers of effects on the timeline and it still keeps on playing.

How to use this filter plus all the other EDIUS video filters is explained in depth on our EDIUS 6 tutorial volume 2: Effects.

3D Picture in Picture

EDIUS' 3D picture in picture effect produces very good results although practically all it's effects can be duplicated with the LAYOUTER  One difference is that you can have feathered boarders and a quite nice "light sheen" which moves across the image as it twirls as seen here.

Chromakey

The Canopus Chromakey is amazingly good.  The quality of the key is astounding and you can tweak the results very easily. 

 

Here you can see some of the more sophisticated controls.  The results can be key framed, applied to a rectangular region and best of all the adjustments you make are seen instantly on the TV attached to the computer so you know what the results are going to be without waiting. 

Two different display are available on screen:

                       1.                                                            2.

1. The key - you can see just the matte generated by the computer - very useful for fine tuning.

2. The keyed version - notice the blue sky has been replaced by another image 

Lumakey

Key out the light or dark areas of an image.  Lumakey is easier to get right than Chromakey, but you always have to be careful about how you light your subject.

The MASK TOOL

The mask tool is the next generation of the old "region filter".  This lets you apply an effect inside or outside of an area and keyframe it so it moves across the screen.  This can be any of EDIUS range of filters or you could just say make the area outside the mask transparent.

In the clip here we have have cut out the shape of the crawling man to superimpose him on another image.  Notice that you can soften or "feather" the edges of the mask either inside, outside or both.

You can also have multiple shapes in the same filter.  If you have 3 people's faces you need to blur then put a mask on each one and they will all be blurred, all in the one filter.

Masks can be rectangular, spherical or a hand drawn shape complete with bezier curves.  The only way to get better masking than this is to use a full-blown compositing program like Adobe After Effects.

The track matte

When ever we compared EDIUS 5 to Premiere Pro we would say "EDIUS lacks some filters that Premiere has, like a track matte".  Not with EDIUS 6.  Now we have a track matte filter which lets you lay out 3 video tracks, and make a hole in clip using the video placed on another.

In this example we have two pieces of video with a title and the words DVC in between.  Add the track matte and the title cuts a whole in the video.  However as this on the video track we can now add some motion the title and the hole in the video will move around.  You can use any video so you can disappear off to After Effects, for example, to make a really complex mask using their new "rotobrush" tool, export that as a black and white image, and load that into EDIUS as a matte for your video.