Partial masking

[kecked]

We have all used masking in our shows for ever. What if you want a variable transparency. How do you accomplish this. I mean yea I could make a new layer in front of the mask and modulate brightness but is there a cleaner way? Asking for beyond and lsx in particular.

just a thought no need at the moment. God it’s good to be able to think again.

[masterpj]

We have all used masking in our shows for ever. What if you want a variable transparency. How do you accomplish this. I mean yea I could make a new layer in front of the mask and modulate brightness but is there a cleaner way? Asking for beyond and lsx in particular.

just a thought no need at the moment. God it’s good to be able to think again.

make a zone with a gradient bam? or use a brightness effect based on X or Y or radial position and make the section to be masked black? this can also be put on a zone as an effect.. depends if you want it to pertain throughout the entire show.

[kecked]

I actually had a need to do this last might. I have water with a rising moon coming out of the water. I was using a second shape under the water to do the reflection on the water. I ended up doing a few things. One I added a shape behind the water but in front of the moon. I used this to mask the moon till it came out of the water. That shape was a black square. The water is not a continuous shape so sections of the moon would show through the spaces in the water. The second square shape made a solid mask.

on top of the water I added a second shape and let the water mask this shape. I then modulated the brightness and shape to simulate the reflection. It was surprisingly difficult to make it work in pangolin. I do not get masking very much. I wish there was a simpler layer stack like lsx. I did the same scene in lsx in just a few minutes. The other issue in pangolin is it seems you have to be careful which track which object is in. It seems the tracks dictate the masking order. Then you have to cut and paste objects between tracks to move them. I can’t just drag an object between tracks. Anyway I figured a work around but it was harder than expected.

part of the problem here is I’m trying to use laser like video. Some things are better done with other tools. I may redo this scene in video and overlay it. I’ve been meaning to try this for a while.

[VDX]

... when reading, I had the idea of a LCD-screen in some centimeters distance to the laser-output and polarized laser beams - meant for blocking/absorbing them "pixel-wise".

Depending on the beam power maybe an idea?

Viktor

[kecked]

... when reading, I had the idea of a LCD-screen in some centimeters distance to the laser-output and polarized laser beams - meant for blocking/absorbing them "pixel-wise".

Depending on the beam power maybe an idea?

Viktor

i think it would destroy the liquid crystal. Could work if you had the pointing accuracy. The problem is I want to do multiple layers in one scene. Beyond seems to only let you do one set of layers.

guess I could try multiple timelines but that’s sloppy. There has to be a layers masking function I don’t know about.

for example I was wanting to draw curves for effects parameters or apply say a sine wave to make an object brightness pulse. Couldn’t find it then found found it. Now just need to figure how to apply it. Beyond is pretty deep. I usually find if I dig I find.

[laserist]

Laserium used a LCD back in Laserium I in "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" to fuzz a 3 wheel diffraction Lumia effect. It was a big old 7 segment display that was maybe seeing a couple hundred milliwatts. A soft edged mechanical mask is all about beam size...

... when reading, I had the idea of a LCD-screen in some centimeters distance to the laser-output and polarized laser beams - meant for blocking/absorbing them "pixel-wise".

Depending on the beam power maybe an idea?

Viktor

[White-Light]

It seems the tracks dictate the masking order. Then you have to cut and paste objects between tracks to move them. I can’t just drag an object between tracks. Anyway I figured a work around but it was harder than expected.

part of the problem here is I’m trying to use laser like video. Some things are better done with other tools. I may redo this scene in video and overlay it. I’ve been meaning to try this for a while.

That's logical isn't it to have an ascending order?

I think you may have made some aspects harder than they needed to be.

To get the shimmering, below the track for the moon cue that sits on the water, add an Effects track (click on the moon cue track and from "Effect" (in the menu at the top of the screen), choose "add Effect track"). Once the effect track appears below the cue track. On the Quick FX, right click over "Dance" and choose to copy it. Paste it into the Effects track on the timeline below the moon cue. That should give you the moon shimmering effect you want in 1 step. The only issue I see with this is for long playing cues, the stretching of the fx cue slows it down. Although this can be compensated for by adjusting the speed, there are limitations. I'm feeding back this restriction to Pangolin. But for a short clip, dance should give you the shimmering effect you want.

There are also ways around the timing stretch limitation by simply changing the input that control the time aspect of the effect to an external input source such as dmx or something else that can supply a timing source.

[kecked]

plainly after a long time of no resuts I state masking in beyond needs A LOT of development.