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JoeWasHere222
JoeWasHere222
Participant
October 20, 2018
Question

Masks not rendering in final video

  • October 20, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 3789 views

Hello,

I have a project where I am capturing footage from a First Person Shooter video game. In game, I turn off the HUD and then if I switch between two weapons fast enough, I can record an unobstructed view of the video game. Sometimes however, I'm not consistent with the weapons switching so for a couple frames here and there, parts of the gun is visible.

So I've imported the footage into AE and trimmed it to the length that I want, then when I reach the frames with part of the gun visible, I go to Composition -> Save Frame As -> File. This exports as a .PSD, which I then import back into the comp, trim it to the exact length of time that the weapon is visible, then mask out only the gun. In After Effects, this looks fine. I can Preview and all these Mask edits look good. When I export however, the masked sections don't export, leaving me with the original video that I imported into AE.

Here are some screen shots of my timeline setup.

Here you can see the mask selected with the layer inactive or hidden: https://i.imgur.com/NkwljEV.jpg

Here you can see how I want the final  to result to look like, with the layer active and visible: https://i.imgur.com/CcS4GH4.jpg

I've tried Adobe Media Encoder and Render Queue. Also, I've tried to use a Freeze Frame instead of Save Frame As but am still running into the same issue.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

R
Community Expert
Rick GerardCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 20, 2018

First, please drag your screenshots to the forum. It's easier than posting to another site and a lot of folks won't follow links on forums.

Second, your screenshots do not show the modified properties of the layers that are giving you problems. That's the first step in diagnosing a problem. Select the problem layer, press UU to reveal all modified properties, start turning things off or resetting things until the problem goes away, and if you can's solve the problem then PrintScreen and Paste to the forum. It takes about a half second. There is nothing in your screenshots that gives me a clue. Your workflow isn't clear. There is no known bug that would cause a layer with a mask not to render unless something else was going on in the comp.

Personally, I'd probably just duplicate the footage layer, set an out point for that layer just before the gun appears, set a timeline marker, move the CTI to the time when the gun goes back out of frame, drag the entire layer to the right until the out point gets to the out point, move the CTI back to the marker and use the keyboard shortcut Alt/Option +[ to set a new in point, for the duplicate layer, temporarily change the blend mode to screen or overlay so I could see through it, draw a mask with the pen tool, set the mask feather to soften the edges. then switch the blend mode back to normal. The whole thing would take about 15 seconds and you'd be done with it.

Another option, if the frame was more complicated, would be to open up the footage in the Layer Panel, select the clone tool, and either paint out the gun and trim the paint strokes or time shift the clone tool after painting out the gun and edit the duration of the paint stroke.

JoeWasHere222
JoeWasHere222Author
Participant
October 21, 2018

Thanks Rick for your quick reply. I finally puzzled out what was wrong. The footage was recorded at 60 fps, but the comp was showing 58.94 fps. Then in Adobe Media Encoder, the comp was rendering at 59 fps. Looks like my masks weren't working because of these inconsistencies.

Thanks a bunch for getting me to think about what else might be wrong. And thanks for the tip about dragging pics into the message area.

Cheers

R
Community Expert
Rick GerardCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 21, 2018

Always check your footage interpretation. If it is nonstandard, fix it. Screen recordings and mobile devices are famous for fouling up frame rates. Most of the time you can force them to a standard by simply selecting File>Interpret Footage>Main and specifying a standard frame rate. You should always render to a standard frame rate and video will look best if the frame rate is evenly divisible by the refresh rate of the device that is going to be used to play it back. 30fps in NTSC countries with 60Hz power and 25 fps in PAL countries with 50Hz power. There are a bunch of folks that will argue that point but their reasoning quickly will fall apart when you start moving things across the screen.

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