CompuServe Messages

John, RAZOR PRO does the compositing your asking for… "alpha channeled objects that are keyframable around the screen (like old Rio Animator, but 90's), with automatic dropshadowing. Interactive levels, transparency, etc. with a positional light source. So you can put a dot somewhere on the screen, and it'll move the dropshadow around, kinda like raytraced shadows, but simpler. (could move objects around too, not limited to dropshadows.) Or mabe just keyframable dropshadow levels, settings, etc. Additive, Subtractive, If lighter/darker, color, hue, difference, multiply, etc, etc. per object, just like Picture Publisher object operands." Alpha channel objects – thats what we work with. You can move them around the screen in 2D or 3D using the orientation effect and the graph display which means you can move the image around interactively. Dropshadowing – Use the alpha channel object and make a second copy of it then make it greyscale by using the black and white effect. Change its trans- parency by using the transparency effect or the video levels. Change its position as above interactively. Once in greyscale the dropshadow could be then colored to any color using the tint/color correction effects. "powerful keying for poorly lit walls, etc. This would let you select a couple colors from the picture to use, instead of just one." Our chroma keyer can be applied more than once to the same image. Apply it once using one color and then apply it again and pick out another color. We have had many professional video people use this in situations where they found no other tool could handle this. "background removal- removing the background using a bitmap to use as the subtractor. For "keying" type things without blue/green screens. You would take a static picture of the background, and then use that static picture as reference to figure out what's foreground, and subtract all the similar areas (background) from the entire clip. (camera must not move, but SW would give a little tolerance for tripod shake)" An important effect which we are working on and should be ready shortly. "just a few of the many ideas banging around in my head" Please let us know of any other ideas you have and we will set our programmers on them. That's what we're here for… Jamie Carr in:sync