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Building Mask for WO


bgarrett

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Hello,
I recently had a project that I projected on two organic shaped projection screens. Projection surface #1is a piece of spandex like materiel that was stretched out to look like a flower blossom with the center coming to a inner point. Projection surface #2 was a group of white umbrellas that were group together to make a large projection surface. Both projectors over shot the projection surface, bleeding light onto the wall behind it. I wanted to make a black mask to make sure the light that overshot the the projection surfaces was black and not content.
My question is what is the best way to do this? Have other WO users found a good way to build masks?
I am currently using WO 5. I am looking to upgrade to 6 at some point. Right now I use Photoshop with a touchscreen monitor with a stylus. I make marks in PS and then save, switch over to WO, refresh media, then update WO. It becomes somewhat of a guessing game on where my marks go in PS. The bouncing back and forth from WO and PS gets tedious. Is there a way to draw a mask right in WO so that I can see what I am drawing in real time? Can I do this somehow in WO 6? I saw there was a mask tool in 6.

I can post an image but I couldn't figure out how to upload an attachment.
Thanks,
Brent

 

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.... I can post an image but I couldn't figure out how to upload an attachment. ...

 

To include an image in a post, you must host it elsewhere and then link to it.

I can host the image for you if you want to email it to me at jimk at showsage dot com

(email address formatted to hopefully avoid the web crawlers from harvesting it.)

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A nifty method is to use Photoshop on a second monitor (full screen). You can set up photoshop to render the image being edited full screen to a secondary monitor. Then bring that secondaty monitor into WATCHOUT either using capture card (full framerate and expensive) or using "Remote Computer" (not full framerate but cheap). You can then "paint" a mask more or less in real time on that monitor, while seeing the result projected through WATCHOUT. Once you have the mask, you can use it as a mask in WATCHOUT through the "masked by layer above" feature. If you want to mask just a video, this is straightforward. If you want to mask a more complex timeilne, make the timeline as a composition, then mask the composition with the mask.

 

This video discusses using a Cintiq pen display, but the same technique should work regardless of monitor type:

 

   

 

Mike

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I typically take a photo from the position of the projector while it is showing full white. Then I resize to display resolution and create the mask in Photoshop. I use no geometry correction in WO, as that would make it hard to make it line up. If I need to tweak the mask, I can do it with corners. Usually, it is spot on. The WO6 mask tool is good, but it takes a little while to get used to, and might be a little too clunky for something like masking in between umbrellas.

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...Have other WO users found a good way to build masks? I am currently using WO 5...Is there a way to draw a mask right in WO so that I can see what I am drawing in real time? Can I do this somehow in WO 6? I saw there was a mask tool in 6.

 

Yes, WO6 has a mask tool for each Display. It allows multiple masks to be added to a Display.

 

This tool, however, currently does not allow bezier curves (not sure if bezier will be introduced later). A word of caution is recently a client of mine has complained that adding 10 masks (or more?) crashed his Production PC (X99 Asus Deluxe mobo, i7 5930, 16GB RAM, Samsung 850 Pro SSD for OS, and Samsung SM951 M.2 for Watchout). I have yet to find out more details on this crash so others' mileage may vary.

 

A useful feature of the WO6 Geometry and Mask Tools is that it now superimposes the Geometric Grid and/or Mask(s) over the image at the Preview cursor so you can see what you are doing in the Production PC. The grid, however, does not appear on the Display PC output.

 

To see the Full Geometric Grid in the Display PC, I have created a Photoshop grid (.psd) almost equivalent to the Full grid I see in the Production PC's Display (Adjustment) Window (one for 1920x1080, and one for 1920x1200). This can then be used in an upper layer in the Timeline and output to the Display PC, and turned off/deleted when not required.

Available at -

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vka36vx3prdbcae/AAAhEIQxLDtQnfZAB29FWYxJa?dl=0

 

Thomas Leong

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you all for the responses. I was able to make both ways work with Mike's suggestions. I have a Datapath Vision card that I was able to use as a second display and I also was able to install Photoshop on the display computer in order to use the remote computer. Thanks again.

Brent

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