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How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:24 pm
by MSPhotography
I am working on a project that requires me to mask footage to appear to be playing inside of an object that is a totally different shape to the rectangle of the video. Is there any way of doing this, similar to how After Effects works, to do this inside of Fusion 9?

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:45 pm
by Sander de Regt
I am not sure if there's a way *similar* to After Effects, since the operational paradigm of Fusion is completely different, but what you're after is perfectly doable.

Since I can't determine your skill level in Fusion based on your question, let me know if you need more specific answers.

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:56 pm
by MSPhotography
Sander de Regt wrote:I am not sure if there's a way *similar* to After Effects, since the operational paradigm of Fusion is completely different, but what you're after is perfectly doable.

Since I can't determine your skill level in Fusion based on your question, let me know if you need more specific answers.


I am fairly new to Fusion however do have a somewhat okay grasp on how it works in general compared to After Effects so I could do with some specific answers as I have never done this before in Fusion.

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:15 pm
by Sander de Regt
Okay. Cool. Be specific then. What do you want to fit inside of what?
Are we talking about video inside of text, or images inside of a TV-screen or...?

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:56 pm
by MSPhotography
I have created a 2D graphic of a F14 fighter jet and I want to animate the footage slowly fitting into the shape of the tail wing, then the whole thing including the plane fly off screen, so essentially the same concept as fitting it inside of text I suppose?

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 10:19 pm
by Sander de Regt
Can you show the images you're working with?

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 1:35 pm
by MSPhotography
Here's some screenshots from the project

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:53 pm
by Sander de Regt
So, if I understand you correctly: you want the landscape to fill up the black part of the image and then have the resulting 'landscape plane' to fly off together?

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:25 pm
by MSPhotography
Yes, that is precisely what I'm aiming to do

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:39 pm
by Sander de Regt
Now we're getting somewhere.

When you say: fit to the shape. I don't know if you also want to distort it.

Can you explain in layman's terms what is that you want the shot to do: does it start out full frame? Is it the whole silhouet of the plane or just the last section?

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:42 pm
by MSPhotography
I don't want to distort it, I want to simply crop off the parts of the frame that don't fit inside the shape of the tail wing. There is an entire silhouette but I want to keep it limited to just the tail wing.

So the easiest way I can explain it is in After Effects, you can draw a mask using bezier curves around footage that then contains the footage into the shape of the mask. I don't have a problem with this bezier technique being possible or not, just simply recreate the same outcome inside of Fusion. Does this make more sense?

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:52 pm
by Sander de Regt
Absolutely. And in Fusion you can do this with masks in similar ways to After Effects.
I was just wondering about this part of your comment

I want to animate the footage slowly fitting into the shape of the tail wing


That sounds like you want to start full frame and then scaling down the image to fit inside the wing.
But you can also read it as scaling down the tail wing images until it crops out everything not inside of it.
These are different things and I'm still not sure what you're trying to do exactly.
I want to help you in a way that other people can also learn from the answer.
Any chance you can just draw a mini storyboard of your intended use?

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 5:53 am
by Juha Takabe
My background is Nuke and Nuke has Crop node what I haven't found inside Fusion.

Anyway what I usually do in this situation is make a Background (BG from toolbar) of what ever resolution you want. For example 1920 x 1080 and merge your road image over it. With transform make it move/rotate/scale as you want. Image will be cropped to match BG resolution size.

Then merge over Jet image above it.


Hope it was something you wanted. Best.

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 3:20 pm
by MSPhotography
tail wing concept.JPG
tail wing concept.JPG (18.96 KiB) Viewed 2496 times

tail wing concept.JPG
tail wing concept.JPG (18.96 KiB) Viewed 2496 times


Here is a concept art piece and a storyboard that should hopefully illustrate my intentions?

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 10:12 pm
by Sander de Regt
Juha Takabe wrote:My background is Nuke and Nuke has Crop node what I haven't found inside Fusion.

Look under 'transform' --> crop

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2018 12:09 pm
by MSPhotography
The crop works! Thankyou very much! A mix of cropping and using blend parameter in the merge node worked a treat!

Re: How to mask footage to fit inside a graphic

PostPosted: Wed Mar 07, 2018 7:21 am
by Juha Takabe
Sander de Regt wrote:
Juha Takabe wrote:My background is Nuke and Nuke has Crop node what I haven't found inside Fusion.

Look under 'transform' --> crop

Oh, I have totally missed this one. Thanks for heads up!