masks in lyric

[hzryb@aol.com]

I am having the damndest time trying to get a mask character to work... When I key the graphic, using what I am thinking is a proper mask (right-click & selected mask, image has alpha) I just get a large black box.

What am I doing wrong?

[Greg Lennon]

Is this an alpha channel mask (ie shaped)?

If so, select Mask Character, then Soft Mask. To invert how the alpha channel is used, you can also select Mask Inside.

[hzryb@aol.com]

I will try this, but I've done several test masks, with alpha inverted, alpha straight, alpha overspilled (over the actual part of the graphic I want to show, along with the part I want masked) and I can't seem to get it to work right.. It has to be a simple answer... maybe something in the scene graph hierarchy that I'm not doing right?

As an adjunct.. this is what I want to use the mask for: I have a need for head shots, and only want to create one size, and then scale and mask the sides and bottom to fit the various graphic frames that will be used to "house" these head.

Any suggestions of how best to set up a disk to accomodate this? I know ESPN has one size head shots - that would be the easy thing, but the designers have designed different size head boxes for each type of graphic... some square, with a diagonal slice on the bottom, some square and some shaped as a parallelogram! I am going to have some fun with that one!

Thanks for any help...

Howard

[akaka2]

Here is document on how to create mask object in Photoshop

[justakeystroke]

You created the mask in Photoshop with no video and added an alpha channel that was black. Then when you brought it into Lyric and told it to be a mask, the mask turned black on the VGA. This is correct and will show up like that unless you assign it to a layer. You then have to assign the head shot to the same layer. If it is not assigned to layers the mask is actually working correctly and will perform the mask on the output. Every object that is below the mask will be erased. The black object you are seeing is only on the vga to help you actually see the mask object. The pdf that was posted will also present this with graphics.

Good luck.

[aabake]

The problem I've been having with masks is that the "mask to layer" doesn't seem to work how I think it should. I can get a mask to work properly the way it has been described in this thread but if I have more than one mask in a message it causes problems. If I have one mask set to layer 1 and another set to layer 2 they both effect the graphic. It seems impossible to have 2 separate masks linked to 2 separate graphics without them messing each other up. Anybody know how to get around this?

[Greg Lennon]

What version of Lyric are you using?

What render mode are you set at (Config>Preferences>Animation Settings)...Fast/Normal/2-pass etc??

[thorn]

4 Years later -

Has this problem been resolved? We're having it in Cincinnati.

Thanks,

thorn