VisionLab Studio

Quickstart v1.2.2
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Interface introduction
This introduction will take you on a quick tour through VisionLab Studio’s main interface, so that you can familiarize
yourself with the basics quickly and start experimenting on your own. At the end of the introduction you will find
tutorials for your first projects.

If you need additional help, be sure to check out the full reference manual, which can be found in your VisionLab
Studio folder. You can also find assistance at FXhome.com, from online tutorials to the community forum full of
other users willing to help.

Installation

When you bought VisionLab Studio you were sent an email with all you details. Please follow the instructions in this
email to install the application.

Authorization

You need to authorize VisionLab Studio before you can use it (unless you are using the demo). If you have
downloaded your key file to the desktop, it will automatically be detected. Otherwise follow the on-screen prompts
when you first start the program.

Interface at a glance

When you first start VisionLab Studio, you will be presented with the following screen:

• Center (foreground): The welcome screen, displaying useful information to get you started.
• Center (background): The canvas, where your project will be displayed visually.
• Top: The menu bar and toolbar, containing useful functions you will want to use regularly.
• Right: The toolbox, where you access your effects, media clips, filters and attributes.
• Bottom: The timeline, where you place your effects, clips and keyframes and can view all your project
information.
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The welcome screen

Each time you start VisionLab Studio, you are presented with the welcome screen. This provides easy access to
everything you might need to get started.

New project

Here you can choose how to start a new project. If you are running the program for the first time, this is what you
will want to do.

• Blank timeline: Starts a blank project according to your chosen settings. You can then choose your effects
and import any media clips you need.
• Select movie: Allows you to choose a movie file to use as a base for your project. It is automatically
imported and placed onto the first layer of the timeline. VisionLab Studio will try to set up the project
according to the selected file’s format.
• Select image stream: Same as ‘select movie’, except this allows you to choose an image stream instead
of a single movie file.

Open project

Once you have saved a few projects VisionLab Studio, the next time you start the program they will be listed here
for easy access. Simply click the name of a project to load it up, so you can get working straight away!

Hot News from FXhome.com!

If you are connected to the internet when you start VisionLab Studio, the welcome screen will display all the latest
news from FXhome.com. This is a useful way of ensuring you are up-to-date with all the latest developments
without needing to continually visit the website itself.

View documentation

Provides easy access to the manual and this Quickstart guide. Simply click a link to view the PDF document.
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The canvas
The largest area of the interface is the canvas. This displays your project visually, including all your effects and
media clips (collectively called ‘objects’).

In the above example, there are several objects displayed:

• The main background plate of the actors dueling.

• A blue neon light effect representing a lightsword.
• A red neon light effect representing a lightsword.
• A piece of stock footage representing an energy clash between the two lightswords.
• An optic effect to the top right of the canvas.
• A separate clip containing pre-rendered particle effects to the bottom left. You can see the animation quad
overlaid around the edges, which can be used to resize, reshape and reposition media clips by dragging
the corner and edge ‘handles’.

Along the top of the canvas is the infobar:

• On the left side of the infobar your currently selected object and toolset is displayed – currently confirming
that the clip to the bottom-left of the frame is selected, and that we are in the animation toolset.
• To the right is the current selected view. Some toolsets enable you to switch between different views. The
view in this example is Project overview, which shows every single active object on the current frame. You
could also switch to Track view, which would only show the currently selected object.

In the four corners of the canvas are the scrollers. Hold the mouse button down on these and move the mouse to
scroll the canvas in any direction. Right clicking them will refocus the canvas to the middle of the screen.
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Timeline
The timeline is another crucial part of the interface. This is where you lay out your project, deciding when objects
will appear and disappear and when they will animate and alter.

Each object is displayed on its own layer. An object has several accompanying tracks that display all the relevant
information. Clicking on a title in the track listing will show that toolset in the toolbox attributes section (see next
page). For example, clicking on the ‘Animation’ track title would display the animation tools in the toolbox and on
the canvas.

Navigation

You can move around your project using the scrubber that runs along the very top of the timeline The length of this
scrubber bar represents the entire duration of your project and clicking on it will take you to that particular frame.

If you need to be more specific, you can use the scrubber just below which displays each individual frame as a
vertical column of small rectangles. The main area on the timeline is the work area, which shows a specific section
of your project in frame-by-frame detail. The work area can be moved using the scrollbar at the bottom.

Keyframes

The small, rectangular blue markings in the illustration above are ‘keyframes’. These contain information about the
state of that track on that particular frame. Whenever you alter an attribute in the toolbox or on the canvas, a new
keyframe will be placed onto the timeline at the current playhead position.

You do not need to place keyframes on every single frame – instead, just add them at points when you need the
attribute to change. VisionLab Studio will fill in the frames in-between automatically, ‘tweening’ from one keyframe
value to the next.
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Toolbox
The toolbox is very important, as it stores all your available effects and media clips and also provides access to the
various toolsets.

At the top of the toolbox there are three tabs, which you can move between
at any point during your project by clicking them:

• Effect: Contains all the available effects engines. Click on an effect

engine once to display all its available presets. You need to drag a
blank effects engine or a preset onto the timeline to place the effect
in your project.
• Media: Displays all your media clips, which can be movie files, still
images or image sequences. Clips must first be imported from your
hard drive. You can preview a media clip using the preview pane at
the top of the toolbox. Media clips can be applied to the project by
dragging them onto the timeline.
• Attributes: Each effect and object provides access to several
toolsets. You can change between toolsets by clicking on the
appropriate track on the timeline. In the illustration to the left, the
‘Grade’ toolset is being displayed. At the top of the toolbox are all
the available filters. Three grading filters have already been applied,
which are listed in the lower half of the toolbox, along with all their
attributes.

The Effect and Media sections are used to choose your resources for the
project, while the Attributes section is used to alter the objects that you
have already placed on the timeline.
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The menu bar and toolbar

Running along the top of the screen are the menu bar and toolbar. These provide easy access to useful tools and
functions.

Menu bar

Each of the menus controls a specific part of VisionLab Studio. Most of the menu options are self-explanatory.

• File: All the options you need to start, load and save your projects. You can also import files and presets.
• Edit: Standard cut/copy/paste functions. Also provides access to the general application preferences.
• Canvas: Contains options for the canvas display. Lowering the visual quality will increase performance
while working. Includes RGBA channel options.
• Playback: Controls the timeline playback method and enables you to preview render your current frame
selection.
• Render: Here you can set up your render options and start your final rendering of your project.
• Help: This menu provides access to help documentation should you require assistance or need some
information.
• FXhome.com: Internet links to several useful areas of the FXhome.com website.

Check the full reference manual if you need help with specific options.

Toolbar

The toolbar displays several buttons you can use to quickly perform common functions. From left to right:

• Info: Provides info and credits about VisionLab Studio.

• New project: Starts a new project.
• Open project: Allows you to choose an old project to open.
• Save project: Saves your current project (be sure to save regularly!).
• Undo/redo: Undo or redo your last action. Useful if you made a mistake, or want to compare the before-
and-after results of a decision.
• Focus canvas: Click this to focus the canvas back to the center of the screen.
• TV guides: Turns the overscan borders on and off. Useful if you want to make sure nothing will be lost off
the edges of the screen when viewed on a television.
• Shapes: Alters how interface shapes are displayed (garbage mattes, masks, neon light effects etc).
• Grid: Turns the overlay grid on and off. This can be useful for fine positioning of objects.
• Grid settings: Alter the appearance of your overlay grid.
• RGBA channels: Switches the RGBA display. Useful if you want to only see the alpha (transparency)
channel without the color channels, for example.
• Canvas color: Select a color for the canvas background. This does not affect the rendered output, it is
only for reference purposes while working on a project.
• Zoom: Move the slider left and right to zoom in and out of the canvas.
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TUTORIAL: Creating a lightsword

This Quickstart will introduce you to some of the key concepts in VisionLab, while at the same time guiding you
through the creation of your first lightsword special effect.

First you should download this video clip from FXhome.com, which will be used as the basis for the project:

http://tarn.fxhome.com/quickstarts/neontute.avi

You can also download a video of the completed tutorial from here:

http://tarn.fxhome.com/quickstarts/neontutefinished.avi

Getting started

When you start up VisionLab, you will be presented with the welcome screen. This contains useful information such
as your previous projects and all the latest product updates (if you are connected to the internet).

Select ‘New project: Movie’ to begin. This will display a standard file dialog, which you should use to locate the
neontute.avi video clip that you downloaded. After you have selected the file, the project settings will appear.

Most of the default settings are suitable. However, neontute.avi us a full-frame progressive video, so the Scan
method needs to be changed to ‘progressive’. Hit OK when you are ready.

Before we start, it’s worth making sure that the canvas is set to ‘Full’ quality. This is important for lightsword effects,
as you need precision. Go to the Canvas menu at the top of the screen and select ‘Full’. The canvas quality affects
the performance of the program – the lower the quality, the faster each frame will render.
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Placing your first effect

To the right of the screen is the toolbox. It is currently displaying the Effects Browser. This is split into two parts,
with the effects engines at the top and the presets displayed at the bottom. Clicking once on an effects engine
displays its available presets. Click once on the ‘Muzzle flashes’ engine now.

Hundreds of extra presets are available from the Preset Library at FXhome.com.

We don’t want a muzzle flash this time. Instead, double-click on the ‘Neon light’ engine. This will add a ‘bare’ neon
light engine to the timeline at the bottom of the screen.

As you can see, the purple neon light effect is not as long as the neontute.avi movie. We can fix this by selecting
the Crop tool and dragging the final frame of the neon light effect until it is the same length.

Choosing a shape

The neon light effect comes in two forms. 4-point has a very specific interface that is perfect for creating
lightswords, while Freehand can be used for creating general shapes of over 100 individual points. Both involve
‘drawing’ directly onto the canvas.

For this clip we want to create a lightsword, so select ‘4-point’ from toolbox.

When creating lightsword effects, it is always best to concentrate on one blade at a time. Once one blade has been
completed throughout the clip, then the other blades can be finished. We will focus on the blade wielded by the
actor in the black cloak.
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Drawing the first frame

Drawing a lightsword has to be done in a careful order. It involves clicking 4 times on the canvas. The first two
points should be on the hilt, and the last two points should be on the tip. A fifth click clears the shape so you can
start again, in case you made a mistake.

Click two points on the hilt, then two points off the edge of the frame, where the blade disappears:

Once you click the fourth point, the shape will ‘close’ and the glow will appear.

Tip: If you need to zoom in to get a better view, drag the zoom slider at the top of the screen to the
right. You can then scroll around the canvas by holding down the mouse button on one of the corner
arrows and moving the mouse gently.

As you can see, it is difficult to see the blade shape once the glow appears. On the timeline there is a track titled
‘Neon glow’. Click the small green button to the right of the title to temporarily turn the glow off. It can be switched
back on again once we have finished drawing the blade.

Every effect, media clip and filter can be turned on and off using the green/red buttons.

The next few frames

Press the right arrow key on the keyboard to move to the next frame.

As you can see, the blade has moved slightly. There are several options here:

• You could drag each individual point to its new location.

• You could move the entire shape by clicking in its center and dragging it.

• Or you could click once on a blank area of the canvas to clear the shape, and then re-draw the 4 points in
their new positions.

Each option has its own benefits and drawbacks, and each will be suitable for different situations. If the shape has
barely changed shape, as in this instance, you can get away with move the entire shape in one go. In most cases,
however, the blade shape will be vastly different on each frame, requiring it to be re-drawn.
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If you re-draw the shape, be sure to place the points in the same relative positions on the blade.

Do whichever method seems most appropriate, then move to the next frame by pressing the right arrow key.

As you can see, the lightsword blade has started to fan out due to the motion blur of a fast moving object. Simply
expand the shape to cover the entire blurred area.

Tip curving

By default the hilt and tip edges are straight. Sometimes you may want to add curvature to these edges to match
the prop and make the effect seem more natural.

There are two sliders in the toolbox that control the curves. Move them to the left or right to alter the curve on the
current frame.

Without curve With curve

Tweening

From frame 5 onwards you will find the blade quite difficult to see against the background. This can often happen
during filming, especially if your prop does not contrast strongly with the location.

A useful workaround is to move to a subsequent frame where the blade is clearly visible, and draw the shape. If
you then go back through the frames (using the left arrow key), VisionLab will have automatically filled in the blank
frames. This is known as tweening. You will sometimes need to adjust those frames further, but the tweening can
often provide a useful guide.

All keyframes are tweened. This means you do not have to place keyframes on every single frame,
only when something changes. The program will automatically work out all the in-between frames and
change the values smoothly from one keyframe to the next. In the case of lightswords, however, you
will normally have to work on every single frame)

When used appropriately, tweening can make animation extremely fast. If you want a particle effect to move from
one side of the screen to another in two seconds, you only need to place two keyframes – one on the left at the
start, and one on the right at the two second mark. The effect will then be animated from one keyframe to the next.
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Masking

On some frames you will notice that the lightsword prop goes behind the actor’s body. We need to mask the area
where the actor’s head obscures the effect. A good example is on frame 18.

We could use an ordinary mask, which can be applied to any object on the timeline. However, this would also mask
the glow, resulting in an unrealistic hard edge. Instead, we’ll add a freehand shape to the neon light effect and use
that to mask the 4-point shape. The following two pictures illustrate the difference, with the glow spilling
convincingly around the edges of the freehand shape mask:

Normal mask Freehand shape mask

A single neon light effect can contain several different shapes. This enables you to have several shapes use the
same glow settings (very useful if you’re doing a double-ended weapon, for example). To add a new shape to the
effect, click the ‘Neon shapes’ track and select ‘Freehand’ from the toolbox.

Freehand shapes can include up to 180 individual points, making them ideal for complex shapes. In this case we
need to mask the actor’s head. You can either hold down the mouse button and draw in realtime, or you can click
each individual point. The shape can be as detailed as you wish. As before, zooming in can make the process
easier.

Once you have completed the shape, you need to ‘close’ it by dragging the last point onto the first. The shape will
be shaded a light grey to indicate it has been closed successfully. Click the ‘Animate’ tab in the toolbox to lock the
shape. The freehand shape is still set to be an ordinary neon light shape, however, which isn’t exactly what we
want:
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We need to change the shape attributes in the toolbox. Click the drop-down next to the ‘Opaque shape’ setting,
and change it to ‘Transparent shape’. This will make the freehand shape remove the core from that area, instead of
adding to it.

If you switch the glow back on using the button on the timeline, you will see that the effect is now behind the actor’s
head.

The Glow

Once you are finished with drawing the shape (called ‘rotoscoping’), it’s time to get the glow looking right.

Go back to frame 1 and turn the glow back on using the button on the timeline. Then click the ‘Neon glow’ track
itself to display the options in the toolbox.

Feather

The Feather attribute is very important, as it controls the softness of the ‘core’. Currently we have a very hard-
edged core, which is fine for a strip of neon but not so good for a lightsword. Try raising the Feather to 4 by moving
the slider. This will give the core a slightly soft edge.

Color

Let’s change the glow color to a light blue. Click on the wide red color bar to display the color gradient widget.
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Then click the small red square to the right of the word ‘Color:’.

The color palette will be displayed, which enables you to pick a specific color.

Select light blue from the preset colors along the bottom (9th from the left) and hit ‘OK’.

As you can see, the color gradient has now changed to a light blue. However, we don’t want the glow to be
uniformly light blue – we’ll make it get darker as it gets to the outer edge.

Click roughly in the middle of the large blue area to place a new color tab:

With the new tab automatically selected, click the light blue ‘Color:’ box again to display the color palette, and this
time select a darker blue. When you hit ok, the color gradient should now look something like this:

Several color tabs can be placed along the graph, each of a different color, giving you full control over your glow
gradient. Tabs can be moved by dragging them left and right. Dragging one off the graph altogether will delete it.

Hit ‘OK’ to confirm the new color gradient and have it applied to your lightsword.

Size and spread

The width and strength of the glow are the final steps, and will vary depending on the shot itself. Wide angle shots
require very different glow settings to a close-up, for example.

The Size setting determines the overall width of the entire glow. We should extend this out to about 25.
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The Spread setting determines how thinly the colors fill the glow size. We can increase this to about 12.

In addition, a slight flicker often makes neon effects look more dynamic and exciting. This can be easily created by
increasing either the size or spread randomizers. Each frame’s value will be randomized slightly, creating a
flickering effect.

Before After

Grading

A final, vital step of any effect is grading. This is the process of altering the overall appearance so that it matches
the other elements in the shot. If your live action footage does not have much color, for example, you may want to
desaturate your neon light effects so that they blend in better. You can also grade the background clip in the same
manner.

Click the ‘Grade’ track on the timeline. The toolbox will change to display the available grading filters. Scroll down
the selection until you find ‘Saturation’ and click it once to add it to the object.

A new saturation filter will now be displayed in the lower half of the toolbox. Drag the slider to the left until it has a
value of 0.73. This makes the blade look more natural in its surroundings.

The other blade

Exactly the same techniques can be applied to the other blade. Switch the toolbox back to the Effects Browser and
add a new neon light effect to the timeline, then follow the same steps. Try using different glow settings to give it a
different appearance.
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What next?

This is just a tiny example of what VisionLab can do. The neon light effect can be used for hundreds of other uses,
as can the other effects engines. Factor in the grading filters and stock footage support and you have even more
creative options.

Full details on the program can be found in the reference manual and interface introduction documents that were
supplied with this installation. Additional tutorials and help can be found by pointing your web browser at
FXhome.com.
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TUTORIAL: Greenscreen compositing

This Quickstart will introduce you to some of the key concepts in VisionLab, while at the same time guiding you
through the creation of your first composite shot.

First you should download these two video files from FXhome.com, which will be used as the basis for the project:

http://tarn.fxhome.com/quickstarts/baseplate.avi
http://tarn.fxhome.com/quickstarts/greenscreen.avi

You can also download a video of the completed tutorial from here:

http://tarn.fxhome.com/quickstarts/finalcomp.avi

Getting started

When you start up VisionLab, you will be presented with the welcome screen. This contains useful information such
as your previous projects and all the latest product updates (if you are connected to the internet).

Select ‘New project: Blank timeline’ to begin. The project settings will appear.

Most of the default settings are suitable. However, we will be using full-frame progressive video so the Scan
method needs to be changed to ‘progressive’. Hit OK when you are ready.

Before we start, it’s worth making sure that the canvas is set to ‘Full’ quality. This can be important for accuracy. Go
to the Canvas menu at the top of the screen and select ‘Full’. The canvas quality affects the performance of the
program – the lower the quality, the faster each frame will render.
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Importing the video files

We currently have an empty project. Before we do anything else, we need to import the video files we will be
working with.

Click the small blue folder to the top right of the toolbox. This will display a standard file window from which you can
locate and select both the video files you downloaded.

Select them and hit ‘Open’. After a brief pause they will both appear in the Media Browser.

Clicking once on a clip displays it in the preview pane. This enables you to check clips in the browser before
placing them onto the main project timeline.

You can place a clip into the timeline by dragging its thumbnail in the browser to the desired timeline position.
White lines indicate the position that the clip will be placed. Add the ‘baseplate’ clip to the bottom left of the timeline
(track 1, frame 1). This will form the background of the shot.

The toolbox will have automatically changed to the animation toolset. Switch back to the Media Browser using the
‘Media’ tab at the top of the toolbox.

Drag the ‘greenscreen’ clip onto the timeline, placing it directly above the baseplate. Clips on higher layers obscure
ones on lower layers, so the greenscreen clip will appear over the top of the baseplate on the canvas display.

As you can see, this particular greenscreen shot is a very challenging one. The greenscreen itself is very poorly lit,
being uneven and dim, while the actor’s arm extends outside of the screen itself at a couple of points. This tutorial
will examine ways of handling difficult composite shots. However, it should be noted that you should always light
and shoot your greenscreen shots carefully to avoid problems and make the compositing easier.

We are now ready to begin compositing!

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Keying out the green

The first thing we should do is add a key to remove the green. There are several filters for this purpose, we’ll be
using the ‘color difference key’ for this tutorial.

Click the ‘Matte’ track on the timeline to open up the section and display the various matte tracks.

Be sure to click on the ‘Matte’ track belonging to the ‘greenscreen.avi’ clip!

As you can see, there are three sections to the Matte system. We’ll first deal with the ‘Key’ section. Click the ‘Key’
track to display the various filters in the toolbox.

In the top half of the toolbox are the available filters. Click once on the ‘Color difference’ filter to add it to the clip. It
will appear on the timeline and in the lower half of the toolbox.

The black and white points control the cutoff range for the keying. Set the black point to 24 and the white point to
55.

As you can see, this removes some of the green but still leaves lots of patchy areas, and a strong green outline
around the actor. Sometimes compositing can be easier if you change the canvas background to a more prominent
color.

Click the ‘Background color’ icon, which can be found to the right of the toolbar icons at the top of the screen. It is a
black square by default.

A color palette will be displayed. You can click on a color to select it. Click the red preset, located to the bottom-left,
then hit ‘OK’.
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The canvas background will change to red, making it easier to see the problem areas.

Before After

Changing the background won’t affect the actual appearance of the composited shot. The canvas color is only
visible when working in the program, it is not included in the final output.

Improving with Key Grading

Our composite is looking pretty poor so far – but don’t panic! A vital part of compositing is the key grade stage. You
can apply various filters to the clip to enhance the greenscreen, so helping the keying process. The key grade
filters do not affect the appearance of the composite shot, however.

Click the ‘Key Grade’ track on the timeline to switch to the correct toolset. You will now see all the available key
grade filters in the toolbox.

Changing to the Key Grade toolset also changes the canvas display. You can see the current display type in the
top-right of the canvas. The ‘key grade view’ only shows the key grade filters.

Click once on the ‘Brightness’ filter to add it to the clip. Increase the brightness to ‘64’. This will brighten the image,
but it will also become washed out.

To counter this, add a ‘Contrast’ filter and raise it all the way to ‘2.00’. The actor is now very distinct from the
greenscreen, which is also more vibrant.

If you want to get a good understanding of how important key grading is, first switch the canvas view to ‘key view’
using the drop-down menu at the top-right of the canvas.
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You’ll see that the actor is now fully isolated. You can turn the ‘Contrast’ and ‘Brightness’ filters temporarily on and
off using the small green buttons on the timeline, to the right of their track names (you can also use the green
buttons in the toolbox next to the filters).

Switching them on and off one at a time will show how they make a huge difference.

No key grade filters With Brightness filter

With Contrast filter With Brightness and Contrast filter

You can use VisionLab’s toolsets in any order – we could have applied the key grade filters before using the color
difference key, for example.

Simple garbage mattes

As you can see, the left and right sides of the frame still have part of the original shot visible. This is because those
areas were outside the greenscreen, so remain unaffected by the color difference key. While it would have been
easier to design the studio with a wide greenscreen, this is still not a problem for VisionLab.

Garbage mattes can be used to remove excess areas from a composite that the automatic tools such as color
difference cannot affect. Garbage mattes are drawn directly onto the canvas using the mouse, so can be used for
very precise work.

Garbage mattes work slightly differently to masks. A garbage matte is tied specifically to the original
clip, so if you animate or distort the original, the garbage matte will change accordingly. A mask, on
the other hand, is relative to the canvas, so will remain in position even if you move the clip itself.

A clip’s garbage matte can be made up of several individual shapes. View the available shapes by clicking the
‘Garbage matte’ track then selecting ‘Freehand’ from the toolbox.
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You can draw a garbage matte shape either by clicking individual points on the canvas, or by dragging the mouse
while holding down the left mouse button. Draw a loose box around the actor, but stay inside of the greenscreen
boundaries.

Drag the last point onto the first point to ‘close’ the shape. It will be shaded a light grey to indicate it is successfully
closed.

In the toolbox, click the ‘Animate’ tab to ‘lock’ the shape and display the animation controls.

Initially the actor will disappear from the canvas. This is because the area we selected with the garbage matte
currently covers the actor. We need to invert the selection so that everything outside of the shape is removed
instead.

Click the ‘Invert shape’ button so that it turns green.

You will now have the actor isolated on the screen, without any unwanted elements.

Matching the shots with grading

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Around the edge of the composite there is still some green fringing. This is due to the green of the background
spilling onto the foreground subject. This can happen even with the best studio set-ups.

There is a grading filter that can correct this fringing.

Click on the ‘Grade’ track on the timeline to switch to the clip’s grading tools.

Be sure to click on the ‘Grade’ track and not the ‘Key Grade’ track! Grading affects the clip after it has
been keyed, whereas key grading only affects it before keying, as described earlier.

Scrolls down the grade filter browser using the scroll bar until you see the ‘Spill suppression’ filter.

Click the spill suppression filter once to add it to the clip. The green fringing will disappear:

Before After

Additional grading filters are often extremely useful for matching different clips together, so that they look like they
are all one single shot. In this case we could add ‘Ambient Light’ filters to both the foreground and background
clips, for example, setting them to an intensity of ‘10’.

Both clips have a ‘Grade’ toolset. Scroll up and down the timeline if necessary to view each clip’s tracks. Click the
Grade tracks to switch from one to the other.

Complex garbage mattes

If you move through the video, either by pressing the right arrow key or by dragging through the timeline scrubbers
with the mouse, you will see that the garbage matte shape does not work for every frame. In addition, the actor’s
hand passes outside of the screen and disappears.

These issues can also be easily fixed by adding additional garbage mattes. This can be done by clicking the +
symbol again. However, these garbage mattes are quite time-consuming, so we have created a preset that will
enable you to apply them in just a couple of clicks.

Download the preset from here:

http://tarn.fxhome.com/quickstarts/QuickstartPreset.FXpreset_pack
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First you should delete the simple garbage matte shape you applied earlier, as it will no longer be needed. Right
click its title on the timeline and select ‘Delete ‘Garbage matte #1’ Mask’.

Go to the File menu at the top of the screen and select ‘Import Fxpreset pack…’, then locate and import the preset
you just downloaded.

Click the ‘FX’ button on the greenscreen clip’s title to view the available presets.

Locate the ‘Quickstart Tutorial garbage mattes’ preset in the list on the left and click it once. It’s details will appear.
Click ‘Apply’ to add the garbage matte shapes to the greenscreen clip.

Analyzing the shapes

Each of the garbage matte shapes has been carefully setup to perform a specific duty. Click on the ‘Garbage matte
#1’ shape’s title on the timeline. The canvas view will change to display the shape.

If you move ahead to frame 7, you will see that shape #1 is cutting off the actor’s arm. This is due to the arm being
outside of the greenscreen and surrounded by unwanted material. This is where shape #2 comes in.

Click on shape #2’s title to view it. As you can see, it has been drawn around the actor’s arm using multiple points.
If you look to the toolbox, you can see it has been set to be an ‘Opaque mask’. This means that instead of
removing its selection, it retains it. Therefore it adds the actor’s arm back into the shot.

Combining different types of mask shape like this gives you complete control over what is removed and retained
from you composites.

Animation

With the main compositing now completed, you can enhance the movement of the actor by adding some additional
animation.

Click the ‘Animation’ track on the timeline to switch to the clip’s animation tools. Animation can be accomplished
using either the precision controls in the toolbox, or by manipulating the ‘quad’ on the canvas. In this example, we’ll
use the quad.

There are several ‘handles’ around the edge of the quad, and another in the center. Make sure you are on frame 1,
then right click and hold on the center handle and move the mouse. The quad will change size depending on the
direction you move the mouse.
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Enlarge the quad until it is a little larger than the canvas – don’t go too far or the clip will become pixellated. Now
move the playhead to the final frame of the clip and right click on the ‘Scale’ slider in the toolbox. Right-clicking a
slider always returns it to its default setting.

The actor’s fall will now look more dramatic, as he will begin closer to the camera and get smaller during the fall.

What next?

This is just a tiny example of what VisionLab can do. It is also a good example of how to deal with difficult source
footage, and how VisionLab’s tools can be used to minimize problems that could otherwise threaten the project.
Greenscreening is just one part of VisionLab’s abilities. Its tools can be used for hundreds of other tasks as well,
with the only limit being your imagination.

Full details on the program can be found in the reference manual that was supplied with this installation. Additional
tutorials and help can be found by pointing your web browser at FXhome.com.