Editor’s Toolkit: Using Overlay Mattes with Avid
The various mattes in the Editor's Toolkits are simply black and white
animations that are used to define transparency in composited video. These
animations do not have built-in alpha channel transparency like the many
full-color effects and transitions in the Toolkits and therefore a slightly more
complex to use.
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The first video uses one of the stock
alpha channel overlay from Super Set 115 (ETK:5), while the second video uses a
black and white overlay matte from the same Super Set and a completely different
animated texture (Jump Backs animation #836 from JB21). |
To use an overlay matte in Avid® (e.g. Media Composer®):
1. Arrange your clips on the timeline (Figure 1):
* V3: overlay matte
* V2: background animation
* V1: video clip

Figure 1 - The timeline in Avid® Media Composer®.
2. Add a Matte Key to the clip on V3: Tools menu > Effects Palette >
Key > Matte Key.

Figure 2 - Add a Matte Key to the clip on V3.
3. From the Tools menu, select Effect Editor and select the Swap Sources item
(Figure 3). Different applications default to whether black is transparent or
white; Avid happens to uses a film-style analogy, where black areas are
transparent.

Figure 3 - Select the Swap Sources item in the Effect Editor.
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