Forum Discussion
Apply Multiply blend mode to video?
I have a feeling the answer is, "no," but thought I'd ask.
I am working on a fire safety course. In one scene, we tell the learner that a fire can double in size every minute. My graphic elements are: a still photo of an office room, and a video of flames. The flames were rendered in a black environment, which blocks the image of the room.
I'm hoping to set the video to "Multiply" to enable the room photo to be seen through the flames - which, in rt, are transparent anyway.
Does Storyline enable video to have the blend mode multiply applied to it?
Thank you in advance!
You could try Davinci Resolve. Even the free version provides access to the chroma-key effect with control over strength. It can also be applied as multiple filters which might give better results on your video.
If you remove the black but it leaves flames that are too transparent, you could always re-render an output video by stacking multiple copies of the your keyed version in Resolve or Premiere, making them appear more opaque.
- Nathan_HilliardCommunity Member
Possibly with some JS. Any chance you can share the media files so I could experiment?
- Nathan_HilliardCommunity Member
OK. If I understand, you have an image of a room and a video of flames rendered over a solid black background. Essentially, you want the black (and potentially, the flames) made transparent so the room is visible. Correct?
You might be able to do something like that on the fly with svg filters and masking. I made a post about that a little while ago that demostrated some potential uses, including some video elements. You could get some ideas there.
Another, probably easier approach would be to have your flame video re-rendered as a transparent video (either from go, or chroma-key the black, which would definitely leave the flames somewhat transparent). Since SL doesn't support transparent video directly, you could swap out the sources at runtime, replacing the original with the transparent version. Overlay that onto your room image. I made another post about that here.
If I get a chance to mock-up something simple this weekend with some stock media, I'll post it here.
- JohnJohnson-6a8Community Member
Hi, Nathan;
In your first paragraph, you captured it beautifully! I think you're right...these flames should be re-rendered. These flames were done for us and I don't have access to the work files used to create the flames (in After Effects.)
Premiere Pro does have a few tools designed for keying out user-selected colors, but the results for this particular clip are...heinous. I think it's because the flames are so wispy and ever-changing. Rather than keying out the black, it ate into the flames in a chunky, aliased way.
- JohnJohnson-6a8Community Member
Thank you for the idea, Nathan. Unfortunately, I can not share any of what I'm working on..proprietary, plus liability reasons.
😉