You know, this is the second time this topic has come up recently and the manual doesn't really help at all. That's a shame because the advanced compositing capabilities of Vegas are one of its greatest advantages, yet Sony doesn't push them or even highlight them in the manual. I think I will find some time to do an advanced tutorial on masking, including how to use the "pen" tool with greater accuracy, understanding the mask modes, rotoscoping, etc. I ask only that some guru with a lot of advanced experience in 3D makes a tutorial that shows me how to make a 3D cube and the logic behind the techniques!

Ah! Now I understand. Good!

My approach would be to do the Pen thing - actually, the masking refers to the creation of a Bezier Mask. The Masks are created by the application of Bezier function. Select the Pen (ACT) and moving to the Workspace in Pan/Crop Left-click to place a Point and move to the next "point" and Left click - a line will appear between the 2 points and move on till you have surrounded the item, with your LAST click should be on the first point whereon you will have created a Bezier Mask.

Moving on . . . . Your BG footage is on track2? Yes? Well, by CK-ing out the green and having these 2 holes ( stands and stuff gone!) you should now have the Video on Track 2 appear through it. BUT the thing to watch out for is that you need to set the Mode to Negative. This will punch a hole.

Should be dead easy.

Grazie

Ken, I'm real glad I asked the questions? - Yeah?

Grazie

Discovering the power of Bézier masking is a pretty decent starter article from the good folks at Sony.

Vol 5 #2 and Vol 3 #3 of my newsletters also talk about masking and/or using the Bezier mask tool.

I hope you do, there are some great FREE fcp vids on the web but the Vegas ones are generally lousy -- the free ones. They're mostly done by jokey kids and they just generally stink. I've suffered through several.

I loves Ed's stuff but I do better with video tutorials rather than text based.

Thanks for all the help, the reason my mask wasn't working was I was not making a complete loop around the subject. It's like someone said here, "Make a hole".

Hi Brian, OK. I'll give it a whirl. I will do an advanced video that goes into depth on how to select and manipulate points and segments and I have a few tricks up my sleeve I can include as well. Give me until early next week as there are a few odd projects I have to finish first.