I have a video and I need to mask out the background for it.
A screenshot from the original video, credits to The Muppets Studio
The video has been shot with a still camera on a steady background.
My goal is to mask out the background (e.g., everything not related to moving objects).
I don't have the original sources, of course.
It is also hard to recreate the background (I mean, to precisely match colors).
My approach, in theory, is the following:
- Collect a series of screenshots where different parts of background are visible (when objects move away);
- Glue those parts into a background image (see image below for a partial result);
- Place the background into a layer and compute the color difference between the original video and the background;
- Build a set of pixels for which:
- the difference is nearly zero (within a certain color threshold occurring due to rounding/compression problems);
- and within a certain minimal area (so that individual pixels did not occasionally appear);
- Wrap those pixels into a key mask.
Still, I'm stuck with building a proper structure of layers within Sony Vegas to accomplish my goal.
How this can be done?
My backround attempt
My environment is:
- Sony Vegas 12.0/x64, I'm not considering another software;
- Basic set of plugins/filters, but I will also appreciate references to 3rd-party plugins, even the commercial ones;
- Still, I would prefer a "clean" approach based on masking.
Thanks a lot!