Hello and a question about export AVI transparency

[Soquili]

Duncan the Black is the Alpha transparency mask. The issue is the software you are using does not know how to process the mask so it shows the Black. As mentioned in the Xara help file uncompressed AVI with transparency files are not supported by many applications and is not supported by any codecs.

Your best option is to use a Green Screen with a codec in Xara and Chroma Key in your video software.

[Sadler]

Here's a quick video from Xara Designer that demonstrates that it CAN export with a proper alpha (but your NLE must support alpha) and I've included a chroma-key on green to show that this is not the best solution although it would work fine for 1 bit alpha (a la gif) but isn't any good for anything other than that. Here's the setup: star shape has graduated transparency and feather and the screen grab has flat transparency overlaid on the page with no objects except and partially overlapping the green box. Export animation uncompressed with transparency. Import into NLE, make three copies of video, put marble texture below, text labels above. The first copy is unmatted by default, the second has alpha set to 'straight' explicitly and the third has chroma-key on green applied.



That error dialogue in the background is part of the demonstration but actually occurred while trying to export animation from xara.

Despite the fact you have to use uncompressed video and that using the alpha channel can be a bit tricky, this is a powerful and underused feature of Xara Designer.

[Halldun]

Thanks Soqili.

After playing around a little more, I arrived at the same decision as you have just confirmed. I imported the same (2 page) AVI animation (with transparency into a second (different ) video NLE and it imported fine - transparency worked fine. (NLE was from Serif). Unfortunately, I use the much more capable Sony Vegas Pro for editing and it fails to recognise the alpha channel. Will have to use Chroma keying for any future work requiring alpha. Thanks for responding correctly and quickly.

Sadler, many thanks for your response, however, given that the NLE cannot recognise the alpha channel in the AVI generated by Xara, I'm left with no alternative than to use the chroma key (unless I can figure out how to export .png sequence as advised in the above thread - no immediately obvious, as no such option within the animation export menu within Xara.

Thanks to all, Duncan

[handrawn]

for exporting png's see here:

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...series-of-pngs

[Sadler]

For Vegas, right click on the event in the timeline, choose properties, "media" tab, then set the Alpha Channel to straight.