Blur faces

[T-HOPE]

I want to blur someone's face in a video (meaning a moving blur)

I used this guide for Vegas, but the result was that
a) I got a black blur instead of a nice transparent blur
b) while I put moving blur on the correct frames and positions, the blur suddenly is too early on the positions and so the person's face misses the blur.

I have access to:
- Vegas
- Ulead Media Studio Pro 8
- Womble MPEG Wizzard

Is there someone who has a working guide to blur someone's face?

The thing, I'm working on version 2.0 of the Terminator 2 3D set and blurring someone's face is vital for a certain video to be included.

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

Here is how I would approach this (in Vegas)

- duplicate video layers like in the tutorial you linked
- the top layer gets masked so that only the faces are shown in the layer (just search in youtube for masking, and you will find some helpful short tutorial vids)
- you will have to keyframe the mask if there is movement in the video.
- apply a Gaussian blur to that layer

The result is a blur over the faces that moves with motion. I am not familiar with that cookie cutter thing in the tutorial, but the method I described is simple (though tedious if a lot of movement) and effective.

 

[T-HOPE]

Thanks ThrowgnCpr, will try it out.

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

Here you go T-HOPE. I made this video tutorial to help out. You can download the full HD 720p version (~50MB) at the bottom right of the page (I think you have to be signed up and logged into Vimeo to dowload though)

[vimeo:38cqrzqn]

Let me know if this helps, or you still have any questions.

 

[elbarto1]

Awesome, I am creating a DVD menu using the official DVD menu as my template and it has options for Language and Special features that I dont have the need for. This tutorial allowed me to blur them out so there are no longer "dead link" options.
Very helpful, thanks a ton Throw!

 

[elbarto1]

I am running into a problem where I want the mask/blur effect to take place 10 seconds into the video. I can make it do that, but for some odd reason the first 10 seconds (where I dont want anything to happen) the whole screen is blurred, then when I reach the point I want the blur to happen, only the mask area is blurred.
I tried moving the mask slider diamonds at the bottom and that doesnt help either, the best I can accomplish is the mask blur is on the whole time, or the scenario described above.
I did this the other day with no issues so I cant understand why I am having this problem.
thanks

 

[T-HOPE]

Let me know if this helps, or you still have any questions.

First, thanks for the video. It was really clear to me. So thanks for that.

However, it works only for 50%. Yes, it blurs faces. Actually, everything goes well until I render the movie. The result, which takes about 4 long hours to render ( ) is a movie but the blur part doesn't appear on the face. It appears a few frames to early, so the moving blur section miss the person's face because the blur appears a few frames earlier with the whole movement.

I followed your guide, and did the thing with keyframes. On that small preview screen it looks good. However, the rendering is not good.



I'm using Vegas version 6.
my source video is a PAL video with ac3 stereo sound.


this are the settings when I render my video:

I hope you can see something on this screens. I have no idea what the B-frames and I-frames are.



Any suggestions how this could be solved?

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

@ elbarto: not sure why you are having issues now. If you still need help let me know.

@ T-HOPE: I really do not understand why it looks fine in the preview, yet renders differently. Though I am not knowledgeable on I-frames and B-frames, I doubt this is the problem. Have you tried rendering it as a different file type, or even frameserve it to a different encoder like TMPGEnc? keep me posted.

 

[AvP]

I find plenty of beer is good for blur faces

 

[elbarto1]

I find plenty of beer is good for blur faces

Harty Har Har ( )

@ elbarto: not sure why you are having issues now. If you still need help let me know.

Yeah, I never solved it. However the place where it is is a motion transition from when you hit "scene selection" to the scenes screen and its not too noticable, unless you know its there and are scrutinizing the menu. The part that has me baffled is I performed the same operation on a different menu screen and dont have the problem...(?)

Oh, and welcome back. Hope your vacation was awesome!

 

[T-HOPE]

@ T-HOPE: I really do not understand why it looks fine in the preview, yet renders differently. Though I am not knowledgeable on I-frames and B-frames, I doubt this is the problem. Have you tried rendering it as a different file type, or even frameserve it to a different encoder like TMPGEnc? keep me posted.

Perhaps I should upgrade to version 7.0?
I have tried some various options at the sving point, but it takes more then 4 hours to save then file and in the end it still has the same problem. I didn't do frameserving, my source is a nicely edited PAL mpg2 video of 800 mb with ac3 sound.

btw, I hope you had a great holliday.

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

@ T-HOPE: I really do not understand why it looks fine in the preview, yet renders differently. Though I am not knowledgeable on I-frames and B-frames, I doubt this is the problem. Have you tried rendering it as a different file type, or even frameserve it to a different encoder like TMPGEnc? keep me posted.

Perhaps I should upgrade to version 7.0?
I have tried some various options at the sving point, but it takes more then 4 hours to save then file and in the end it still has the same problem. I didn't do frameserving, my source is a nicely edited PAL mpg2 video of 800 mb with ac3 sound.

btw, I hope you had a great holliday.

You could try to upgrade, but somehow I do not think this is going to solve your problem. As for a nice PAL mpg source, you still want to consider frameserving. Because you have an effect overlayed onto your video, each of those frames is going to need re-encoded. So no matter what the source is, you still want to go with your best encoder (here it would be TMPGEnc or CCE). If you didnt have any effects at all, just cuts, then you could take advantage of smart rendering (if you had the settings right), but that doesn't apply to you here. While the Vegas rendering engine is decent, its not as nice as TMPGEnc or CCE, and this could be where your problem is popping up. My suggestion would be to try to frameserve it to TMPGEnc or CCE and see if you get the same problem. Then we can go from there.

...and thanks, the holiday was quite nice

 

[T-HOPE]

@ T-HOPE: I really do not understand why it looks fine in the preview, yet renders differently. Though I am not knowledgeable on I-frames and B-frames, I doubt this is the problem. Have you tried rendering it as a different file type, or even frameserve it to a different encoder like TMPGEnc? keep me posted.

Perhaps I should upgrade to version 7.0?
I have tried some various options at the sving point, but it takes more then 4 hours to save then file and in the end it still has the same problem. I didn't do frameserving, my source is a nicely edited PAL mpg2 video of 800 mb with ac3 sound.

btw, I hope you had a great holliday.

You could try to upgrade, but somehow I do not think this is going to solve your problem. As for a nice PAL mpg source, you still want to consider frameserving. Because you have an effect overlayed onto your video, each of those frames is going to need re-encoded. So no matter what the source is, you still want to go with your best encoder (here it would be TMPGEnc or CCE). If you didnt have any effects at all, just cuts, then you could take advantage of smart rendering (if you had the settings right), but that doesn't apply to you here. While the Vegas rendering engine is decent, its not as nice as TMPGEnc or CCE, and this could be where your problem is popping up. My suggestion would be to try to frameserve it to TMPGEnc or CCE and see if you get the same problem. Then we can go from there.

...and thanks, the holiday was quite nice

I will try frameserving into Vegas. Do you know where I can get a nice guide for frameserving into Vegas?

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

Frameserving OUT of Vegas might be more important here. I would try that first, before attempting to frameserve in (which is tricky, and I don't think is your problem). I made a guide for frameserving IN and OUT of Vegas. You want to pay particular attention to the parts about frameserving OUT of Vegas to one of the encoders. Which is basically just installing the debugmode frameserver utility and following a few simple steps during the rendering process.

guide here: viewtopic.php?f=44&t=4319

 

[T-HOPE]

Frameserving OUT of Vegas might be more important here. I would try that first, before attempting to frameserve in (which is tricky, and I don't think is your problem). I made a guide for frameserving IN and OUT of Vegas. You want to pay particular attention to the parts about frameserving OUT of Vegas to one of the encoders. Which is basically just installing the debugmode frameserver utility and following a few simple steps during the rendering process.

guide here: http://www.faneditforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=4319

Sorry for the long wait ThrowgnCpr. Haven't been able to look at the guide and see if it works. Had some shitty months with work, grandma dying and some other stuff. Haven't done anything related to fanediting the last month (yeah, I know, I suck). But I hope I can try it out soon enough.

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

no, you dont suck. Life always takes priority. Sorry to hear about your grandma.