Garbage Matte

Garbage Covers can remove whatever is within its boundaries and show what is outside.
One application of this would be to remove an element from the camera video that should not be in the shot, such as a light.

You can draw a mat around the given light and then set that mat to "Trash".
That way, you can remove unwanted set elements from the shot without having to frame them. This works best when the item does not intersect or interact with set items and people.

Locating Garbage Matte Shapes

Garbage matte shapes are children of the operator from which they were created and appear in the navigator in that operator's hierarchy.
Under the FxTree node, each operator has a Shape Lists folder containing the Garbage  Matte node, and a Shapes folder containing all of that operator's Garbage Matte shapes.

Viewing Garbage Matte Shapes in the Fx Viewer

Trash mat shapes appear in Fx Viewer as long as these two conditions are met:

  • The property editor of the operator to which the garbage mat is applied is open.
  • The mask page is the active page of the property editor.

As long as you inspect the Operator's Mask properties, the matte shapes attached to the operator will appear in the Fx Viewer no matter which operator you are currently previewing.

Garbage Matte Shapes Drawing

There are four tools that can be used to draw litter mat shapes, one for each shape type.

Editing Points on Garbage Matte Shapes

After you've created a garbage matte shape, you can add points to it, remove points from it, and edit its points to change the shape.

Blurred Garbage Matt Shapes

The Shape Blur option allows you to blur garbage matte shapes to soften the transition between protected and unprotected areas. Adjusting the Shape Blur for a particular operator will affect all garbage matte shapes for that operator.