good grief - track matte question...

[videovillageidiot]

i just got back from the muvipix meetup and i was positive i could do the track matte thing...but, well...i am having the same problem as before. please bear with me as i describe my workflow...

in pse...new blank document with a black background
add star, using foreground color of white
double-click background layer to make it a plain layer and then delete
save as matte star.psd

in pre...place background clip on video 1
place matted clip on video 2 (the video that will display thru the star matte)
place matte star.psd on video 3
apply track matte effect to clip on video 2; edit effect to indicate matte is on video 3

the screen now displays the clip from video track 1 with a big ol' white star on top of it. no sign of the clip from track 2 (though the audio plays)
if i select reverse in the effect's properties i can see clip 2 with the white star on top

oh my goodness...i even took notes!!! what part of this am i getting wrong?!

thank you everyone!!!

[rfjg]

On the Track Matte Key effect, try changing the "Compostite Using:" option to "Matte Luma" from "Matte Alpha". I think the .psd file still has the black background in it.

When I create matte files in PSE, I select "transparent" for the backgound content which is what is need for Matte Alpha to work.

[Bob]

Are you sure you only have the three tracks? From your description of what's happening, it sounds like you may have a second copy of matte star.psd on track 4 or higher.

[videovillageidiot]

well i'm at a complete loss...i decided to try with 3 new mattes (1 for each type of background - transparent, white - which i then deleted, and black - which i then deleted). i also started a new project as the old one had been used for a lot of other experimentation.

WELL!!!!! all three types of mattes WORKED!!! i then brought back in one of my original mattes and it worked as well. so SOMETHING was wrong in my original project and i have no idea what it was. i just know that this project does work!!

[Chuck Engels]

Yippee

[momoffduty]

Glad you got it working. One rule of thumb to remember is the video you want to show thru is always on the lower track and its track matte pointing UP to another track where the matte is placed.